6 User Activity Matters: An Activity Theory …
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social and environmental sustainability for elderly women in remote rural South
Africa, reflections from the study showed that “AT provides a means to describe
and understand the social and political dimensions of the social context” (Smith and
Turpin 2017). Some key questions such as what are the sociocultural factors that
may influence the sustainable usage of a specific design in people’s target activities?
What are these potential influences? Are there any desired social and environmental
behavior that designers want to influence within the target activity systems? And
how to incorporate the different needs of different members in the activity system?
Can be addressed by using this concept.
Tensions and contradictions: Given the temporal (historical development) and
spatial (sociocultural context) scope of human activities, AT can be also used to
identify the tensions and contradictions in people’s activity systems. According to
Engeström (2014), tensions and contradictions within and between different components of the existing and a more advanced form of the activity are the driving forces
of activities’ evolution. Those contradictions include misfits, problems, tensions,
incoherencies, and inconsistencies that subjects encounter when they carry out an
activity (Blackler et al. 1999). When these tensions and contradictions become materialized at a given point, the activity systems may undergo a transition process in
which the subject attempts to find temporary solutions to address the contradictions
(van Baalen and Huysman 2003). It is under these moments that the activity system
develops and adapts itself to the new context (Gay and Hembrooke 2004).
When applied to achieve sustainability goals, the analysis of tensions and contradictions helped designers to derive and accommodate design requirements to fulfill
the needs of different stakeholders within and between activity systems. For example,
Hoffmann et al. (2017) and Döweling et al. (2012) used AT to systematically identify
tensions and contradictions between different components in IT services such as the
relation between the software tools, IT project members, and management teams,
which were later used to inform design goals and principles to solve the sustainability
problem within an interactive system design project. Similar to that, Lin and Hsieh
(2014) used the same concept to identify the problems that affected the development
of a new telehealth service, the sustainability aspect of the new design was achieved
through analyzing the tensions and contradictions between the telehealth service
provider, physicians, patients, and devices used in the telehealth system.
In addition to the concepts of mediating tools, historical development, sociocultural context, and tensions and contradictions, which have been directly used in
sustainability-focused design research projects, we also took motivations, goals and
outcomes, and mental simulation and actual performance from AT concepts into
consideration. These two concepts have not yet been found to be closely connected
to either identifying sustainability problems or informing sustainable design explorations. However, the concept of motivations, goals, and outcomes is especially useful
to develop a background picture of why a particular activity takes place, what the
specific motivations are, and what the corresponding actions and operations are. The
transformation between mental simulation and actual performance (more commonly
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social and environmental sustainability for elderly women in remote rural South
Africa, reflections from the study showed that “AT provides a means to describe
and understand the social and political dimensions of the social context” (Smith and
Turpin 2017). Some key questions such as what are the sociocultural factors that
may influence the sustainable usage of a specific design in people’s target activities?
What are these potential influences? Are there any desired social and environmental
behavior that designers want to influence within the target activity systems? And
how to incorporate the different needs of different members in the activity system?
Can be addressed by using this concept.
Tensions and contradictions: Given the temporal (historical development) and
spatial (sociocultural context) scope of human activities, AT can be also used to
identify the tensions and contradictions in people’s activity systems. According to
Engeström (2014), tensions and contradictions within and between different components of the existing and a more advanced form of the activity are the driving forces
of activities’ evolution. Those contradictions include misfits, problems, tensions,
incoherencies, and inconsistencies that subjects encounter when they carry out an
activity (Blackler et al. 1999). When these tensions and contradictions become materialized at a given point, the activity systems may undergo a transition process in
which the subject attempts to find temporary solutions to address the contradictions
(van Baalen and Huysman 2003). It is under these moments that the activity system
develops and adapts itself to the new context (Gay and Hembrooke 2004).
When applied to achieve sustainability goals, the analysis of tensions and contradictions helped designers to derive and accommodate design requirements to fulfill
the needs of different stakeholders within and between activity systems. For example,
Hoffmann et al. (2017) and Döweling et al. (2012) used AT to systematically identify
tensions and contradictions between different components in IT services such as the
relation between the software tools, IT project members, and management teams,
which were later used to inform design goals and principles to solve the sustainability
problem within an interactive system design project. Similar to that, Lin and Hsieh
(2014) used the same concept to identify the problems that affected the development
of a new telehealth service, the sustainability aspect of the new design was achieved
through analyzing the tensions and contradictions between the telehealth service
provider, physicians, patients, and devices used in the telehealth system.
In addition to the concepts of mediating tools, historical development, sociocultural context, and tensions and contradictions, which have been directly used in
sustainability-focused design research projects, we also took motivations, goals and
outcomes, and mental simulation and actual performance from AT concepts into
consideration. These two concepts have not yet been found to be closely connected
to either identifying sustainability problems or informing sustainable design explorations. However, the concept of motivations, goals, and outcomes is especially useful
to develop a background picture of why a particular activity takes place, what the
specific motivations are, and what the corresponding actions and operations are. The
transformation between mental simulation and actual performance (more commonly