Activity Theory as a Framework for Contextual Inquiry: A Case Study
Jorn De Boever, Dirk De Grooff · Lirias · 2009
It is widely recognized in HCI research that the target users of an application are best understood by studying these users in their real life context. However, it is strange that the results of these user studies generally lack any theoretical foundation to structure and comprehend the findings. Therefore, this paper presents activity theory (AT) as a theoretical framework for contextual inquiry. AT stresses the influence of the meaningful context on users’ acts, the different levels of motivations that guide users’ behavior and the mediation of different kinds of artifacts. The usefulness of the concepts, provided by AT, is being demonstrated by a contextual inquiry of the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks (e.g. Limewire, Soulseek, Azureus). This case study reveals the richness of data that can be gathered, structured and comprehended via AT. The paper concludes that AT is a mature, comprehensive framework to collect and understand relevant data about users in their real meaningful contexts.