> > ACD ignores goals, needs, and context, whereas UCD does not. It's a > superset / subset relationship. >
Just to clear up Activity Theory does not ignore this. For example you start off by observing users. From this observation you break down the groups into praxis (people doing the same thing), and then you break the individuals behaviour into activities, of which you break down further into actions, which are further subdivided into operations. The activities, actions, and operations are what then informs the design. Dependent on your users the activities, actions, and operations may be different for different users. Take your nurses example. The experienced nurse may have different activities, actions, and operations then the Trainee nurse, even though they operate in the same praxis. On the other hand with UCD you again start by observing users, and then from this observation you create "Personas", which then informs your design. So the difference between the two approaches is the output used to inform design. James On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 2:31 PM, mark schraad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Another way of looking at it is this: Are you looking to drive > behavior or accommodate it? WIth functionality that is new you may > have more liberty in directing the tasks and activities. For improving > functionality that already exists, you may want to lean towards > integrating that pre-existing behavior. In this later situation, user > research becomes critical. > > > > On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 3:01 AM, Adrian Howard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: > > [snip] > >> > >> How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/thing I > >> need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks > or > >> set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, > more > >> helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/more direct, more helpful ACD. > >> > >> <-- ACD usefulness grows > >> focus on ACTIVITY -------------------- focus on USER GOALS > >> UCD usefulness grows --> > > > > Ah - this actually makes sense to me. ACD & UCD as different ends of a > > spectrum - rather than different things. > > > > Thank you. > > > > Adrian > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
