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Table of Contents:

The Final Framework:

  

Technology as Tool: Activity Theory Approach [3]

Purpose: To draw on Activity Theory to interrogate uses to which technology is put.

References: 7, 39, 46, 47

  1. How to avoid what is meant to function as a tool becoming turned into an object, whereby the instrument becomes an overwhelming problem and thus an end in itself?
    1. Are technology producers able to identify user problems and needs — i.e., to make the critical shift between technology as an object and as a tool?
    2. How might breakdowns and failures of technological performance be taken as a possibility for creating new ways to redesign the product — and the whole setting — together with the users?

 

  1. If there is a focus shift (more deliberate than a breakdown), is it due to:
    1. The physical aspect of handling (e.g., control panel)?
    2. The handling aspect of the artefact (e.g., spreadsheet) not being transparent?
      [printout has different capabilities].
    3. The conditions for operation in relation to the subject or object? [Object present only as a representation in computer application (e.g., word processor)]

     

  2. If there is a focus shift, ask:
    1. From what focus/object to what?
    2. Is it a breakdown or a deliberate shift?
    3. What causes the shift: the physical, handling, or subject/object-directed aspects of the computer application?

     

  3. Is the approach to technology techno-centric or anthropo-centric?

 

  1. Is it possible that the object [goal] and motive for the activity as a whole themselves will undergo changes during the process of an activity?

 

  1. What is the potential offered by the integration of technologies (e.g., applications: spreadsheets, word processors, graphics editors) as tools:
    1. in the potential to create easily controllable models of target objects?
    2. to give the user the opportunity to evaluate them?
    3. to manipulate them?

 

  1. Specific Activity-Level Questions:

Leont’ev (1978) formulated that activity is fundamentally defined by the meanings it seeks to realise: the needs and motives it seeks to satisfy [activity level], and the goals it seeks to achieve [actions], which are in turn dependent on the conditions [operations].

    1. In what ways does the introduction of technology change the operational level conditions , action level goals, and/or motives of the activity? (i.e., structure & goals)
    2. How are the elementary components of activity — operations — not just triggered by conditions, but determined by the general structure of the action they are incorporated into?
    3. Are two or more activities temporarily merging, motivating the same action?