Abstract

The topic of study of Human-Computer Interaction is constantly changing as people develop new uses for new technologies. In this thesis I present three contributions to the field of HCI that address these ongoing changes. These contributions are around the themes of epistemology, experience, and evaluation. I begin by importing from the field of Science & Technology Studies the notions of epistemology and comparative epistemology . STS researchers work from an intellectual position outside their field of study; I propose "epistemological reflection" as a way for HCI researchers to engage with questions of knowledge and validation while remaining within the field. I argue that epistemological orientations have impact throughout the research process, and that HCI currently lacks the vocabulary to discuss intellectual clashes on an epistemological level. My second contribution is a study of the term "experience" in HCI, a discussion of its meanings in the field, and the identification of an emerging sub-field I call experience-focused HCI. Experience-focused HCI aims to design for the multiple, complex and situated experiences people have with technologies. This is not simply a shift from researching "tasks" to researching "experiences". Rather, it treats experiences as situated interactions formed in the course of a specific interaction, and recognizes any representation of an experience is inherently incomplete. Experience-focused HCI also implies engagement with themes of affect, aesthetics, the body, human practices, and the role of the artifact in knowledge production throughout an open-ended research process. My third contribution is a set of methods for the evaluation of experience-focused HCI, based on a discussion of the epistemological foundations of evaluation: a successful evaluation not only validates the technology in question but also the topic of study and methods used to study it. Due to the open-ended nature of experiences, evaluation must shift from defining a priori metrics which can then be tested in laboratory situations to developing situated metrics through user experiences "on the ground".