hypertext as spacial

From”hypertext city”:
http://www.christianhubert.com/hypertext/hypertext_city.html
About spatiality of hypertext…that might be of interest in new augmented reality spaces.

As a conceptual framework, Hypertext provides a specific means of configuring issues surrounding the confrontation of cyberspace and the city. Hypertext is the mode of writing that articulates the sociality of the network, that promises democratization and the empowerment of the individual, and that rearticulates themes that writing and the city have been seen to share: in the construction of memory, in the relation between movement and the subject, and in the production of space through abstraction and narrative.

How is hypertext spatial?

In a certain sense, hypertext does not seem spatial at all, at least not in three dimensions. It is not meant to be anything other than text on the screen, and it shares two-dimensional design issues (eg: typography) with word-processing programs, the history of which can be traced from manuscript production to the printed book. Unlike word-processing, however, where the computer is fundamentally being used as typewriter, and where the ultimate product is meant to be a printed document, hypertext applications are meant for computer display only. The monitor display often appears as a number of overlapping boxes, similar to any display of more than one open document. The fundamental unit of text in hypertext has been called a writing space (by Bolter), but other theorists of the medium call it a lexia, borrowing the term from Roland Barthes. The writing space itself appears as a “box” both literally and metaphorically. It is a variable sized rectangle, which generally resizes text to fit its proportions, and serves the function of boxes: to store and make retreivable its contents within a generic and neutral container. The writing space can also be thought of as a “room”.

The way in which hypertext differs more radically from printed text is through “links”. The spaces, or fragments of text within them, can be linked to other bits of text, and these links can be followed through some simple means such as double-clicking on the mouse. The links are established by the author / reader, and remain attached to the text, even when it is moved around. The experience of this instanteous movement is what makes hypertext more convincingly spatial and provides the basis for the metaphor of navigation within the space of the whole document. Reading is transformed into itinerary, with landmarks, and intersecting paths.

From Peter Brusliovsky
http://jodi.tamu.edu/Articles/v03/i01/Brusilovsky/

We have developed the KnowledgeSea system to help the user navigate from lectures to relevant tutorial pages and between them.

The core of KnowledgeSea is a two-dimensional map of educational resources (Figure 1). Each cell of the map is used to group together a set of educational resources. The map is organized in a way that resources (Web pages) that are semantically related are close to each other on the map. Resources located in the same cell are considered very similar. Resources located in directly connected cells are reasonably similar, and so on. The map is built using a neural network technology described in the next section. Each cell displays a set of keywords that helps the user locate the relevant section on the map. A cell also displays links to �critical� resources located in this cell. Critical resources are those under user consideration, which thereby serve as origin points for horizontal navigation.

Spatial hypertexts allow the user to express the relationships and context of the information in a more flexible way than traditional linking mechanisms. In spatial hypertexts the relationship between pieces of information is expressed by using their relative location in a two-dimensional space. A clear advantage of this kind of hypertext is the possibility of expressing constructive ambiguity, which allows the user to create weak links between two pieces of information placing them near but not quite next to each other. Two nodes very close are otherwise linked in the strongest way. Another important advantage of spatial hypertext is that user navigation can be supported by visual memory and pattern recognition.

Blogs in education

http://cougin-it.blogspot.com/2006/12/blogs-in-education.html

Ways in which blogs are being used in K-12 classrooms include:
responding to the teacher’s assignments,
improving writing and keyboarding skills,
studying together,
staying connected with students through the internet, and
finding controversial and debated subjects for classroom discussion

These areas of application do not utlise the specific features blogs offer, but see only the affordances that are similar to forums.

BBC space – social networking space

The BBC’s low-tech KM
By David Weinberger
http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14276

Major organisations like the BBC have implemented social networking to connect together like minded people in their organisation and to facilitate collaboration.

When the BBC gave Semple the job, they expected him to spec out a big, expensive IT-based KM system. “But,” he says, “my view is that we’re a network-based, conversational type of business. I realized the best way to go was beneath the radar.”

The first tool that he installed was a bulletin board called “Talk.Gateway.
But the board wouldn’t have taken off if it were restricted to the dry discussions of pure business.
The board has entered the daily life of BBC employees because it’s fun and interesting as well as useful. That’s a good thing to remember when your own company is worrying that its e-mail or bulletin board or blogs may sometimes go “off topic.” Good! Then maybe someone will read them.The board also generates knowledge.

Semple’s next project was a “people finder” called Connect that lets people state their skills, background and interests.
But Connect isn’t just an expert finder; it also enables people to form interest groups.

Then about two years ago, Semple put in a blogging server.
About 70 blogs with 150 people writing for them,” he says. Some are individual, some are linked into communities and a couple of engineering groups are using them for passing information between shifts.

Semple is also getting the BBC used to wikis. About 500 people are using them, with controlled access, to do things such as write procedural documentation.

As he’s learned, it doesn’t require a lot of tech or a huge budget. Mainly it requires letting people find one another and talk.

3 blog community paradigms

Blogs and Community – launching a new paradigm for online community?
By Nancy White
http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/2006/12/blogs-and-community-launching-new.htm

blog based community shows up in three main patterns with a wide variety of hybrid forms emerging between the three. The Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community, the Central Connecting Topic Community and the Boundaried Community.

The Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community

…readers begin returning to early bloggers’ sites, commenting and getting to know not only the blogger, but the community of commentors. The one blog is owned by one owner or organisation. There may be more than one blogger writing in a blog, but this is not an aggregation of blogs.
There is little opportunity for members to change, add to or adapt the environment.

The central identities of these communities are the blog owners. Their identities are the best known in the community. The commentors’ identities might emerge over time, but more likely, as commentors get to know each other, they share their personal details via private email, instant messaging and other forms of ‘backchannel’.

David Wilcox of Designing for Civil Society notes that ‘…blogs are personally defined spaces’, (D.Wilcox, 2006, pers. comm., 26 August)
This is quite different to a traditional online community where purpose brings people together and relationship and identity unfold over time, within the context of that purpose and not through a focus on an individual.

The power in this community is firmly in the central blogger’s control. The blog owner can set the rules and norms of engagement. There is no expectation of democracy, although when bloggers close or remove comments, cries of ‘censorship’ still ring out. But there is no obligation on the blogger to either provide the option for comments, nor to allow all comments. That said, when comments are restricted or not allowed, there can be no visible manifestation of community on the site.

From a subject matter perspective, single blog centric communities are almost broadcast-like, with the central blogger setting the conversational topic. Commentors can respond, or go away, but unless they develop an influential relationship with the central blogger, they can’t control the topic.

Key commentors attracting their own set of readers in comments may be moved to create their own blogs. Or they may attract members to their existing blogs. Other commentors may add these other blogs to their daily reading, or shift entirely to the new blog. Links between the spin off blogs may show up in blogrolls, keeping a loose tie to the original blog, and forming a Central Connecting Topic Community

Central Connecting Topic Centric blog community is a network formation
They may be far less interested in positioning themselves, as they are in the topic they blog about. As these grow, they are more network like than community like. Communities form within the network as people find more specific niches and interests.
Beyond the visible membership of linked blogs is the wider and mostly invisible network of readers.
In topic centric communities both power and identity is distributed across the community. The existence of the community does not rise or fall on one blog.
Identity is manifest through the relevance, quality or amount of enjoyment a post provides to others.
Topic centric communities have no single technological platform, with each blogger selecting their own tool. What links them is hyperlinks, in the form of blogrolls, links to other blogs within blog posts, tagging, aggregated feeds (using RSS), trackbacks and comments.
Having a shared tag, a key word that bloggers can attach to their individual posts, can mark a post as relevant to a community.
Tools that aggregate posts from blogs or even tagged posts can blur the boundaries of each individual blog, creating what appears to be a unified collection of posts, assembled on the fly as individual bloggers add posts.

Boundaried communities are collections of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform.
Typically members register and ‘join’ the community and are offered the chance to create a blog. This boundary makes them the closest form to traditional forum based communities.
Often these communities have other tools such as discussion boards, social networking features, wikis and instant messaging built in. The blogs are part of the overall ecosystem. There is less emphasis on RSS and cross linking because those features are built into the technology in other ways. Because they are within a defined boundary, bloggers can see and easily access other blogs. They can, if they wish, link but mostly within this closed system and they seem to link less often outside of the community.

The blogger has more control of the message than in a discussion board. They control the pacing by their own frequency of posting. The blogs are their more personal part of the site with pictures and reflections, whereas the discussions are the centre of information exchange and daily ‘chit chat’.

Power in boundaried communities is held in part by the ‘owner’ of the platform who can impose rules on the community, but power is exercised by bloggers in three typical ways.
The first is frequency of posting.
The second is popularity or interest as measured by how many comments a blogger gets.
The third is when there are social networking tools associated with the blog that help visualise relationship. These are often tools which allow you to add people as ‘friends’ or have them in your ‘neighbourhood’. This then makes their blog posts more visible on your blog and convey a sense of ‘who likes or is associated with whom’.

Bloggers who are concerned with popularity and the number of hits they get will blog to attract readers. They will write in styles and with content that captures attention which may or may not nurture relationship. Bloggers who are concerned about community may create posts that have more ‘insider language’ which may be less attractive to casual readers from the outside.

If you click on the del.icio.us tag ‘blog_communities‘ it quickly becomes clear that this is a topic that many are thinking about and working on.

Some more about acting in blogs as a community:
http://pjconoso.net/2006/11/04/if-youre-part-of-a-community-act-like-one/

A blog network that directly exposes its members to the general public without creating a sense of camaraderie between them cannot make it work.
A blog network is basically like a team, they work together for a common set of goals.
So, how does one build bridges between its members?
Get to Know Your Teammates
Support your Teammates
e.g.
help them out with their theme customizations, plug-ins, etc.
Another simple thing you can do is to visit his/her blog.
RSS feeds viewer may be convenient but it doesn’t show that “much” support for the author.
If you feel the need to say something, be sure to leave a message at the comments section. This gives a feeling to the author that someone is actually reading his/her entries.
It will encourage him/her to write more stuff that will attract the visitors.
If need be, Spread your Teammates’ Words
Evangelize. Link to your teammate and to the blog network as well.
Do not plagiarize; give proper credit where it is due.
You became a member of a network because you have the ability to write, not echoing

From David Wilcox “Move beyond blogging – start buzzing”
http://partnerships.typepad.com/civic/networking/index.html
More strategies in communities

Get them passionate (and close) to your cause … Share their passion.
Your role is to create a buzz around your cause…

Self-Organization and the Semiotics of Evolutionary Systems

From
Selected Self-Organization and the Semiotics of Evolutionary Systems
LUIS M. ROCHA
In: Evolutionary Systems: Biological and Epistemological Perspectives on Selection and Self-Organization. S.Salthe, G. Van de Vijver, and M. Delpos (eds.). Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 341-358, 1998.
http://informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/ises.html
http://informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/ps/ises.pdf

Heinz von Foerster [1965, 1969, 1977] equated the ability of an organization to classify its environment with the notion of eigenbehavior. He postulated the existence of some stable structures (eigenvalues) which are maintained in the operations of an organization’s dynamics.

Ontologically, Eigenvalues and objects, and likewise, ontogenetically, stable behavior and the manifestation of a subject’s ‘grasp’ of an object cannot be distinguished.” [von Foerster, 1977, page 280].

Eigenbehavior is thus used to define the behavior of autonomous, cognitive systems, which through the closure (self-referential recursion) of the sensory-motor interactions in their nervous systems, give rise to perceptual regularities as objects [Varela, 1979, chapter 13].

Eigenvalues are discrete representations of observables maintained by the successive cognitive operations of a cognitive agent.

Any system, cognitive or biological, which is able to relate internally, self-organized, stable structures (eigenvalues) to constant aspects of its own interaction with an environment can be said to observe eigenbehavior.

Such systems are defined as organizationally closed because their stable internal states can only defined in terms of the overall dynamic structure that supports them. Organizationally closed systems are also informationally open [Pask, 1992], since they have the ability to classify their constructed environment in what might be referred to as emergent representation.

The crux of the constructivist position: in the theory of organizationally closed systems, not all possible distinctions in some environment can be “grasped” by the autonomous system: it can only classify those aspects of its environment/sensory-motor/cognitive interaction which result in the maintenance of some internally stable state or attractor (eigenvalue).In other words, not everything “out there” is accessible; only those things that a particular physiology can construct with the stabilities of its own dynamics are.

Cognitive science used to be traditionally concerned solely with those aspects of cognitive representation which can be described as symbolic. In other words, it was concerned with the semantic relation between cognitive categories and their environmental counterparts through some direct representational relation (intentionalty), without taking into account any sort of material or internal organizational constraints: real-world categories directly represented by discrete symbols which could be freely manipulated.
The connectionist, emergent, or self- organizing paradigm: cognitive systems are defined as those systems capable of self-organizing their components into discrete basins of attraction used to discriminate the environment they are able to construct.

Self-organization is the spontaneous formation of well organized structures, patterns, or behaviors, from random initial conditions. The systems used to study this phenomenon are referred to as dynamical systems: state-determined systems. They possess a large number of elements or variables, and thus very large state spaces. However, when started with some initial conditions they tend to converge to small areas of this space (attractor basins) which can be interpreted as a form of self-organization.

A given dynamic system is always bound to the complexity its attractor landscape allows.

Foerster formalized the idea that memory can be observed in systems which are able to change their own structure and therefore its dynamics and attractor behavior. Today, we name this kind of memory distributed, and the kind of models of memory so attained as connectionist.

For a self-organizing system to be informationally open, that is, for it to be able to classify its own interaction with an environment, it must be able to change its structure, and subsequently its attractor basins, explicitly or implicitly.

Those self-organizing systems which are able to perform the task are thus externally selected by the environment to which they are structurally coupled.

This form of situated, embodied, self-organization can be referred to as distributed memory selected self-organization.

Eigenvalues or attractors represent the building blocks of any system capable of discriminating its environment through some thus embodied construction. However, eigenbehavior (emergent representation) and its variety increase needs a structural coupling of these eigenvalues with some externally selective environment.

Medina-Martins, Pedro R. and Luis Rocha [1992].”The in and the out: an evolutionary approach.” In: Cybernetics and Systems Research ‘92. Robert Trappl. World Scientific Press. pp 681-689.
Maturana, H., and F. Varela [1987]. The Tree of Knowledge. New Science Library
von Foerster, Heinz [1960].”On self-organizing systems and their environments.” In: Self-Organizing Systems. M.C. Yovits and S. Cameron. Pergamon Press, pp. 31-50.
von Foerster, Heinz [1965].”Memory Without Record.” In: Anatomy of Memory. D.P. Kimble (Ed.). Science and Behavior Books. pp. 388-433.
von Foerster, Heinz [1969].”What is memory that it may have hindsight and foresight as well?.” In: The Future of The Brain Sciences. Samuel Bogoch (Ed.). Plenum Press. pp. 19-65 and 89-95.
von Foerster, Heinz [1977].”Objects: tokens for (eigen-)behaviors.” In: Hommage a Jean Piaget: Epistemologie Genetique et Equilibration. B. Inhelder, R. Gracia, and J. Voneche (Eds). Delachaux et Niestel.
Varela, Francisco [1979]. Principles of Biological Autonomy. Elsevier North Holland.
Varela, Francisco, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch [1991]. The Embodied. MIT Press.

learning ecology

From:Georg Siemens http://connectivism.ca/blog/ecosystem/

Instead of designing instruction (which we assume will lead to learning), we should be focusing on designing ecologies in which learners can forage for knowledge, information, and derive meaning. What’s the difference between a course and an ecology? A course, as mentioned is static – a frozen representation of knowledge at a certain time. An ecology is dynamic, rich, and continually evolving. The entire system reacts to changes – internal or external. An ecology gives the learner control – allowing her to acquire and explore areas based on self-selected objectives. The designer of the ecology may still include learning objectives, but they will be implicit rather than explicit.

What does this “learning ecology” look like? First, it holds “content” in a manner similar to courses, but the content is not confined and pre-selected by the designer. Instead, the ecology fosters connections to original and knowledge sources, allowing for “currency” (up to date). The ecology fosters rich interaction between disparate fields of information, allowing growth and adaptation of ideas and concepts (i.e. “the verge”). Each participant in the ecology pursues his/her own objectives, but within the organized domain of the knowledge of a particular field (after all, some form of learner competence should emerge as a result of existing in the ecology). Nodes (content and people) and connections are the basic elements of a network. An ecology should permit these networks to develop and flourish without hindrance.

From:Georg Siemens
Learning Ecology, Communities, and Networks: Extending the classroom
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/learning_communities.htm

In order for learning institutions to be relevant in an era of life-long learning, they must move past the concept of start/stop learning. Learning is fluid. It impacts other areas of work and life. It’s ongoing. Courses are start/stop. As stated previously, a course is an artificial construct, erected at the start of the term, that assumes to provide learners with the information and knowledge they need…and is torn down twelve weeks later.

An ecology is an environment that fosters and supports the creation of communities. The definition applied to gardening applies well to learning communities: ““Ecological gardening is about gardening with nature, not against it.” A learning ecology is an environment that is consistent with (not antagonistic to) how learners learn. John Seely Brown has written extensively on the concept of a knowledge ecology. He defines an ecology as an open system, dynamic and interdependent, diverse, partially self organizing, adaptive, and fragile. This concept is then extended to include the following characteristics of a learning ecology:

A collection of overlapping communities of interest
Cross pollinating with each other
Constantly evolving
Largely self organizing
Learning ecologies can certainly exceed the characteristics presented by Brown. In more formal education environments, the concept of self organizing gives way to a more structured process for knowledge transmission. The Instructor plays the role of gardener.

Within an ecology, a knowledge sharing environment should have the following components:
Informal, not structured. The system should not define the learning and discussion that happens. The system should be flexible enough to allow participants to create according to their needs.
Tool-rich – many opportunities for users to dialogue and connect.
Consistency and time. New communities, projects and ideas start with much hype and promotion…and then slowly fade. To create a knowledge sharing ecology, participants need to see a consistently evolving environment.
Trust. High, social contact (face to face or online) is needed to foster a sense of trust and comfort. Secure and safe environments are critical for trust to develop.
Simplicity. Other characteristics need to be balanced with the need for simplicity. Great ideas fail because of complexity. Simple, social approaches work most effectively. The selection of tools and the creation of the community structure should reflect this need for simplicity.
Decentralized, fostered, connected…as compared to centralized, managed, and isolated.
High tolerance for experimentation and failure

Virtual and physical communities share many similar traits:
A gathering place for diverse people to meet
Nurturing place for learning and developing
A growing place – allowing members to try new ideas and concepts in a safe environment
Integrated. As an ecology, activities ripple across the domain. Knowledge in one area filters to another. Courses as a stand alone unit often do not have this transference.
Connected. People, resources, and ideas are connected and accessible across the community.
Symbiotic. A connection that is beneficial to all members of the community…needed in order for the community to survive.

A network consists of two or more nodes linked in order to share resources.
A node is a connection point to a larger network.
Learning communities are nodes.
Courses need to be redesigned to reflect networked economy.
A network, in the context of an ecology and communities, is how we organize our learning communities…resulting in a personal learning network.

Networking strategy – how to get traffic

From: http://aabs.wordpress.com/2006/12/22/i-crossed-the-200-hitsday-threshold-yayyy/

I started watching which posts brought the most traffic, and unsurprisingly it was the ones that told readers in advance what they were going to read about. Obscure or humorous titles got nowhere. People want to know the topic before they expend the time and mental effort visiting the page.

Specific and general blogging

Mobile projects

http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/mob.htm
a list of mobile and locative media art projects over the ages, or at least last several years

“Big Games” in lonely urban spaces

Nicolas Nova comments about Big games:
http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/2006/12/19/big-games-and-environmental-space/

From Big Games and the porous border between the real and the mediated
Frank Lantz
http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/16/articles/index07.html

One of the great ironies of modern life is that, although most of us now live crowded together in dense cities, urban experience can often be alienating and lonely. In Big Games we see a return to the pre-computer tradition of games as a form of stylized social interaction. Whatever else they are, these games are primarily about connecting people – a way to reclaim public space as a site for a new kind of shared experience.

Some space-related aspects:

There is no longer a clear, well-defined boundary between the virtual spaces and interactive systems of our digital experience and the concrete, tangible aspects of our physical experience
Big Game’s appropriation of public space for large-scale social play
The urge to transform public space into play spaces for connecting people
The forms of urban play re-purpose architectural space

The rules of chess create a tiny, synthetic world into which the players enter for the duration of the game. And this gamespace corresponds to the physical space of the chessboard in a way.

Revisiting the concept of affordances in the light of activity theory

From: Affordances in Activity Theory and Cognitive Systems Engineering
H. Albrechtsen, H.H.K. Andersen, S. Bodker, A.M. Pejtersen
Ris ̄ National Laboratory, Roskilde
August 2001

The concept of ‘affordances’ was originally coined by American psychologist J.J. Gibson (Gibson, 1979). The concept of affordances is an important element in Gibson’s ecological theory of direct perception and action which constitutes an alternative to the information-processing paradigm. According to Gibson, action and perception are linked through real world objects that afford certain forms of action possibilities for particular species or individuals.
We as humans are able during use to discover new action possibilities.
In Gibson’s view, it is the very mutuality between actor and environment that constitutes the basis for the actor’s perception and action. Hence, the primary unit of analysis is not the actors nor the environment as distinct categories, but the total ecosystem of actors and environment. According to Gibson, affordances are material properties of the environment that can support the actor’s existence and survival.
Gibson suggests that a niche is a set of affordances that constrains possible behaviour with respect to what we are able to do in a certain niche. In addition to the tenet of mutuality between the actor and the environment, Gibson claims the necessity of available information about affordances in order for their perception and information pickup to occur.

The ontological dimension: whether affordances exist per se, independently of the actor’s perception?
The epistemological dimension: how does the actor perceive an affordance, and how does the actor decide to perform or not perform an action relative to a perceived affordance.

The primary importance lies in how we may understand the relationships between human beings and computer-based artifacts, and how we design affordances so as to improve on human computer interaction in work.

Gaver (1991) defines affordances as: properties of the world that are compatible with and relevant for people’s interaction. When affordances are perceptible, they offer a link between perception and action, hidden and false affordances lead to mistakes. Gaver proposes the following taxonomy for affordances in user interfaces:
a. Perceptible affordances: linked with perceptual information (or invariants). User interfaces can offer perceptible affordances because they can offer information about objects that can be acted upon,
b. Hidden affordances: covers existing affordances in an information system, where no perceptual information is available in the interface. They then have to be learned.
c. False affordances: covers perceptual information on a non-existing affordance, upon which users mistakenly try to act.

Gaver, as did Gibson, could be argued to follow a realist ontology in the sense that affordances are regarded as existent in the environment, independently of perception.

Affordances are:

“Properties of the world that are compatible with and relevant for the actors’ interaction, which, when perceptible, offer a link between the actors’ perception and action” (Gaver)

• “Physical properties are stable properties that the designer adds to the interface to support human-computer interaction, based on a conceptual model of the system and actor. Symbols and constraints are not affordances, because conventions for such aspects of the world develop, whereas affordances do not” (Norman).

Analysis of a variety of everyday artefacts, such as door handles and light switches, Norman (1999): Artefacts often stand in the way of human use, rather than they mediate it. Affordances in information systems exist independently of what is visible on the screen.
The computer system already comes with built-in physical affordances (..) Most of this affordance is of little interest for the purpose of the application under design (Norman, 1999).
It implies a focus on artefacts as tools mediating or blocking mediation between user and environment, and is hence to some degree is in alignment with the activity theory conception of the relationship between user, system and work environment.

Norman’s concept is based on the notion of matching between at least two distinct models or representations involved: the user’s knowledge structures (in Norman’s terms, represented internally as “cultural constraints”, “conventions” and “logical constraints”) and the
system’s structures (in Norman’s terms, represented via a “conceptual model”). Norman confuses affordances with invariants.

Contrary to Norman, Gaver (1991) finds that culture, experience and intentions are indeed entangled in the user-system interaction. Where Norman reduces such entanglement to a mechanistic “match” between system and user representations, Gaver finds that such contexts can function to highlight certain affordances.

Gaver’s as well as Norman’s affordance concepts are rather short term, and considering
affordances as more or less static surface phenomena.

—————————————————-
Bärentsen (2000) suggests that spatial metaphors are useful devices for representing the users’ task space and their intuitive exploration, and that the perception of affordances are dependent on the degree to which users are able to know or feel (intuition) “where they are” in ecological space. He explicitly addresses the dynamic aspect of the affordance concept, for instance through underlining the importance of what space (invariants) and time means for the learning aspect. The focus is on the understanding of the user’s exploratory context in
space and time. Bärentsen in particular mobilises the principle of situated action (Suchman, 1987) and the theory of cultural historical psychology/AT (Leontjev, 1978).

Bärentsen’s design principles involve suggestions for spatial metaphors to articulate invariants, but in addition a mapping of events (or scenes) within which the user can situate her actions and choices.

————————————-

In Peirce’s terms, affordance is a sign for which the organism acts as interpretant to produce action in a given situation as the object. Thus organisms do not merely respond to stimuli, but act on the basis of meaning.” (Pickering, 1999)

———————————-

Activity theory perceives the relation between human and environment as dynamic.
Activity theory and Gibsonian thinking share the basic idea that perception is not afferent, that it is connected with action. Only through acting do people perceive their environment. Activity theory insists that our action and perception are mediated by a variety of tools. Activity theory gives a useful handle for understanding the mediators, and how they are shaped.

Activity theory takes purposeful acts as the basic unit of analysis of artifacts.
The actor/user has intentions and goals, and these intentions and goals are situated.
Coupling between user, system and work task, mapped through a three level model of activity motive (‘why?’), action goal (‘how?’) and operation conditions (‘what?’), inspired by Leontjev
(1978).

Activity theory insists that Gibsonian thinking is lacking a clear understanding of the relations between the social-historical dimension and the evolutionary-biological aspects of the concrete sensori-motor operations realising the actions of the individual (Bärentsen, personal communication).

Gibson (1979, 130) states that: “Man made artifacts can be seen as efforts to change and expand environment. In changing the substances and shapes of the environment humans have made more available what benefits him and less pressing what injures him.”

In the Gibsonian world, learning is about increasing differentiation. Activity theory is likely to argue that the world in which we make the differentiation changes as well, as a consequence of our actions.
This does not mean that activity theory could not be used in detecting and explaining the role affordances in learning.

Do affordances gradually expose themselves to us or do they suddenly expose themselves to us just as snap of the fingers dependent on individuals different physical and mental capabilities?

Gibson hypothesises that objects have some sort of universal function or meaning. From an activity theoretical perspective the functions or meanings of tools and other objects are actively created through interacting with the environment.
———————————————————

Rasmussen and Vicente (1989; 1992) worked from the assumption that in any realistic situation, a large number of inter-related affordances are available to the active organism. Their core assumption was that affordances are structured and that this structure may convey important goal-relevant information.
They mapped Gibson’s affordances towards the means-ends hierarchy. The results indicated that affordances could be structured as a means-ends hierarchy, and thereby function as a mechanism to cope with the complexity of the natural environment. The interrelationships between affordances and the levels of means-end hierarchy are articulated as “why”, “how” and “what”. The model is not truly hierarchical, but is rather a stratified model of independent layers with the “totality” of concepts or information available at each individual level. In other words, for each level, one dimension, or perspective, of the “world” is unfolded. Because the model is not truly hierarchical, the relations between the levels are not essentially nor logically given.

The means-ends model has five levels:
1. Value Properties: Purpose, Goal
2. Priorities: Abstract Function
3. Context: General Function
4. Movement: Physical Process
5. Objects and Background: Physical Form

Ecological Interface Design (EIS) principles Vicente and Rasmussen (1992):

• Support of skill-based behaviour: a gradual aggregation of singular physical movements
or cognitive processes
• Support of rule-based behaviour: supporting the actors’ cognitive control of her goal-directed behaviour through displaying perceptual and diagnostic cues for changes in the environment
• Support of knowledge-based behaviour: in particular crucial in high-risk work domains and situations requiring continual awareness and fast intervention.

As Vicente (1999) rightly mentions, EIS in particular explores the application of ecological design principles for loosely coupled work domains with a high degree of strategic task uncertainty and self-organisation, where the actors’ levels of control, learning, strategies and tasks are crucial units of analysis.

An important design rationale in the EIS approach is the notion that actors have the ability to directly perceive the state of affairs in the environment, given that the information is present in a proper format. In order to do this, the interface of a system must be transparent in the sense that the deep structure of the work is accessible to direct perception as an affordance space in a Gibsonean sense. “In Gibson’s terms, the designer must create a virtual ecology, which maps the relational invariants of the work system onto the interface in such a way that the actor can read the relevant affordances for action” (Rasmussen, Pejtersen & Goodstein, 1994, p. 129). Affordances, then, is defined is as “cues for action relevance” (Rasmussen etc. 1994).
The ecological information system supports the actor by displaying not only the overall work
domain context, but also how and where their particular prototypical tasks and decisions perform.

In EIS systems, dynamic and structured affordance spaces are developed to support the actors’ strategies and intentions in work activity. Such affordance spaces are not only developed from a means ends analysis of the work domain, but also from an analysis of actors’ strategies, tasks and intentions. That is, the affordance spaces are created from a separate analysis of the deep structure of the work domain, from its physical properties to its goals, and from a separate analysis of the actors’ recurrent behaviour, intentions and strategies (e.g. Pejtersen & Albrechtsen, 2000; Albrechtsen & Pejtersen, 2000).

In such dynamic affordance spaces, the actors’ knowledge and rule-based behavior can be supported through the display of ecological classification schemes. Ecological classification schemes articulate the semantic and socio-pragmatic infrastructures constituting the context of the actors’ exploration of knowledge in work domains. They display the invariant structures, attributes and concepts of the work or problem domain together with recurrent and dynamic relational invariant structures, attributes and concepts of the actors’ task strategies and intentions.

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Networked environments that link the sites and people of loosely coupled domains, there is no object system that can function as a model for the architecture of the information system to be developed. In other words, there is no single and/or unified object system in the background that can structure the totality of context for work activity. Collections are distributed across different physical sites.
Such loosely coupled work domains are self-organised. Their infrastructure evolves within the constraints of their contributing /participating actors, including the constraints of technical possibilities, socio-historical context and development, policies etc.

Recent empirical and theoretical research on infrastructures of loosely coupled domains has identified the following levels that are entangled in each other:

1. Technical infrastructure (physical localities and the linking between these);
2. Semantic infrastructure (organization and representations of documents and information)
3. Socio-pragmatic, intentional infrastructure (knowledge and intentions of contributing/participating actors and their interrelationships, coordination and collaboration forms).

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According to the activity theoretical approach, affordances of tools, as for instance computer systems, must be designed in close cooperation with the users. Firstly to detect socio-historical dimension of existing tool and the usual way of carrying out work in a collabora-
tive way. Secondly to detect which part of the work should be delegated to the computers and which part should remain in the sphere of human operations. Thirdly to design new tools with a democratic perspective in mind.

Affordances of information systems are designed on the basis of i) an analysis of the invariant functional properties of the work domain, as captured through the means-ends model; ii) an analysis of the actors’ skills-rules- knowledge; iii) an analysis of the actors’ diverse, but invariant strategies and intentions (coupling). Affordances, then, articulate and display to the actor her dynamic internal world model, and thereby also articulate dynamic mutuality of
the actor and work environment. In other words, affordances of information systems not only function to support skill-based, rule-based and knowledge-based behaviour, but also provide an additional layer of “situational meta-knowledge” to support the actors’ reflections on the outcome of actions and as well as on action possibilities.

Definition of affordances should be extended as follows: “cues for action relevance, displayed in the context of a virtual ecology of work”.

The shift between the actors’ focus on work problems and context, tools that mediate their activity and their coordination of work activities with other actors performs at several levels of action, communication and understanding. Hence, the original notion by Gibson on the actor’s dynamic shifting between foreground and background of the environment is followed.

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