A compelling case for the re-examination of interface design models is presented by this text's assertion that human behavior is not taken into account in the planning model generally favored by artificial intelligence.

Publisher description

Computer science as an engineering discipline has been spectacularly successful. Yet it is also a philosophical enterprise in the way it represents the world and creates and manipulates models of reality, people, and action. In this book, Paul Dourish addresses the philosophical bases of human-computer interaction. He looks at how what he calls "embodied interaction"—an approach to interacting with software systems that emphasizes skilled, engaged practice rather than disembodied rationality—reflects the phenomenological approaches of Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and other twentieth-century philosophers. The phenomenological tradition emphasizes the primacy of natural practice over abstract cognition in everyday activity. Dourish shows how this perspective can shed light on the foundational underpinnings of current research on embodied interaction. He looks in particular at how tangible and social approaches to interaction are related, how they can be used to analyze and understand embodied interaction, and how they could affect the design of future interactive systems.

This book presents eighteen situated design methods, offering cases and analyses of projects that range from designing interactive installations, urban spaces, and environmental systems to understand customer experiences.

All over the world societies are facing a number of major problems. New developments, challenges and opportunities cause these issues and yet cases tell us that traditional spatial planning responses and tools are often insufficient to tackle these problems and challenges. Situated Practices of Strategic Planning draws together examples from across the globe – from France to Australia; from Nigeria to the United States, as it observes international comparisons of the strategic planning process. Many approaches and policies used today fail to capture the dynamics of urban/regional transformation and are more concerned with maintaining an existing social order than challenging and transforming it. Stewarded by a team of highly regarded and experienced researchers, this book gives a synthetic view of the process of change and frames future directions of development. It is unique for its combination of analysis of international case studies and reflection on critical nodes and features in strategic planning. This volume will be of interest to students who study regional planning, academics, professional planners, and policy makers.

The emergence of network facilities and the increased availability of personal computer systems over the last decade has seen the development of interest in the use of computers to support cooperative work. This volume presents the proceedings of the fifth European conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). This is a multidisciplinary area which embraces both the development of new technologies and an understanding of the relationship between technology and society. This volume contains a collection of papers that encompass activities in the field. It includes papers addressing distribute virtual environments, the use of the Internet, studies of work and emerging models, theories and techniques to support the development of cooperative applications. The papers present emerging technologies alongside new methods and approaches to the development of this important class of applications. The work in this volume represents the best of the current research and practice within CSCW. The collection of papers presented here will appeal to both researchers and practitioners alike, as they combine an understanding of the nature of work with the possibilities offered by new technologies.

This book presents the most recent and advanced techniques for creating autonomous AI systems capable of planning and acting effectively.