Architectural spatial thinking can enrich HCI's approach to interactivity.

Why It Matters

By considering how people naturally engage with their environment, designers can move beyond traditional HCI models to create more intuitive and integrated interactive experiences. This shift can lead to interfaces that feel less like separate tools and more like extensions of the user's own actions and awareness.

Key Finding

Architects' spatial and contextual understanding of human engagement can inform HCI by suggesting more integrated and reflexive interface designs.

Key Findings

• Architects tend to view interaction as embedded within physical space and social context, whereas HCI often separates the user from the interface.
• Architectural design emphasizes 'body-sized' activities and dwelling, contrasting with HCI's focus on procedural tasks.
• Interactivity in HCI is typically symmetric and transitive, while ecological and social interactions are also reflexive, involving co-creation of awareness and shared values.

Research Evidence

Aim: How do the cognitive frameworks of architects and HCI practitioners differ regarding interactivity, and what can HCI learn from architectural perspectives on situated and reflexive interaction?

Method: Conceptual analysis and literature review

Procedure: The author reviews existing literature on architectural design biases and compares them with established HCI principles, exploring different interface types and the nature of interactivity in various domains.

Context: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Architectural Design

Design Principle

Design interfaces to be situated and reflexive, acknowledging the co-creative relationship between users and their interactive environments.

How to Apply

When designing interactive systems, consider how users will naturally inhabit and interact within the physical and social space surrounding the interface, rather than treating the interface as an isolated element.

Limitations

The study is primarily theoretical and does not involve empirical testing of proposed interface models.

Student Guide (IB Design Technology)

Simple Explanation: Think about how people naturally use spaces and interact with each other when you design interactive things, not just how they use the screen.

Why This Matters: Understanding how different design disciplines approach interaction can help you broaden your own design thinking and create more effective and user-friendly products.

Critical Thinking: To what extent can the 'biases' of architects be considered advantages when designing for complex, situated interactive systems?

IA-Ready Paragraph: This research highlights a key difference in design thinking: architects inherently consider the situatedness of human activity within physical space, a perspective that can enrich HCI. By moving beyond a user-interface dichotomy, designers can explore interfaces that are co-created with users and deeply integrated into their environments, fostering more reflexive and natural interactions.

Project Tips

• When researching user needs, observe how users interact with their environment and other people, not just how they use existing technology.
• Consider how your design might become part of a user's 'dwelling' or everyday activities, rather than just a tool for a specific task.

How to Use in IA

• Use this research to justify exploring user interaction within a broader spatial and social context in your design project.
• Reference this paper when discussing the limitations of traditional HCI models and proposing alternative approaches.

Examiner Tips

• Demonstrate an understanding of how different fields, like architecture and HCI, conceptualize user interaction.
• Show how you have considered the 'situatedness' of your design within a user's environment.

Independent Variable: Disciplinary background (Architecture vs. HCI)

Dependent Variable: Conceptualization of interactivity, interface design principles

Strengths

• Provides a novel interdisciplinary perspective on interactivity.
• Challenges conventional HCI assumptions by drawing on architectural principles.

Critical Questions

• What are the practical challenges in translating architectural spatial thinking into digital interface design?
• How can we empirically measure the 'reflexivity' of an interface?

Extended Essay Application

• Investigate how principles of spatial design and environmental psychology can inform the development of immersive or augmented reality interfaces.
• Explore the design of interactive public installations that respond to user presence and social dynamics.

Source

Do Architects and Designers Think about Interactivity Differently? · ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction · 2019 · 10.1145/3301425