Activity Theory as a Tool for Identifying Design Patterns in Cross-Modal Collaborative Interaction

Abstract

Abstract. This paper examines the question of how to uncover patterns from the process of designing cross-modal collaborative systems. We describe how we use activity patterns as an approach to guide this process and discuss its potential as a practical method for developing design patterns. IntroductionA key challenge in the design of interactive systems is how to leverage existing design knowledge. Design patterns play a role in addressing this challenge by capturing and communicating reusable design knowledge on how to map requirements to design solutions. In the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), design patterns have received increasing attention and sets of patterns have been published for a variety of application domains (e.g. [4,14]). Similarly, a number of studies within the area of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) have addressed the question of how to use design patterns to document successful design knowledge, some of which have generated patterns that can be readily employed to develop practical solutions [2]. We are interested in the design of interactive systems that support collaboration between individuals who use different sets of modalities to interact with each other. Such differences can arise because of permanent sensory impairments or due to the capabilities of the technology used by each collaborator and the context of their interactions with it; we refer to group interactions in these settings as cross-modal collaboration. In this paper, we focus on exploring the process by which design patterns for cross-modal collaboration can be identified. We describe how we used an approach based on activity patterns [10] to uncover design patterns from two phases of a typical design process. First, we exemplify the application of activity patterns by reflecting on the evaluation phase of a cross-modal tool that supports collaboration between visually impaired and sighted coworkers. Second, we outline how activity patterns can be used to capture insights from a participatory design workshop that we conducted with visually impaired audio producers and musicians in order to understand their work process and gather requirements about how to design technology that could contribute towards increasing their inclusion in their workplace.