Socioenactive Interaction: Addressing Intersubjectivity in Ubiquitous Design Scenarios

Abstract

People’s interaction with computers has been explained through several theories and methods throughout the history of computers and their uses; more complex scenarios of ubiquitous and pervasive computing experimented nowadays invite other ways of considering human-technology interaction. The enactive approach to cognition, centered in human experience in the environment, has shown itself as a possibility to understand interaction in these new scenarios. In this paper we present a view of interaction, named socioenactive, to explain our relation with contemporary computational technologies in scenarios of ubiquitous and pervasive systems, understood from the enactivist perspective. After presenting core concepts related to intersubjectivity that helped to build up what we mean by socioenactive interaction, we illustrate it with some scenarios of ubiquitous and pervasive technology (situated in a school, a museum and a hospital), designed for the study of the phenomena of interaction. Graspable aspects of intersubjectivity are raised in the considered scenarios and affordances for the socioenactive interaction are illustrated. Implications of the study are discussed leading to aspects to consider in a research agenda in the field.