New Theoretical Approaches for Hci

The field of human-computer interaction is rapidly expanding. Alongside the extensive technological developments that are currently taking place, is the emergence of a ‘cottage industry’ culture, where a polyphony of new theories, methods and concerns have been imported into the field from a diversity of disciplines and backgrounds. An extensive critique of recent theoretical developments is presented together with what practitioner’s currently use. A significant development of importing new theories into the field has been much insightful explication of ‘HCI’ phenomena, together with extending the field’s discourse. However, at the same time, the theoretically-based approaches have had a limited impact on the practice of interaction design. This chapter discusses why this is so and suggests that different kinds of mechanisms are needed that will enable both designers and researchers to better articulate and theoretically ground the hard challenges facing them today.