Human-what Interaction? Understanding User Source Orientation

Interaction with internet-connected computing devices involves interaction with many distinct agents or sources simultaneously. Hardware, operating systems, web browsers, networking devices, and servers all influence the user experience, as do the engineers and programmers who designed them, the companies or organizations that have developed the systems, other users on the web, and various third-parties such as advertisers. We argue that users cannot be simultaneously engaged towards all of these sources of interaction, and instead must orient themselves to only a subset at any given time. We propose a model of source orientation based on literature from psychology, communications and human-computer interaction. This model describes how users select their source orientation when interacting with computers. We also present examples of how this model can be applied to promote usability in computing systems.