Download presentation slides
Overview of the Paper
This paper addresses the gap between theory and practice, introducing the idea of “bridging concepts”. By this, the authors refer to refer to concepts which both have both a strong theoretical foundation, as well as an ability to play a role in supporting specific design instances. The authors posit that bridging concepts should have three main characteristics: a theoretical grounding, design articulations (i.e. parameters that shape the particular qualities of an object), and a set of exemplars which typify the properties of a concept. Dalsgaard and Dindler further emphasise that the main purpose of these bridging concepts is to facilitate exchange between theory and practice, and that these concepts are not developed with the specific aim of informing either theory or practice. The paper presents a detailed overview of an example of a bridging concept, ‘peepholes’, as well as identifies a number of existing concepts which function as bridging concepts (e.g. ‘affordances’). It concludes by highlighting some of the beneficial implications bridging concepts could have for both practice and theory, an example being that including more abstract concepts such as ‘affordances’ into a design process can aid in the articulation of new design opportunities.
Contribution to the Field and Problem Space
The authors seek to contribute to research and discussion into the gap between theory and design practice. Since a ‘theory’ is characterised by its generalisability (i.e. its ability to be applied to a variety of instances) it is necessarily abstract in nature. The problem arises in trying to utilise the insights generated from theory in practice as it is ‘difficult to translate and operationalise in relation to [a] particular design situation’ (p.1635).
Figure 1. Dalsgaard & Dindler posit "bridging concepts" as a type of knowledge that exists in between theory and practice. These concepts are characterised by their ability to facilitate exchange between both domains.
A logical question that follows on from this discussion is why this can be construed as a potential problem in the first place. Dalsgaard and Dindler highlight two key aspects of the HCI field that are particularly pertinent in this regard. The first relates to the broad and multidisciplinary nature of the HCI field. Theoretical concepts can help to establish links between seemingly disparate areas of HCI research. In addition, the authors note that HCI often imports or appropriates theories from a wide variety of disciplines like psychology and the social sciences. However, there is a question of how useful these theories are to the particular issues that HCI research deals with.
Figure 2. Network showing the relationships between different areas of HCI research, sorted by keywords (Liu et al, 2014). An interactive version of this can be found here.
The second point that the authors raise is that the nature of what HCI aims to study is constantly changing. Technological change is rapid, and there is the issues of how knowledge within the field can be built upon to further the discipline. The insights that are gained from research that focuses too specifically on a particular technology (e.g. mouse-computer interaction) may not be as applicable if those technologies become obsolete. Focusing on broader, reoccurring aspects through theory thus becomes a way that knowledge can be accumulated and used in future research despite technological change.
Characteristics of Bridging Concepts and An Example
Dalsgaard and Dindler suggest that bridging concepts have three features - a theoretical grounding, design articulations (parameters that express the particular qualities of an object), and exemplars (examples through which a bridging concept can be explored through). To describe the idea of "bridging concepts" further, they provide an example, "peepholes".
Peepholes are described as "interactive artefacts that provide a limited view into a larger space. Peepholes play on the tension between what is hidden and what is revealed to spark engagement" (p.1638).
Figure 3. Exemplar through which the "peephole" concept can be explored through. Drift Table, Interaction Design Research Studio RCA. Image source: <http://submitresponse.co.uk/weblog/2003/12/10/drift-table/>
The authors go into a lot of depth fleshing out how the concept of "peepholes" satisfies the three characteristics of a bridging concept, and an overview of this can be found on my original presentation slides.
Implications and Future Work
Dalsgaard and Dindler conclude their paper by discussing a number of implications the notion of 'bridging concepts' could have, as well as the potential to expand on the concept further:
- Implications for practice: bridging concepts could help practitioners identify untried design opportunities.
- Implications for theory: bridging concepts can highlight particular ideas, methods or tools that do not have an adequate theoretical foundation. The authors suggest that the notion of 'touchpoints' in design is an area where developing touchpoints to be more of a bridging concept could help aspects of both theory and practice related to service design.
The authors further note that bridging concepts should not be seen as an end point, but rather a starting point to explore other ways of grounding and re-articulating knowledge in both practice and theory as a way to facilitate a mutually beneficial exchange of information between the two.
Commentary
The notion of ‘bridging concepts’ presents a simple and applicable way of addressing the gap between theory and practice. However, the authors do not elaborate or discuss when utilising these bridging concepts (or indeed when bridging the gap between theory and practice) would be best for particular design problems or at particular times in the design process. Another potential limitation for the idea of ‘bridging concepts’ is how they are communicated. While the paper uses an example, ‘peepholes’, to provide a thorough description of the concept from all three characteristics (theoretical grounding, design articulations and exemplars), whether communicating these concepts this way in practice would be beneficial is another question.
Discussion Questions
In light of some of the main issues that the paper brought up, there were three main questions that I was curious to hear people's experiences and opinions about:
- How have you been applying insights from HCI research or fieldwork into your projects so far?
- How effective do you think a "bridging concept" would be in practice (considering the real-life pressures of teams, deadlines etc)?
- How effective do you think bridging concepts would be in developing accumulated knowledge in the HCI field?
- How could the insights from a bridging concept like "peepholes" be used to inform another area of HCI?
Other References
Liu, Y., Goncalves, J., Ferreira, D., Xiao, B., Hosio, S., & Kostakos, V. (2014). CHI 1994-2013: mapping two decades of intellectual progress through co-word analysis. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
