Distributed cognition

Toward a New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research

Bibliographic Data

ID23344360
AuthorsJames D Hollan (0000-0001-9568-2646, University of California San Diego), James Hollan (Univ. of California, San Diego), Edwin Hutchins (Univ. of California, San Diego), David Kirsh (0000-0002-6242-5851, Univ. of California, San Diego)
Year2000
Volume7
Issue2
Pages174-196
Publication date2000-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1073-0516 • E-ISSN: 1557-7325
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1145/353485.353487
OpenAlexW2016540947
LanguageEN
Citations received188
References cited28

We are quickly passing through the historical moment when people work in front of a single computer, dominated by a small CRT and focused on tasks involving only local information. Networked computers are becoming ubiquitous and are playing increasingly significant roles in our lives and in the basic infrastructures of science, business, and social interaction. For human-computer interaction to advance in the new millennium we need to better understand the emerging dynamic of interaction in which the focus task is no longer confined to the desktop but reaches into a complex networked world of information and computer-mediated interactions. We think the theory of distributed cognition has a special role to play in understanding interactions between people and technologies, for its focus has always been on whole environments: what we really do in them and how we coordinate our activity in them. Distributed cognition provides a radical reorientation of how to think about designing and supporting human-computer interaction. As a theory it is specifically tailored to understanding interactions among people and technologies. In this article we propose distributed cognition as a new foundation for human-computer interaction, sketch an integrated research framework, and use selections from our earlier work to suggest how this framework can provide new opportunities in the design of digital work materials.

Cognition · Cognitive science · Focus (optics) · Human–computer interaction · Sketch · Socially distributed cognition · Task (project management) · Computer Science · Engineering · Personal Information Management and User Behavior · Psychology · Team Dynamics and Performance · Usability and User Interface Design

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