Comparing Activity Theory with Distributed Cognition for Video Analysis: Beyond "Kicking the Tires"

The field of HCI is growing, not only in the variety of application areas or the volume of research conducted, but also in the number of analytical approaches for use in the evaluation and design of interactive systems. However, despite the abundance of theoretical frameworks available, relatively little work has directly compared the application of these frameworks. This paper compares video analysis methods based on two analytic frameworks-activity theory (AT) and distributed cognition (DCog)-by performing an analysis of the same system from each of the two different theoretical perspectives. The results presented here provide a better understanding of how such theoretically informed methods in practice both resemble and differ from one another. Furthermore, this comparison enables specific insights about each of the theories themselves, as well as more general discussion about the role of theory in HCI.