Immediacy in user interfaces: An activity theoretical approach

Abstract

In this paper the relation between the [new] concept of immediacy in user interfaces is discussed by taking an activity theoretical approach. When discussing so-called 'user-friendly' technical artefacts, the term intuitive often turns up in the human-computer interaction (HCI) discourse, as a kind of buzzword. The problem with the term intuition is that it lacks a sufficient level of precision, and could very well mean different things to different people. This paper discusses how familiar HCI concepts such as intuition and affordances in combination can form the basis of the new concept of immediacy, and how it can be justified on the basis of activity theory. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.