Co-experience: Understanding user experiences in social interaction

something independent of being and doing (see e.g. Dourish 2001: 18, 127; Peirce
1995: 38). The phenomenological philosophy’s trail is reviewed from a computing
standpoint by Dourish (Dourish 2001: 106). Dourish’s purpose is to track
the concept of embodied interaction, and discuss its role behind both social
computing and tangible interaction. It ties in perception and action, thought
and emotion, and physical and social contexts.
Pragmatist philosophy include the rejection of final truths, a desire to avoid
endless philosophical debates and instead focus on practical consequences
and applicability (see e.g. James 1996: 56). Dewey writes that “experience is the
result, the sign and the reward of that interaction between organism and environment
which, when it is carried to the full, is a transformation of interaction
into participation and communication” (Dewey 1934: 22). Thought is tied to
experience, which arises from interacting in the world. Dewey suggested that
acts of expression (as in acts that result in works of art) are a way to deal with
emotional tension and distress – positive forces for action. He also suggests
that the work of a scientist and the work of an artist are in fact similar, not
polar opposites (Dewey 1934). Tension and equilibrium are fluctuating states
of existence and action and expression affect and influence them. Meaning is
discovered and expressed in action with the world.
The theory of affordance, originally by Gibson and the field of perceptual
psychology, addresses the particular aspect of an individual interacting with his
or her environment, and also states that meaning is created in the interaction
(Overbeeke & Wensveen 2003). People perceive their environment according
to the abilities they have, and thus perceive it as either enabling or disabling:
a person who is travelling on foot looks at the terrain ahead in terms of its
walkability. However, applying the idea of affordance to contemporary design
problems remains superficial: even if a button clearly invites pushing, how can
pushing a button to cancel be different from pushing a button to initiate, when
the purpose of these actions are opposite? The concept of feedforward has been
suggested to extend the idea that form should communicate action to the fact
that form should through interaction also communicate its purpose (Wensveen
et al. 2004, Djajadiningrat et al. 2004). However, the role of social interaction
can also be included in a symbolic interactionist fashion to this debate. Following
the example above of the walkability of the terrain, the evaluation of
the walkability of a mountain path is greatly affected by seeing small children
run and play along it, or by hearing about an experienced hiker who last year
stumbled on it and fell to his death.
The key to this social transfer of meaning is intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity
is the process of many individuals coming to know a common phenomenon,
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