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Reviewer: Licia Calvi

Dourish explores the concept of embodied interaction as a way to inform human-computer interaction (HCI) design. To this end, the book is constructed as a three-level endeavor: the author first identifies two distinct and recent areas of investigation in HCI design that seem promising in emphasizing the notion of interaction “beyond the desktop.” These areas are tangible computing and social computing, which have in common the idea of an embodiment. Embodiment is not a new notion. On the contrary, it originates from a longer philosophical tradition that has in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology its most prominent predecessor. The second step, therefore, is an analysis of embodiment’s theoretical foundations and historical development. Finally, the author derives from this theoretical analysis a number of principles to inform HCI design, to suggest how this notion of embodiment may be translated at design level. These are, however, “only” principles, not guidelines or rules; they identify a set of questions to be further investigated, a research path to be further explored. As the author states, this book has “more openings than closings.” Embodied interaction is interaction between users and systems that is undertaken in a physical and social environment. It is therefore important to understand how this physical and social component may be accounted for in interaction, before even considering how to apply it to interface design. The key issue here is meaning. Dourish discusses three different aspects of meaning (ontology, intentionality, and coupling), and further analyzes how these aspects can be found in interacting with a system, since any action a user undertakes carries on some meaning that is shared by a community of practice. This shift of perspective, from systems or tasks models to interaction, and specifically to embodied interaction, is a step ahead of the focus on user-centered design that has been so popular until now. It represents a sort of Copernican revolution. Embodiment is used to describe how users and systems should interact, therefore overcoming the still accepted separation, postulated by Descartes, between res cogitans and res extensa, between mind and body. In this sense, this book has two major achievements: disclosure of the philosophical roots of computer science (considered “in-the-large”), and reconciliation of the field with its philosophical origins by illustrating its development from them. So, the circle is closed. Given this perspective, it is impossible not to subscribe to Agre’s notion, reported by Dourish himself, that “technology at present is covert philosophy” and that “the point is to make it openly philosophical.” Online Computing Reviews Service