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Abstract
The aim of this article is to present the ‘instrument-mediated activity’ approach, which is part of a ‘generative model’. A group of principles liable to contribute to the epistemological unity of generative models is put forward as well as a theoretical framework that conceptualizes what an instrument is for the subject. The article develops the idea that the instrument is a mixed entity born of both the subject and the artifact. The artifact is not an instrument in itself. It is the subject who grants it the status of a means for his/her action. Processes of design in usage by users are defined as ‘instrumental geneses’. Finally, the consequences of this model on the organization of design processes are examined, in taking into account instrumental geneses as resources for design.
Notes
Other authors make similar choices. For example, Kaptelinin (Citation1996) proposes ‘Computer Mediated Activity’ for the computer field.
Since a previous version of the principles (Rabardel Citation2001, Rabardel and Waern Citation2003), a new principle has been evolved and identified: inventiveness.
The system view apprehends the subject/artifact/task system as a whole and assesses it at the level of global performance, whereas the technocentred view consists of looking at people through the requirements of the artifacts.
Here, the term appropriation refers simultaneously to both aspects defined by Wertsch (1997): appropriation (as in to make one's own) and know-how. The distinction he introduced, following Bakhtin, seems to be perfectly relevant, but too specific to be taken on the level of a general principle.
One will see the criticism Suchman (Citation1987) addresses, in this framework, to computational cognitive psychology.
Defining an action as situated usually means that the organization of the action must be conceived as a system emerging in situ from the dynamics of interactions. In this context, the term situated can assume two meanings which refer to the nature of the interactions: the first one, close to ethnomethods, concerns the activity of speech, where the action is situated since it is oriented and dependent on the recipient’'s action (Suchman Citation1987). The second one, closer to cognitive anthropology, concerns interactions with environmental resources and informational supports.
The axiological dimensions of the action are relative to the values and norms underlying the action.
Zinchenko (Citation1996) strongly argues for the importance of connections between activity theories and Piagetian approaches (see also Rabardel and Samurçay Citation2001).
Many authors, drawing inspiration from different theoretical frameworks, have worked on the concept of scheme. This is not the place to retrace its historical background; the curious reader will find it summarized in Rabardel (Citation2002). Here, one will keep to the elementary definitions of the Piaget school.
The relative nature of distinctions is very general in conceptualizations which refer to action. This is the case, for instance, of distinctions between action and operation in Leont'ev's (1976) approach.
This is often true of situations which numerous authors (Bodker 1989) call ‘breakdown situations’; situations where automated functioning, for various reasons, can no longer occur and where the subject consciously takes over.
Therefore, readers should not be surprised to hear the waiter shout in a Parisian café ‘a Paris butter for two’. The translation in non-operative language being: prepare a Paris ham and butter sandwich for table number 2.
Observation was carried out over 5 days, but it is possible that the instrumental genesis process continued beyond that.
See also Folcher (Citation1998, Citation2003).
Reaction overspeed is an exothermal phenomenon which constitutes one of the main factors of death in chemical sites classified SEVESO.
Norm NE 31 (Namur Citation1995) distinguishes between three classes of process operation devices depending on the seriousness of events with respect to risk: control systems, which are aids to operation, monitoring systems, used when an event is detected, and safety instrumented systems, which are specifically dedicated to degraded situations.
The opposite is true. A PhD in physics who is learning to swim will not necessarily accept that his body floats, even if it means bringing into doubt Archimedes’ theorem!