MAIN RESEARCH INTEREST

 
Ubiquitous technologies incorporate various types of mediated interactions that make their design particularly
challenging. Part of the current debate within Ubiquitous Computing refers to the importance of having social
theories and empirical studies inspire the design of new computational devices. More generally, recent trends
in the field of Human and Computer Interaction have highlighted the need to ‘incorporate understandings of
the social world into interactive systems’ (Dourish 2001 p16). This marked the beginning of a trend different
from the traditional HCI cognitive approach, based on the recognition that individuals make rational decisions
and make plans according to an abstract model of the world and that objects and events within the world can
be manipulatedaccording to human mental states . Dourish refers to ‘social computing’ as the ‘application of
sociological understanding to the design of interactive systems’ ; within social computing, technologists and
sociologists collaborate to research how new interactive systems can be better integrated with and support
existing social dynamics.

When adopting the social computing approach one of the challenges consists in bridging theory and practice,
whether it is to create a link between a social theory and an empirical study able to inform design, the results
of an empirical study and the system requirements for a new technology or a social theory and the its practical
implications in terms of design. >