Describing the interaction order: pre-theoretical practice for a science of human computer interaction

Any sequence of interaction between a person and a computer is structured and organised in ways which are not entirely predictable from a knowledge of human characteristics or system design features. The interaction is more than an `effect´ of user or system variables, and more like an emerging product of interrelated user and system activity carried out over time. This leads to a kind of interaction order comparable to that noted for face-to-face interaction between people, which can be studied, described and explained as a thing in its own right (E. Goffman 1983). The author argues that the human computer interaction order should be the proper object of study for theory in HCI. Such theory should be first and foremost a theory of interaction, capable of accounting for the organisation of actual sequences of human computer interaction. Like any theory of interaction, it should be able to handle the detail of actual events, handle them formally, and in the first instance be informative about them in the direct ways in which primitive sciences tend to be informative-that is, that anyone else can go and see whether what was said is so