Larry Constantine

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Activity Modeling
and Service Innovation

Larry Constantine IDSA
Director, Lab:USE, University of Madeira

Laboratory for
Constantine & Usage-centered
Lockwood, Ltd. UNIVERSIDADE da MADEIRA Software Engineering

UNIVERSIDADE da MADEIRA
Innovation in Context

Engagement with products and services always
takes place in a larger context of human activity.
other people
varied artifacts
other activities
Innovation is easy.
Effective innovation
depends on insight into
the activity context.
Service engineering
needs to model
what people
are really doing.

1 © 2008, Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.

The Business Process Perspective
Business processes
Set of interconnected “activities” transforming
information or artifacts into more valuable forms.
Performed by human actors and/or systems.
Decomposable into elementary business processes:
one person at one time adding significant value
and resulting in a consistent state.
Series of steps to produce a product or service
ordered in time and space
structured, bounded
embodying business logic
defined inputs and outputs
Various notations, but primarily
process decomposition in
now L
process flow UM

An Activity Perspective
Human activity
loosely ordered collections of actions having distinct
but disparate goals contributing to a shared or
common purpose So, what do you think
So, what do you think
performed by human actors of activity theory?
of activity theory?
mediated by artifacts
flexible, adaptive, changeable
shaped by and highly dependent
on context and changing conditions
operationalized through practice
organized by established and
emergent social, cultural, and
personal rules and guidelines
as well as formally defined ones

Activity Theory Condensed
Created by early 20th century Russian psychologists
Rubinshtein, Leontiev, and Vygotsky.
More recently popularized by Bonnie Nardi and others.*
Not so much a theory as a conceptual framework.
Some prior attempts to systematize and operationalize.**
Hierarchical structure of activity (three levels of analysis):
activities are motivated, purposive, and consist of
actions directed toward a distinct,
specific conscious goal, comprising ACTIVITY – PURPOSE
operations—ways of executing ACTION – GOAL
actions, either deliberately or
reflexively, adapted to conditions OPERATION – CONDITIONS
* Nardi (ed.) Context and Consciousness. 1996.
Somewhat Gay & Hembrooke. Activity-Centered Design. 2004.
complicated and Nardi & Kaptelinin, Acting with Technology. 2006.
a little vague! ** Duignan, Noble, & Biddle, 2006
Kaptalinin, Nardi, & Macaulay, 1999

Activity Theory Condensed

Human activity* is performed by actors (subjects)
motivated by purposes (objects) and mediated by tools
(artifacts) in a transformational process yielding a result
(outcome) constrained by rules and differentiated
responsibilities or roles within a community.
TOOL

TRANSFORMATIONAL
SUBJECT OBJECT PROCESS OUTCOME

RULES COMMUNITY ROLES
All human activity is mediated by tools.
Supporting activity requires designing effective tools.
Designing effective tools requires insight into activity.
* after Engeström, 1999

Project Archeology
Resource – 8 design projects over 13 years, including
two very large (50 and 1000+ developer-years)
Investigation – digging into relevance and effect of
activity context from recall, review of design artifacts -
evident impact on interaction design
potential improvement if better understood
evidence of ad hoc modeling
Notation and notions revised through two
rounds of feedback from colleagues.
Most needed modeling:
composition/aggregation of tasks
(use cases) into activities
templates of salient aspects of activities
simple pictures of activity context.


Activity Map
A diagram showing how focal activities (engaging
with service or product) and other activities
(connected and unconnected) are related.
On-line travel booking service.
participating in overseas
conference/meeting
includes

includes
includes
making travel getting
arrangements precedes reimbursed

last-minute precedes traveling (in precedes participating
preparing transit) (after arrival)

Always more complicated than it seems!
Consider…

Participation Map

Diagram showing how actors engaged with product
or service and other participants are involved with
each other and with artifacts within activities.
making travel
arrangements
meeting itinerary ticket/
plan e-ticket
CC
network
invoice
travel travel
arranger site

reimburser repayment booking
system
calendar
getting other
reimbursed parties budget

Consider proximal activities…

Activity Profile
making travel
A template-based description of aspects of arrangements

an activity salient for service or product design.
Purpose – set up convenient, affordable travel in
reasonable amount of time
Place and Time – typically office, may be last minute,
usually some time pressure
Participation –some experience likely, more if not
traveler; artifacts include calendar, budget, tickets,
payment, meeting/conference agenda, other sites,…
Performance – complicated, unpredictable,
multidimensional process, multiple input parameters and
constraints; exploring alternative schedule, carriers,
routes; easy to make mistakes, costly, hard to find


Performance Map
A diagram (or matrix) showing the tasks involved in an
activity. Tasks (use cases) may also be detailed
Operationally in essential form.
providing telephone
technical support
includes

question independent collaborative
answering problem solving precedes problem solving

quick/memory answer conferencing w/associate
finding problem in KB
getting answer from FAQs sending/reading IM/email
passing situation/record
greeting customer escalating problem
giving solution/answer getting customer details
learning/clarifying problem 1. |get caller identifying
getting next queued call information|
logging call/issue/resolution 2. give caller identifying 3. offer customers with
information confirming information
getting customer details
4. |confirm ID with caller|
5. select customer 6. offer details, history of
10 selected customer © 2008, Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.

Process Modeling or Activity Modeling
Business process modeling promotes
systems and processes in charge
process embedded in systems, executable, simulated
lock-step performance
dumbing down human activity
complicating the system
Activity modeling promotes
humans in control
flexible performance
thoughtful system/service boundaries
people do what people do best
systems do what systems do best


Human Activity Modeling in Sum

Activities provide larger context within which systems
and services are engaged with and experienced.
Human Activity Modeling anchors experience design
and service engineering with use case modeling in firm
foundations of established activity theory.
Systematic, integrated definitions and notation enable
concise, precise models of complete context.
Common notation and vocabulary link
service design and system/software design.
Fuller consideration of larger activity
context highlights opportunities for
service innovation and guides
service engineering.


Selected Resources
Constantine, L. L. (2004) “Beyond User-Centered Design and User
Experience.” Cutter IT Journal, 17, 2: 2-11; also at foruse.com
Constantine, L. L. (2008) “Human Activity Modeling” In Seffah, A.,
Vanderdonckt, J. and Desmarais, M. (Eds.) Human-Centered Software
Engineering. Vol. II. Springer-Verlag; also at foruse.com
Duignan, M., Noble, J., & Biddle, R. (2006) “Activity theory for design.”
Proceedings, HWID 2006. University of Madeira.
Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R. & Punamäki, R-L. (Eds.) (1999). Perspectives
on Activity Theory. Cambridge University Press.
Gay, G. & Hembrooke, H. Activity-Centered Design. (2004) MIT Press.
Kaptalinin, V., Nardi, B. A., & Macaulay, C. (1999)
“The Activity Checklist.” Interactions 6, 4: 27-39
Nardi, B. (ed.) (1996) Context and Consciousness. MIT Press.
Nardi, B., and Kaptelinin, V. (2006) Acting with Technology:
Activity Theory and Interaction Design. MIT Press.
Norman, D. (2005) “Human-Centered Design Considered
Harmful.” Interactions,12, 4: 14-19; also at jnd.com


Larry Constantine

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