March 7, 2026 | 5 minute read
What we talk about when we talk about context
by
Critical Analysis
In this text, the author describes context as a phenomenological construct of everyday life and everyday interactions. He illustrates how this differs from traditional views of context as fixed and existing outside of people and interactions, and argues that an enacted view of context is more appropriate when considering the way computational technology enters regular life.
Ubiquitous computing is a promise of value when computers enter into everyday life in forms other than a desktop or a laptop. This is often described as context-aware computing, where context takes on a much more visible role than in the past; “a primary concern in ubiquitous computing research is to understand the potential relationship between computation and the context in which it is embedded.” This implies a social aspect of computing that is new, and specifically, an in-person aspect, and it may be more useful to think of this as a set of situated actions.
The author presents different views of context. Positivist views present context as something fixed, and define the problem of context as a representational problem: how software interfaces show up in different environments and situations. From this perspective, context is information, can be clearly delineated, is stable, and can be separated from the activities that are happening (they happen in a context).
A phenomenological view of context is one that presents it as an interactional problem. From this perspective, context is something that is continually negotiated. It is a relationship between people and things and actions, not a container. It is defined dynamically, and is “occasioned.” And, it arises from an activity, rather than containing an activity.
The author illustrates the point through an example of conversation. Conversation is contextual in a phenomenological manner. It emerges from the content and activity, and then is maintained (or changed) by the content and activity (and particularly, the people having the activities and creating the content.) Ethnomethodology is a social science approach that considers, among other things, orderliness of social action. It assumes that people develop a shared reality as a consequence of interactions, and claims that language itself can’t be understood until it arises in those interactions. Orderliness and understanding is an “achievement.” A great deal of the focus of this orderliness is placed on the ordinary, because much of life is designated as ordinary during the enactment. Ordinariness is something that is done, together, and is relative to groups. Context is a parallel to ordinariness.
Context is, in part, what develops a community of practice. The ordinary and the context of everyday interactions are different from within a practice and from without. The author presents a shoemaker as an example; the artifacts and experience with them are ordinary to an expert, but nothing (and therefore, strange and largely meaningless) to a student.
The author then presents how this theory may manifest in the design and development of computational technology. One way is in understanding that people use technology in ways that were not intended, and their ordinary usage is brought to life in situations that also were unintended or unexpected. The “major design opportunity concerns not use of predefined context within a ubiquitous computing system, but rather how can ubiquitous computing support the process by which context is continually manifest, defined, negotiated and shared?”
Context, then, is particularly different than how it has been considered by technologists, primarily because it is fully embodied and enacted. This is “embodied interaction,” and is about the “availability for engagement.” Context and content and action are not separated, at least not in any sort of fixed way. A way of considering context in computing is to consider how it is unremarkable, as it is ordinary.
Research Value
The value of this work in informing my own research is that it:
- Understanding domain knowledge becomes ordinary to an expert, but is unordinary (exceptional) to a novice. When it becomes ordinary, context and activity are inextricably intertwined (as tacit knowledge).
- A view of community of practice indicates that the entry into a practice is a move towards shifting what is ordinary, or adopting ordinary.
A developing idea;
Design is a community of practice, and design studio is a place that gatekeeps entry into the practice and the development of the ordinary of that practice.
This ordinary manifests as pride in criticism of pretty much everything, a particular and exclusive type of aesthetic sensibility, and a rare ability to communicate through artifacts. It is an ordinary of pride in being outside of many of societal norms, yet having power to impact those societal norms.
[Bonus points: impacting those societal norms requires being solidly engaged in the ordinary of all of the blanded ordinary: "consumer culture" in the context of product design is a reduction to the mean, or a blanding away of risk taking.]
Modern design education has become unfortunately intertwined with the practice of Big Education, which has established meaningful impediments to the ability for students to find a new ordinary in a community of practice.
Formalized and exacting assessment, inappropriate settings and timeblock rules, and a “nerfing” of criticism have impeded the ability for a student to enter the new community of practice.