Third-wave HCI, 10 years later

Podcast

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Central Problem

Ten years after proposing the three waves of HCI, Bødker revisits the framework to assess what has changed and what challenges remain. The paper confronts the tension between third-wave HCI’s focus on individual experience and meaning-making versus the second-wave emphasis on collaboration, participation, and shared practices. The central question becomes: how can HCI design support both individual experience and collective interaction around “common artifacts” in an era of ubiquitous, interconnected technologies?

Main Thesis

Third-wave HCI, revisited after a decade, reveals that participation and sharing have emerged as crucial themes that bridge second and third-wave concerns. The author argues that understanding “artifact ecologies”—the configurations of multiple technological artifacts that users bring together in their activities—is essential for contemporary HCI. Furthermore, the concept of the “common artifact” (drawn from CSCW traditions) provides a framework for understanding how people engage together through shared technological artifacts while maintaining individual purposes.

The thesis proposes that HCI must move beyond designing isolated artifacts toward understanding and supporting the dynamic configurations of technologies that people assemble across contexts. This requires attention to how artifacts are shared, appropriated, and reconfigured over time, involving both professional designers and everyday users.

Historical Context

The paper emerges from Bødker‘s influential 2006 NordiCHI keynote that introduced the wave metaphor for HCI’s evolution. The first wave (1980s) focused on cognitive science and human factors; the second wave (1990s) emphasized workplace collaboration, participatory design, and situated action; the third wave (2000s) broadened to everyday life, experience, and meaning-making.

The decade following 2006 saw dramatic technological changes: the rise of smartphones (iPhone launched 2007), social media platforms, ubiquitous connectivity, and the proliferation of interactive systems into all aspects of life. These developments intensified the challenges Bødker had identified: multiplicity of devices, blurring of work and leisure boundaries, and the need for technologies that support both individual and collective use.

The Center for Participatory IT (PIT) at Aarhus University, which Bødker co-directs, provides the institutional context for exploring these themes through projects like Ekkomaten, Ink, and Local Area Artwork.

Philosophical Lineage

flowchart TD
    Bannon[Bannon] --> SecondWaveHCI[Second-Wave HCI]
    SecondWaveHCI --> Bodker[Bødker]
    ScandinavianPD[Scandinavian PD] --> Bodker
    Bodker --> ThirdWaveHCI[Third-Wave HCI]
    ThirdWaveHCI --> ArtifactEcology[Artifact Ecology]
    Robinson[Robinson] --> CommonArtifact[Common Artifact]
    CommonArtifact --> Bodker2015[Bødker 2015]
    StarRuhleder[Star and Ruhleder] --> Infrastructure[Infrastructure Theory]
    Infrastructure --> Bodker2015
    McCarthy[McCarthy and Wright] --> ExperienceDesign[Experience Design]
    ExperienceDesign --> ThirdWaveHCI

    class Bannon,SecondWaveHCI,Bodker,ScandinavianPD,ThirdWaveHCI,ArtifactEcology,Robinson,CommonArtifact,Bodker2015,StarRuhleder,Infrastructure,McCarthy,ExperienceDesign internal-link;

Key Thinkers

Thinker	Dates	Movement	Main Work	Core Concept
Bødker	1954-	HCI, Participatory Design	“When Second Wave HCI Meets Third Wave Challenges”	HCI waves, artifact ecology
Robinson	-	CSCW	”Common Artifact” paper	Common artifact concept
Star	1954-2010	CSCW, STS	“Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure”	Infrastructuring
McCarthy, Wright	-	HCI	Technology as Experience	Experience-centered design
Bannon	-	HCI	”From Human Factors to Human Actors”	Second-wave transition

Key Concepts

Concept	Definition	Related to
Artifact ecology	Dynamic configurations of multiple technological artifacts that users bring together in activities	Bødker, Ubicomp
Common artifact	Artifact that multiple users access and use for different but overlapping purposes (like a hotel keyrack)	Robinson, CSCW
Third-wave HCI	HCI paradigm emphasizing experience, meaning-making, and everyday life contexts	Bødker, HCI
Infrastructuring	The ongoing work of building, maintaining, and adapting technological infrastructures	Star, STS
Appropriation	Process by which users make technologies their own through adaptation and reconfiguration	HCI, Participatory Design

Authors Comparison

Theme	Bødker 2006	Bødker 2015	Robinson
Central concern	HCI wave transitions	Participation and sharing	Shared artifacts in CSCW
Focus	Individual experience	Collective interaction	Coordination mechanisms
Key concept	Third-wave challenges	Artifact ecologies	Common artifact
Method	Theoretical analysis	Design research	Ethnographic observation

Influences & Connections

• Predecessors: Bødker ← influenced by ← Bannon, Star, Robinson, Scandinavian PD tradition
• Contemporaries: Bødker ↔ dialogue with ↔ McCarthy, Wright, ubicomp researchers
• Research projects: Ekkomaten, Ink, Local Area Artwork → exemplify → common artifact design
• Fourth wave anticipation: Bødker 2015 → points toward → values and politics in HCI

Summary Formulas

• Artifact ecology: Users do not interact with single artifacts but with dynamic configurations of multiple technologies that change over time as needs and contexts shift.
• Common artifact: Artifacts can be “held in common” without being used together simultaneously—multiple users access them for different but overlapping purposes.
• Participation returns: Third-wave focus on individual experience must be reconciled with second-wave insights about collaboration, participation, and shared practices.
• Visibility and sharing: Big, visible artifacts invite participation and orientation among strangers; small personal devices like smartphones create distance rather than co-participation.

Timeline

Year	Event
1991	Bannon publishes “From Human Factors to Human Actors”
1992	Robinson introduces common artifact concept
1996	Star and Ruhleder publish “Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure”
2004	McCarthy, Wright publish Technology as Experience
2006	Bødker delivers NordiCHI keynote on HCI waves
2012	Bødker and Klokmose develop artifact ecology framework
2015	Bødker revisits third-wave HCI in Interactions article

Notable Quotes

“When sharing becomes a matter of engaging with other users through multiple common artifacts, it is also in and through this multiplicity that people participate.”

“Artifact ecologies, more than actual sharing of artifacts, help us focus on multitudes of artifacts that users bring together when carrying out particular activities.”

“Big, visible artifacts seem to invite people in and let them rather easily orient toward others, participate, and hence collaborate.”

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Warning

This annotation was normalised using a large language model and may contain inaccuracies. These texts serve as preliminary study resources rather than exhaustive references.