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3.4.2 Information processing 96
3.4.3 External cognition 98
3.5 Informing design: from theory to practice 101

Chapter 4 Designing for collaboration and communica~ion 105
4.1 Introduction 105
4.2 Social mechanisms used in communication and collaboration 106
4.2.1 Conversational mechanisms 107
4.2.2 Designing collaborative technologies to support conversation
110
4.2.3 Coordination mechanisms 1 18
4.2.4 Designing collaborative technologies to support coordination
122
4.2.5 Awareness mechanisms 124
4.2.6 Designing collaborative technologies to support awareness 126
4.3 Ethnographic studies of collaboration and communication 129
4.4 Conceptual frameworks 130
4.4.1 The language/action framework 130
4.4.2 Distributed cognition 133
Interview with Abigail Sellen 138

Chapter 5 Understanding how interfaces affect users 141
5.1 lntroduction 141
5.2 What are affective aspects? 142
5.3 Expressive interfaces 143
5.4 User frustration 147
5.4.1 Dealing with user frustration 152
5.5 A debate: the application of anthropomorphism to interaction design 153
5.6 Virtual characters: agents 157
5.6.1 Kinds of agents 1 57
5.6.2 General design concerns 160

Chapter 6 The process of interaction design 165
6.1 Introduction 165
6.2 What is interaction design about? 166
6.2.1 Four basic activities of interaction design 1 68
6.2.2 Three key characteristics of the interaction design process 170
6.3 Some practical issues 170
6.3.1 Who are the users? 171