Recently, Heidegger’s concepts of present-at-hand and ready-at-hand have been mentioned in readings for both Jeff’s class and Erik’s class. I find the implications of these concepts interesting for interaction designers and want to examine them further. A fundamental question for an interaction designer being introduced to these concepts is:
Should products be designed to be ready-to-hand, or to be present-at-hand?
Most software tools should be ready-at-hand so that the person using them concentrates on the content or task and not on the tool. Ready-at-hand is the state of most tools, until they break down, and I think that most of us don’t want to be designing tools that are constantly breaking down. I also see some relation between Heidegger’s concept of ready-at-hand and Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. I think a tool being ready-at-hand is a prerequisite for someone to get in to a flow state, although just because a tool is ready-to-hand, does not guarantee a flow state.
On the other hand (ha ha), when something is present-at-hand, and breaks down, it allows the person to look at something as it is. This break down encourages critical reflection on the relationship with the tool. Example: “When my television broke I realized how much time I spent watching it and how much more productive I could be.” Another reason a tool might want to be present-at-hand is so that a person becomes attached to the product and thus less likely to replace it. Friedel argues that when a tool is always ready-at-hand the person cannot become attached to it because they only think of the function the tool allows them to do, and not the tool itself. Because of this, products that are present-at-hand are more valued and less replaceable.
So, this brings me back to my original questions: Should products be designed to be ready-to-hand, or to be present-at-hand? The answer is: it depends. But I don’t think that this ambiguity is a bad thing. Interaction designers can use the opposition between present-at-hand and ready-at-hand as a way to understand experience and as an aid for design.
The Breakdown Balance
If these concepts are going to be used by practitioners, I think one important issue that must be examined is the balance in creating breakdowns. Breakdowns are important to encourage reflection and attachment, but they hinder usability, flow, and enjoyment (at least temporarily). I think for interaction designers to successfully use these concepts in practice the key is to understand how to balance a breakdown so that the user can reflect or become attached without losing patience or getting annoyed.
Note: This entry was originally written for the interaction culture group blog. The original post (and comments) can be found here. Jeff Bardzell (my professor) clarifies the correct usage of breakdown in this post.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Craig Birchler // Oct 17, 2007 at 11:00 am
While in many circumstances your thought of ready-at-hand as a prerequisite for Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow are well justified, you cannot overlook the use of the tool itself within the state of flow. When we play within the environment of an immersive video game we use a tool to control our movement and interaction within the defined space. Depending upon a user’s level of focus, the game designer’s ability to create a quality environment, and the console designer’s ability to create a quality controller (tool) flow can be achieved.
Yet we must look on the other side of the coin. In the above instance the controller becomes our means of interaction secondary to the controller itself. A movement with our thumbs correlates to movements in a digital space in front of our eyes. This same interaction can be found when using a mouse or even the keyboard used to type this comment. But there are time when the tool itself becomes the device not only controlling the interaction, but the interaction itself.
Puzzles are a perfect example of this type of interaction (http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/slocum/index.jsp). The physical puzzle pieces are not what Heidegger would describe as ready-at-hand. The pieces never quite fade into the background because they are the focus of the task at hand, yet often times when immersing ourselves into the idea of a puzzle, we find ourselves deep in a state of flow working towards a conceived solution.
While ready-at-hand may be a possible prerequisite for flow, it can be very useful to understand that it is not a specific requirement.
2 admin // Oct 17, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Hmm, interesting ideas Craig.
You seem much more knowledgable about this then me, but I am not sure I agree with the puzzle example.
“The pieces never quite fade into the background because they are the focus of the task at hand, yet often times when immersing ourselves into the idea of a puzzle, we find ourselves deep in a state of flow working towards a conceived solution.”
- It seems like when you are immersed into the idea of a puzzle, the interaction with the pieces actually does fall in to the background. You are thinking of the puzzle as a whole and your goal, not the individual pieces, thus they are ready-at-hand.
3 Robin Öberg // Oct 27, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Puzzles are difficult to examine phenomenologically.
It’s like you go into each piece as if it was your entire horizon, just for a moment,
then move to the entire puzzle with the piece ready at hand,
with each trial and error, with each piece in the puzzle.
Sounds like a hermeneutic spiral,
bouncing from whole and piece,
from structure and individual,
back and forth.
Epoché
4 davidroedl // Nov 2, 2007 at 10:55 am
[…] an extreme case of intentionally designing breakdown into an interaction, something that Dave Royer posted about a while back. When navigating most websites, a user is typically engaged in an information seeking […]
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