Context and Contexts


Book Description

Based on papers from the IPrA Conference, which was held in Melbourne in 2009.




Contextual Design


Book Description

This is the only book that describes a complete approach to customer-centered design, from customer data to system design. Readers will be able to develop the work models that represent all aspects of customer work practices.




Understanding Context


Book Description

To make sense of the world, we’re always trying to place things in context, whether our environment is physical, cultural, or something else altogether. Now that we live among digital, always-networked products, apps, and places, context is more complicated than ever—starting with "where" and "who" we are. This practical, insightful book provides a powerful toolset to help information architects, UX professionals, and web and app designers understand and solve the many challenges of contextual ambiguity in the products and services they create. You’ll discover not only how to design for a given context, but also how design participates in making context. Learn how people perceive context when touching and navigating digital environments See how labels, relationships, and rules work as building blocks for context Find out how to make better sense of cross-channel, multi-device products or services Discover how language creates infrastructure in organizations, software, and the Internet of Things Learn models for figuring out the contextual angles of any user experience




Privacy in Context


Book Description

Privacy is one of the most urgent issues associated with information technology and digital media. This book claims that what people really care about when they complain and protest that privacy has been violated is not the act of sharing information itself—most people understand that this is crucial to social life —but the inappropriate, improper sharing of information. Arguing that privacy concerns should not be limited solely to concern about control over personal information, Helen Nissenbaum counters that information ought to be distributed and protected according to norms governing distinct social contexts—whether it be workplace, health care, schools, or among family and friends. She warns that basic distinctions between public and private, informing many current privacy policies, in fact obscure more than they clarify. In truth, contemporary information systems should alarm us only when they function without regard for social norms and values, and thereby weaken the fabric of social life.




Contextual Cognition


Book Description

This Brief introduces two empirically grounded models of situated mental phenomena: contextual social cognition (the collection of psychological processes underlying context-dependent social behavior) and action-language coupling (the integration of ongoing actions with movement-related verbal information). It combines behavioral, neuroscientific, and neuropsychiatric perspectives to forge a novel view of contextual influences on active, multi-domain processes. Chapters highlight the models' translational potential for the clinical field by focusing on diseases compromising social cognition (mainly illustrated by behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia) and motor skills (crucially, Parkinson’s disease). A final chapter sets forth metatheoretical considerations regarding intercognition, the constant binding of processes triggered by environmental and body-internal sources, which confers a sensus communis to our experience. In addition, the book includes two commentaries written by external peers pondering on advantages and limits of the proposal. Contextual Cognition will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers from the fields of cognitive science, neurology, psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology, behavioral science, linguistics, and philosophy.




Context in Literary and Cultural Studies


Book Description

Context in Literary and Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary volume that deals with the challenges of studying works of art and literature in their historical context today. The relationship between artworks and context has long been a central concern for aesthetic and cultural disciplines, and the question of context has been asked anew in all eras. Developments in contemporary culture and technology, as well as new theoretical and methodological orientations in the humanities, once again prompt us to rethink context in literary and cultural studies. This volume takes up that challenge. Introducing readers to new developments in literary and cultural theory, Context in Literary and Cultural Studies connects all disciplines related to these areas to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the challenges different scholarly fields today meet in their studies of artworks in context. Spanning a number of countries, and covering subjects from nineteenth-century novels to rave culture, the chapters together constitute an informed, diverse and wide-ranging discussion. The volume is written for scholarly readers at all levels in the fields of Literary Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, Art History, Film, Theatre Studies and Digital Humanities.




Naked Conversations


Book Description

From the creator of the number one business blog comes a powerful exploration of how, and why, businesses had better be blogging: Naked Conversations. According to experts Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, blogs offer businesses something that has long been lacking in their communication with customers -- meaningful dialogue. Devoid of corporate-speak and empty promises, business blogs can humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line. The authors use more than 50 case histories to explain why blogging is an efficient and credible method of business communication. You'll find yourself excited about the possibilities blogs present after reading just a few pages. Discover how: Prominent business leaders, including Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, Bob Lutz from General Motors, and Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, are beginning to use blogs to connect with their customers in new ways. Blogging has changed the rules of communication and competition. You can launch an effective blogging strategy and the reasons why you should. Featuring a foreword by Tom Peters, this is a resource you and your business can't do without.




Toward a Contextual Realism


Book Description

An award-winning philosopher bridges the continental-analytic divide with an important contribution to the debate on the meaning of realism. Jocelyn Benoist argues for a philosophical point of view that prioritizes the concept of reality. The human mindÕs attitudes toward reality, he posits, both depend on reality and must navigate within it. Refusing the path of metaphysical realism, which would make reality an object of speculation in itself, independent of any reflection on our ways of approaching it or thinking about it, Benoist defends the idea of an intentionality placed in realityÑcontextualized. Intentionality is an essential part of any realist philosophical position; BenoistÕs innovation is to insist on looking to context to develop a renewed realism that draws conclusions from contemporary philosophy of language and applies them methodically to issues in the fields of metaphysics and the philosophy of the mind. ÒWhat there isÓÑthe traditional subject of metaphysicsÑcan be determined only in context. Benoist offers a sharp criticism of acontextual ontology and acontextual approaches to the mind and reality. At the same time, he opposes postmodern anti-realism and the semantic approach characteristic of classic analytic philosophy. Instead, Toward a Contextual Realism bridges the analytic-continental divide while providing the foundation for a radically contextualist philosophy of mind and metaphysics. ÒTo beÓ is to be in a context.




The Contextualization of Language


Book Description

This volume suggests a novel treatment of context in the analysis of everyday interaction. On a theoretical level, it advocates a switch of focus from 'context' as a preestablished, monolithic category which constringes co-participants' verbal and nonverbal behaviour, to an active notion of 'contextualization' in order to make oneself understood, participants have to establish and maintain those shared contextual frames which in turn are relevant to the local interpretation of their verbal and nonverbal activities. On an empirical level, the volume contains exemplary analyses that show how participants employ 'contextualization cues' of prosodic (rhythm, intonation, tempo, etc.) or nonverbal (gaze, gesture, etc.) nature in order to 'achieve context'.The volume is also an appraisal of the theory of contextualization developed by John Gumperz. In their contributions, researchers from various schools of research, such as conversation analysis, micro-ethnography, phonetics/phonology and metapragmatics, relate their work to this theory.




God in Context


Book Description

In the 1970s theologians in Asia and Africa showed an interest in the way different cultural contexts influenced the interpretation of Christian belief. Manifestations of contextual theologies have since appeared in many parts of the world; animated international discussion about expressions, methods and theories for contextual theology have continued with the spread of contextual theology from the South to the North.. The object of these theologies is to shed new light on the concept of incarnation. How does the incarnated God act in a liberating way? Contextual theology explores awareness of the interrelatedness of God and culture. This book surveys important concepts, positions and problems of contextual theology, dealing with different criteria for the interpretation of 'context' and providing explanations of different theoretical models for contextual theology. Particular topics discussed include: the importance of place for the experience of God; a dynamic, correlative and communicative view of tradition; the approach to knowledge in contextualism and the greater right of the poor to aesthetic knowledge; human ecological formation of theology, and the contributions of pictorial art and architecture to contextual theology. Clearly explaining the importance of contextual theology for all theology, this book offers an invaluable text for students and others exploring theology in context.