ABSTRACT

While the act of reading engages a reader through intense interiorization and reflection, reading is placed within more exteriorized social contexts through ubiquitous computing, networking and densely designed public spaces. The proliferation of these contexts elaborate and compete with the primacy of a traditional reader’s experience with a codex.

Using semantic/episodic/procedural ideas of cognition as a framework, this paper develops “situational design” as a conceptual basis for looking at a reader’s/participant’s experiences as a user. Three design case studies are examined that develop practical concepts for understanding users. They are used to outline processes and methods applied from semantic and episodic experiences, the use of “point of view” and audience discourse, and, lastly, integration of concepts of image schemata (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) applied to motion/interaction in the comprehension of information.