The embodied experience:reading ”Where the Action Is” by Paul Dourish

In a world where our interactions are increasingly mediated by screens and digital interfaces, the concept of embodiment feels more relevant than ever. In his seminal work "Where the Action Is", Paul Dourish unpacks this notion, challenging us to rethink how we design for a more intuitive and humane digital world. He explores how the practical experience of interaction with technology is grounded in embodiment and presents the reader with the idea that our understanding of the world is situated in our physical and social presence.

So what is Embodiment?

In the most simple terms, embodiment means having a physical presence - the body - and interacting through that physical presence with the world. But Dourish extends the embodiment beyond just the physical aspect of the body and includes all phenomena which by their nature occur in real time and real space. As embodied beings, our interactions with digital technology are shaped and enhanced by our familiarity with the physical world, for example through representations of file folders or a trash can on a computer to help the user understand their actions in a system. Similarly, virtual or conversational agents might benefit from the application of human conversational styles that, for example, provide a sense of empathy and validation. Tangible and social computing both reflect this approach, making technology relevant to the physical and social realities users inhabit.

Dourish also explores the historical perspective on embodiment and grounds it in phenomenology - the branch of philosophy that explores the elements of human experience. Unlike other philosophical or scientific perspectives, which aim to establish objective truth independent of human perception, phenomenology capitalizes on the subjective experience of being a human. In simple terms, phenomenology is a way of studying how humans experience the world, focusing on how things appear to us through our senses. Phenomenology was established by mathematician Edmund Husserl, who realized that the sciences increasingly dealt with idealized and abstract versions of the world and were disconnected from human experience. Instead of trying to explain the world through theories, phenomenology looks closely at our everyday experiences of how we see, feel, and interact with things directly.

It was Heidegger, a student of Husserl, who brought embodiment into phenomenology. Unlike Husserl, who was mainly focused on mental phenomena and their relation to the “outside” physical world, Heidegger proposed that mind and body were, in fact, one. He flipped the previous idea of Cartesian dualism - “I think therefore I am” - and instead proposed “I am and therefore I think.” This revolutionary idea implied that we can only think because we exist as physical beings.

Merleau-Ponty took these ideas further, not just to the body but also to the physical world, and describes:

“The body can no longer be regarded as an entity to be examined in its own right but has to be placed in the context of a world. Moreover, being-in-the-world cannot itself be understood as a certain relation that obtains between a central body and a surrounding world, but has to be understood in terms of tasks, action to be accomplished, a free space which outlines in advance the possibilities available to the body at any time.”

Building on this understanding of embodiment, Dourish turns to the question of how subjective experiences can translate into shared meanings - if our experiences of the world are fundamentally subjective, how can we achieve a common experience of the world and a shared framework for meaning? The answer is that because our experiences arise as an outcome of us being grounded in shared physical reality, we can assume the experiences of others are similar to our own. In that sense, embodiment implies not only that we are grounded in physical and social reality, but in fact that our meanings and actions arise as a result of existing in this reality. This perspective is crucial in Gibson’s idea of affordances. An affordance is a property of the environment that affords an action for the embodied being. For example, the flat nature of a road affords the ability to walk on it, while water affords the ability to swim. Donald Norman, best known for his book “The Design of Everyday Things”, used the concept of affordances to explore the relationship between form and function in design.

Dourish’s exploration of embodiment and the phenomenological perspective offers numerous implications for the design of Human-Computer Interactions. Firstly, it allows us to design experiences that are understandable and usable. Rather than presenting the user with lines of code on a computer screen, which requires specialist knowledge, we can tap into our familiarity with the physical world to provide metaphorical representations that are intuitive and effortless. We can also understand that how we design the interactions will shape the actual use. We can see an example of this in the design of social media applications, which afford infinite content scrolling, thus allowing high rates of engagement to the point of addictive behaviors.

Perhaps what is missing from Dourish’s exploration is an account of how our personal history affects our interactions with the world. According to the Theory of Grounded Cognition, which also deals with embodiment in psychology, our actions in the world are not only the results of our physical and social environment but are largely constructed from our previous experiences of those environments. For example, we might start to salivate at the mere sound of clattering plates because, in the past, we had many experiences of food being served on the plates. While embodiment helps to unify our subjective experiences as grounded in the world around us, our histories create diversity.

From my own observations working as a user experience researcher, I often noticed that people design for the “ideal human” and the perfect-case user scenario. However, if anything, embodiment and grounded cognition theory suggest that we are dynamic humans responding to a dynamic world which prompts us into action. In that sense, we need to pay attention to the heterogeneity of human experience. This is especially relevant because historically, much of the design and research that exists is based on the male population. For example, there has been an assumption that women interact with computers just as men do and that input devices like the computer mouse or touch screen, are universally suitable. However, studies have demonstrated that not only do men and women interact differently, for example based on motor-spatial abilities, but that women are at a disadvantage when utilizing technologies designed for men.

Lastly, embodiment is also a central theme in mindfulness. Somatic (body-based) practices help bring a person’s awareness into the sensory experience of the present moment. This suggests that people may sometimes experience a disembodied state, where they become disconnected from their internal processes. This can be a result of trauma, but many modern interactions, like Zoom meetings or those mediated by social media, feel deeply disembodied. And even then, when we acknowledge the connection between mind and body, we often treat the body in a utilitarian way, as though it were a suit or an interface used to navigate reality through our logical mind. However, some somatic philosophies present a more animalistic view of the body, seeing it as driven by desires, instincts, and an intelligent awareness of the world around it - most of it happening below the subconscious level.

In “Where the Action Is”, Paul Dourish highlights the connection between our embodied experience and our interactions with technology. By grounding HCI in phenomenology, he challenges designers to think beyond abstract interfaces and instead create systems that resonate with our physical and social realities. From affordances to the implications of our shared physical presence, Dourish’s exploration offers both a philosophical foundation and practical guidance for creating more intuitive and humane technology experiences. In an increasingly digital world, acknowledging embodiment not only enhances usability but also reminds us that human experience, which is diverse, dynamic, and deeply connected to the body, must be at the centre of technological design.