human-computer-interaction (HCI): a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them. [source]

The previously prevalent model for the field of HCI on information design was a dichotomy of system-center design and user-center design. With the publication of Clay Spinuzzi’s Genre Tracing through Organizations, a third view, an open system has added a stirring dimension to the discussion at hand.

The following website is our attempt to parse differences between two influential books, Robert Johnson’s User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts and Clay Spinuzzi’s Genre Tracing through Organizations.