Oral History with Susanne Bødker

Abstract

This interview is part of a series on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute for ACM SIGCHI (Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction). HCI Pioneer Susanne Bødker discusses early education and interests, and her undergraduate studies at University of Aarhus. She goes on to relate her experience for 10 months at Xerox PARC where she joined the Adele Goldberg’s Smalltalk Group, an opportunity made possible by Kristen Nygaard’s connections. The core of the interview focuses on her graduate education (studying under Morten Kyng, who she continued to collaborate with for many years) and long and impressive career. It especially emphasizes the combination of her theoretical and empirical work, and the importance of participatory design, and activity theory to her research and work. She discusses the NJMF, Utopia Project, and labor experience with technology as well as leadership she provided to the Center for Participatory Information Technology and CHMI.