The focus of this chapter is on the perspectives on human actions that were adopted in HCI and on how these perspectives influenced HCI research. It is argued that, historically, particular views on human actions played a major role in determining the specific research agendas, methodologies, and outcomes of HCI studies. The discussion in this chapter follows a general trend in HCI research toward increasingly more advanced notions on human actions and a respective series of extensions of the scope of the field from users’ tasks to meaningful actions in real-life contexts. The implications of the broadened scope of HCI for conceptual analyses, empirical studies, and design explorations are discussed. This chapter concludes with reflections on new conceptual developments, addressing transformative and emancipatory effects of technology on human, and even non-human, beings.

In HCI there is an increasing trend to approach computing artifacts as agents. In this article, we make a case for "Objects with Intent" (OwI's) as an emerging type of agents that take advantage of the meaning of everyday things as the site for their intelligence and agency. After reviewing relevant existing research in HCI and related fields, we demonstrate how OwI's provide a new perspective on human-agent interaction. We then elaborate on how the notion of OwI's is informed by Dennett's theory of intentionality and Leontiev's Activity Theory. Thereafter, we illustrate the application of OwI's through the design case of Fizzy, a robotic ball used to stimulate hospitalized children to engage in physical play. We end by discussing the nature and merit of OwI's and reflecting more broadly on the challenges involved in designing OwI's.