34 3 TheFoundations of Human-Experiential Design implicit ways of communication(HC),madepossiblebytheirsharingofcontext.In contrast, low-context (LC) communication can be found in information fixed in an explicit code, for example two lawyers communicatingin a courtroomduringa trial (Hall 1969). HC communication contains minimal information in the transmitted messageitself, since the exchange is largely of pre-programmedinformation that is in the receiver and in the setting. Most of the information in LC communication, on the other hand, is in the transmitted message in order to compensate for a lack of shared context in the internal and external context (Hall 1969). High context communication underlies art, designs and products that are long-lived and slow to change. Low context communication changes more easily and rapidly and tends to be experienced as having less intrinsic value. The imbalance between high and low context can be found in our everyday life with electronic and other tools. Consider how in the early days of mobile phones a few companiesfrequently brought out new models of their products. These mobile phones tended to be very low-context, and sometimes seemed to get out of date even before seeing the light of day. They frequently changed their functionality and sometimes their entire model of use, well before users had internalized the phone andits functionality into their experience. Rapidly changing technologies, such as consumer electronics, restrict the pos- sibilities for high contextual communication with users, and recent products have tended to settle on a more coherent style of interaction and use. Even when new features are added, companies such as Apple are very careful to maintain their overalllook andfeel, andthe style of interaction seeks – with more or less success – to drawon bodilyand other contextualfactors, making them relatively high context comparedtoearly versionsof such products. Some users have kept their early generation mobile phones for many years. They have become used to a certain design, and the communication between the user and the mobile phone has become internalized. This is another way in which high context communication has been developed. This works partly because new functionalities are excluded by the old design. Acoustic musical instruments, for example the violin, have not changed the style of interaction or even their form over the last few centuries. Architecture styles adopted by many builders of churches in the West and temples in eastern cultures have been firmly established for hundreds of years, preserving religious beliefs and ideas up until today (Hall 1969). It can be said that high-contextuality places great importance on the need for being fixed and stable, while low-contextuality does the opposite. We need a development strategy for balancing two apparently contradictoryneeds, one which design could and should pursue. Varela et al. (1993) challenge prevalent belief throughout cognitive science that “cognition consists of the representation of a world that is independent of our perceptual and cognitive capacities by a cognitive system that exists independent of the world” (Varela et al. 1993, xx). They stress the separation that exists between cognitive science and everyday experience of our present world. They also stress the need for having a sense of common foundation integrating cognitive science and human experience. They focused on one tradition that derives from the