Granted that this book is quite dated, I would nevertheless presume that much of its critique of AI (artificial intelligence) remains valid, even now as that discipline’s agenda seems to have morphed rather opportunistically (agile programmatics?). In any case, I assuredly hold that the authors’ ideas on design approaches and tools for computer systems are still in general both apt and practical. Moreover, I believe those design approaches are widely applicable to other kinds of systems.
Overall, I found the thematic core and organization of the book to be highly illuminating and quite compelling. The ideational focus and flow did seem a bit abrupt at some stages, but that may be largely due to the concision of the provided content. In any case, the conceptual density of rather novel as well was diverse content warrant and reward careful if slower reading.
At the outset, the authors state that their intention is not the debunking of prevailing design practices or products, but rather the establishing of a new orientation toward them. Overall then, the authors developed a thoughtful case and credible ideas in pursuance of such reorientation. I found the substance and articulation of their case to be quite insightful and convincing. Their approach contrasts with that of the AI pioneers who confidently proceeded on the basis of rather glib presumptions about correspondences between the computer and the human mind, or in effect their operative dogma. Basically, their rationalistic formulations avoided due consideration of relevant knowledge regarding the nature and implications of the mind according to certain more penetrating scholarship in philosophy, biology, and linguistics.
Part I of the book questions the then-prevalent rationalist (but not necessarily rational) approach to the design and use of computer systems. Next, the authors examine several theoretical topics pertaining to human attributes and nontechnical modus operandi that bear crucially upon the design or utilization of computer systems. These topics are elucidated using prominent scholarly sources in order to compose a meaningful framework for ensuing discourse and ultimately for substantiated recommendations. Relevance of these topics is explicated within the following complementary perspectives:
● Phenomenological dimension: being-in-the-world as human situatedness wherein a person encounters and copes with the surrounding world
● Biological dimension: structural coupling whereby a person apprehends their focal world through reciprocal attunement with it
● Linguistic dimension: language as the communicative form whereby a person performs speech acts targeting their engaged world.
These dimensions delimit the consensus domain, wherein human interactions occur and a person’s knowledge is acquired. In particular, speech acts occur in the consensus domain, whereby a person makes a commitment, as expressed and understood through language, which initiates or continues action in a shared world. The consensus domain, moreover, is a central concept throughout the book, especially where a computer system mediates such interactions. Notably, a computer itself cannot make a commitment because it cannot truly understand the meaning of language. This part of the book was the most intriguing and valuable one for me.
Part II of the book explores issues seen to affect human interactions involving computer systems, and critiques attendant yet dubious positions then typical of computer system design approaches or practices. These issues relate back to the dimensions of the consensus domain, thereby identifying specific leverages for potential improvement in system designs or their development methods. The more significant phenomena/concepts covered in this part include:
● Breakdown during computer system deployment: most operational breakdowns of computer systems are due to unanticipated modes of use or latent incompatibilities with interfacing equipment. Such conditions may be masked by the overall complexity of the systems
● Blindness as the cause of breakdowns: blindness results from unmatched assumptions, as for example a designer’s lack of complete understanding of operational conditions that may occur
● Pre-understanding to alleviate blindness: blindness may also result from a designer’s ignorance of a solutions domain that offers options to design a better system. At root, that blindness may be attributable to a lack a pre-understanding pertinent to steering an ongoing search for design options.
● Context as determinative of meaning: pre-understanding derives from accreted experience and its corresponding applicability, which are needed to deal with context. Such pre-understanding is codified and accessible through the interpretation of meaningful experience
● Interpretation to resolve contextual implications: such interpretation invokes background knowledge to discern the meaning and salience of phenomena exhibited by new situations. In turn, such interpretation updates the content of that background.
Computer systems themselves are totally unable to deal with any of the foregoing issues. The designer or perhaps a user must therefore address or employ such faculties. For example, if a designer unsuccessfully exhausts the prospects of a focal domain, that realization should prompt the invocation and search of another domain, namely one out of present scope. Or more problematical, the designer may have to initiate and characterize a new domain in order to grasp and explore the precipitating circumstances. Ideally, all such intractability matters would be avoided, rectified, or accommodated during the design process. Accordingly, this part of the book exemplifies and invokes some of the theoretical topics of Part 1, as remedial for difficulties too often encountered in computer system design or usage experience.
Earlier in the book, the authors cited the need for designers to diligently pursue the question of what users do, or attempt to do, with their computer system within their overall enterprise environment. In Part III then, the authors address this matter directly in two chapters: one characterizing activities fundamental to managing a business; and the other examining design approaches that facilitate the conduct of those activities. Naturally, the advocated approaches involve the purposeful utilization of the enabling insights described in the first two parts. The authors identify management’s foremost need as effectively communicating with parties in their organization’s computer-based network; and then offer and exemplify their recommendations for design activities/approaches tailored to fulfill this need and its implications. Here, the following points are especially worth pondering and pursuing:
● Management’s situational reactiveness to contingencies: rapid formulation and dispatch of directives to dispersed parties/entities
● A systematized enterprise domain: its capture, analysis, and the operationalization of essential management patterns while architecting the computer system
● Management’s pervasive dependency on prompt actionable communications: clearly stated directives that enact commitments and exact follow-up
● Recurrent enterprise conversational patterns: their codification and transparent support through linguistic tools and techniques
● Global system effectiveness: the paramount computer system criterion centering on overall performance in the total encompassing system
Notably, Section 12.2 lists and illustrates eleven maxims for designer guidance. Forcefully, Section 12.4 concludes the book with a concise yet penetrating summary. It also projects a vision of the benefits deriving from emphasis on aptness, openness, and clarity as vital to the redirection of design perspectives and practices as advocated by the authors. In all, this book is a timeless, stimulating contribution to design thinking and practice in general.
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