Computer Systems and

The Design of Organizational Interaction

Fernando Flores, Michael Graves,Brad Hartfield,Terry Winograd

ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems 1988

Swapnil Sinvhal and Eunyee Koh CPSC 671 Spring 2004

Introduction

Theory and practice : Organizational communication and management

Technology = Design of practices and possibilities

(opens up possibilities of new realms of practice)

!= Design of physical things

Theory of language as social action

Design of the Coordinator

Theory And Design (1 of 2)

Design of new technology

intervention into ongoing activity

resettling into new practices

“A theory, as an ontology, is a set of key distinctions for observing, participating, and designing.”

Effectiveness of design , theory must be assessed in terms the context of the consequences

difficult to predict

acceptability of new

technology

Theory And Design (2 of 2)

Rationalistic Believes more electronically connected more information more effective organizations

better management

BUT Productivity != quantity of information (Overload)

it concerns effectiveness of people getting things done

Data and information Decision Support Systems

Data

Formattings

Algorithms for data storage , manipulation

Focus on

Problem solving

Decision making

MIS : accurate, up-to-date info to managers

Assumption: More information

consider alternatives, make better decisions

Series of steps

Key distinctions =

Decision, Evaluation, Search, Cognition

Management != Management of information

Too much information could be distracting, in a secondary domain (Failed)

Relies on well-established, formalized problem space.

In real life, ill-defined background

Two prominent orientations of existing computer systems

... scope for research !!

Language / Action Perspective (1 of 3)

Human beings are fundamentally linguistic being Verbal / non-verbal, formal / informal Details of the situation:

- Context of phrases (request/invite) - Some cultures "never decline a request"

Theory: Teach ontology of linguistic action for better management Reduce time and effort spent in “unproductive” conversation People become more aware of distinctions Lead to a less panicked, confused atmosphere

Computer Tools for Acting in Language Domain = Networks of people engaged in conversation

Networks of action that connect them

Language / Action Perspective (2 of 3)

Older media Specialized roles, institutions to handle breakdown

(Libraries, Universities, publishers, editors, ...) Assistance in managing information

(Secretaries, Receptionists, Assistants)

Email Pro: New possibilities for communication,

Cut across organizational hierarchies Con: New source for breakdown

Is that really a “pro” ?!

Language / Action Perspective (3 of 3)

The problem: Accessibility of information outpaced growth of new

roles/institutions to handle it Management of information becomes a burden

- not a support

The Solution ???

The Coordinator

The Coordinator (1 of 3) Metaphor: Dance Social Action happens through language

Request Action

Decline(someone does it)

Promise

Request Action

Declare complete

CancelAsk for progress

report

Report completion

Revoke promise

>1 variations of workflow?

Program: Explicit declarations of structure Natural Language Processing by users Email Integration

The Coordinator (2 of 3)

Mainly written language

The Coordinator (3 of 3)

Basic unit of work = conversation

Retrieval based on status

“Complete” vs “Open”

Time – oriented retrieval Calendar subsystem integrated

Identify potential breakdowns

Theories of language (replace typing)

Generic tool

Renaming? Sub-

conversations? >1 topic ? Undo?

The Coordinator … for Management

Managers have to manage : Very complex projects, actions

Recurrent mis-coordination of actions

Information overload “The activity of management is the creation and

development of conversations for completing action.”

“Coach” the user

People begin to acquire a “new common sense”

May be good for multi-location teams

New overhead? – strictly define work

May even lead to new management strategies

Social Environment

By making the network of requests and promises explicit in its structure, the Coordinator can provide a means of improving the degrees to which people have adequately shared interpretations of their commitments and actions.

Each message of the Coordinator carries a label that distinguishes it as a request or as not-a request (e.g., a conversation for possibilities). This changes the space of possibilities for communication – the form of the dance.

The Coordinator offers more structure than conventional mail systems and is less confining than the customer-order system.

The underlying Claim

Conversation Types – only dealing with some of the conversations in an office setting. As office communication systems evolve, there will be a mix in which computer-based text is used for the more explicit forms, while recorded and transmitted voice and video images become the preferred mode for the casual conversation.

Stability of Role Structure – the basic parameters of authority, obligation, and cooperation are stable.

Cooperation and Competition – the cooperative aspects of achieving mutually declared results dominate over the competitive aspects of interpersonal or intergroup conflict.

Technology, Change and Learning

“missionary software” – organizational or social change is being imposed on an unwilling populace by outsiders with a dogmatic theory.

“educational software” – the everyday use of the Coordinator serves to educate users in the principles of conversation and action.

Discussion

The Coordinator depends on the setting of stable roles within organization. What if roles are unstable, or in the case of large organization?

The Coordinator supports the “dance” of request and commitment. What if the pattern is maintained but the actual content is confused?

The actual working environment is not coordinative but competitive. Will the Coordinator succeed in such a competitive environment?

What if we do an iterative work like the design, prototype, evaluation cycles with the Coordinator?

Fernando Flores

1979. Management and Communication in the Office of the Future. PhD Thesis, Department of Philosophy, University of California at Berkerly.Principal author of this paper, at the time of writing(1988) was associated with Action Technologies in Emeryville. Dr. Fernando Flores is founder and former CEO of Business Design Associates which he recently sold.   In addition, Dr. Flores founded Action Technologies, Inc and introduced new distinctions in Workflow Analysis, GroupWare software design and business process analysis. In the late 1980's and early 90's, Dr. Flores designed and presented numerous educational programs through Logonet, Inc.  He is now living in Chile and has been recently elected to the senate there.

Terry Winograd

Professor Winograd's focus is on human-computer interaction design, with a focus on the theoretical background and conceptual models. He directs the teaching programs in Human-Computer Interaction and HCI research in the Stanford Interactivity Lab. He is also a principal investigator in the Stanford Digital Libraries Project and the Interactive Workspaces Project.

1970 M.I.T -- Ph.D. (Applied Mathematics), 1967 University College, London – (Linguistics), 1966 The Colorado College – B.A. (Mathematics)

http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/winograd/

Books Bringing Design to Software, Addison-Wesley, 1996.  with Paul Adler (eds.), Usability: Turning Technologies Into Tools, New York: Oxford University

Press, 1992.  with Fernando Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design , (220

pp.) Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986. Paperback issued by Addison-Wesley, 1987, translations published in Italian, Spanish, German, French and Japanese. 

Language as a Cognitive Process: Volume I: Syntax , (650 pp.) Reading MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983. 

Articles Brad Johanson, Terry Winograd, and Armando Fox, Interactive Workspaces, IEEE Computer 36:4

(April 2003), 99-103. Winograd, Terry (2001), Interaction Spaces for 21st Century Computing, in John Carroll (ed.),

Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium, Addison-Wesley, 2001. "Thinking machines: Can there be? Are We?," in James Sheehan and Morton Sosna, eds., The

Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Reprinted in D. Partridge and Y. Wilks, The Foundations of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990. 

"Strategic computing research and the universities," in D. Schuler and J. Jacky, eds., Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing, Norwood NJ: Ablex, 1989, pp. 18-32. 

Michael Graves

Flores, Fernando and Michael Graves, Reading a Text, 1-11. Berkeley, California: Logonet, Inc., 1985

Flores, C. F. & Graves, M. (1986a). Domains of permanent human concerns. Unpublished report, Logonet Inc., Berkeley.

Flores, C. F. & Graves, M. (1986b). Designing education. Unpublished report, Logonet Inc., Berkeley.

Brad Hartfield

Learning HCI design: mentoring project groups in a course on human-computer interaction B. Hartfield, Terry Winograd, John Bennett Proceedings of the SIGCSE ‘92 Technical Symposium of the ACM, March, 1992

Winograd, Terry, with John Bennett, Laura De Young, and Bradley Hartfield (eds.), Bringing Design to Software , Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1996.

Teaching at Stanford 1996