Socio-technical system design Part I:
The Evolution of Computing
Brian Whitworth and Adnan Ahmad
Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences (IIMS),
Massey University, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
bwhitworth@acm.org
Part 1.
The evolution of computing ...................................................................................................................... 1
1.1
A short history ............................................................................................................................................. 1
1.2
Computing levels ......................................................................................................................................... 3
1.3
The reductionist dream ............................................................................................................................... 4
1.4
Science as a world view .............................................................................................................................. 5
1.5
From hardware to software ........................................................................................................................ 7
1.6
From software to HCI ................................................................................................................................. 8
1.7
From HCI to STS ........................................................................................................................................ 8
1.8
The computing requirements hierarchy ...................................................................................................... 8
1.9
Design combinations ................................................................................................................................. 10
1.10
The flower of computing ........................................................................................................................... 12
1.11
Discussion questions ................................................................................................................................. 13
PART 1.
THE EVOLUTION OF COMPUTING
A socio-technical system (STS) is a social system operating upon a technical base, e.g. email,
chat, bulletin boards, blogs, Wikipedia, E-Bay, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Hundreds of
millions of people use them every day, but how do they work? More importantly, can they be
designed? If socio-technical systems are social and technical, how can these different perspectives
be reconciled? How can computing be social as well as technical?
1.1
A short history
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
The first computer was conceived of as cogs and gears, i.e. a machine (Figure 1). With the
invention of semi-conductors, it became operational in the 1950s and 60s. In the 1970s, a
company called IBM2 became a leader of computing by building hardware. In the 1980s, a
company called Microsoft3 took the lead, by giving ordinary people software tools like wordprocessing. In the 1990s, computing became personal,
and the World-Wide-Web turned Internet web sites
into names that people could read4. Then another
company, Google5, took the computing lead by offering
personal access to public knowledge for free. It became
the gateway to a vast knowledge library called the
Internet. In the 2000s, computing evolved yet again, to
become what it is today, a social medium. So now
Facebook challenges Google, as Google challenged
Microsoft, as Microsoft challenged IBM.
Figure 1. Babbage's difference engine1
Computing has re-invented itself each decade or so.
What began as just hardware became also software,
then also people, and now also communities. A machine exchanging forces became software
exchanging information, people exchanging meaning and now communities exchanging memes6.
The World Wide Web began with information (Web 1.0), became semantic (Web 2.0) and is now
social (Web 3.0). Each step in this evolution built on the previous, as social computing needs
personal computing, personal computing needs software and software needs hardware. The
corresponding evolution of computing design leads to socio-technical design.
After software arrived, hardware continued to evolve, but hardware leaders like IBM no longer
dominated computing as they did before. The evolution of computing changed business fortunes
by changing what computing is. Selling software makes more money than selling hardware
because it changes more often. Web queries are even more volatile, but Google gave its service
away for free, then sold advertizing around it - the business model changed because selling
knowledge is not like selling software. Facebook's business model is still evolving but it now
challenges Google because we relate to family and friends more than we query knowledge, so
social interactions have more trade potential than knowledge interactions.
Yet friends are social dyads and it is naive to think that social computing will stop at a unit of
two. Beyond friends are tribes, cities, city-states, nations and nation groups like the European
Union [1]. A community isn't like a friend, as one has a friend but belongs to a community. With
the world population at seven billion and growing, Facebook's 800 million active accounts are
just the beginning. The next step is when social networks form groups, families, organizations,
1
2
3
4
5
6
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
IBM stands for International Business Machines.
Microsoft stands for microcomputer software.
IP addresses like 72.14.207 became Uniform Resource Locator (URL) names like http://en.wikipedia.org/
Google stands for a 1 followed by 100 zeros, i.e. a very large number.
A meme is an idea, behavior or style communicated within a culture.
2
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
and eventually a global community. If socio-technology is just beginning, we need to understand
how it works.
1.2
Computing levels
Table 1. Computing levels as discipline perspectives
Level
Examples
Discipline
Community
Norms, culture, laws, zeitgeist, sanctions, roles
Sociology
Personal
Semantics, attitudes, beliefs, feelings, ideas
Psychology
Informational
Programs, data, bandwidth, memory
Mechanical
Hardware, motherboard, telephone, FAX
Computer science
Engineering
The basis of socio-technical design is general systems theory [2]. The latter sees the disciplines of
science as system world views: sociologists see social systems, psychologists cognitive systems,
computer scientists information systems and engineers hardware systems. If no discipline has a
monopoly, all are valid science. Discipline isomorphies7 arise when systems have properties in
common, e.g. a social agreement measure that matched a biological diversity measure [3].
Mechanical, logical, psychological and social systems are studied by engineers, computer
scientists, psychologists and sociologists respectively. These discipline perspectives applied to
computing give its levels (Table 1). Computing then evolved by adding levels to the physical
mechanism that was once "the computer". In this terminology (Figure 2), a technology is any tool
people build to use, e.g. a spear is a technology8.
Human computer interaction (HCI) can then be computing plus psychology, as a person plus IT is
a system with physical, informational and psychological levels9. Just as IT isn't hardware, so HCI
isn't IT but the child of IT and psychology. HCI introduces human requirements to computing,
and HCI systems turn computer information into human knowledge.
Finally, a community can form from people online as it does offline, giving hardware, software,
personal and community levels. If the first two levels are technical and the last two social, it is a
socio-technical system (STS). If technology design is computing built to hardware and software
requirements, then socio-technical design is computing built to personal and community
requirements as well. If community needs like fairness affect computing, then the new "user" of
information technology is the community [4].
7
A discipline isomorphy is when different fields present the same form, e.g. the same law.
8
Anything we use physically is technology, e.g. a table is technology.
9
An alternative term is CHI, or computer-human interaction.
3
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
STS
Levels can bring some clarity to
computer terminology. Let a hardware
device alone be a technology, but
information technology (IT) if it runs
software. Information technology then is
software and hardware, while technology
is just hardware alone, as computer
science10 is a hybrid of mathematics and
engineering, not just engineering.
Information technology then is not a subset of technology, as computer science is
not a sub-set of engineering.
Community + HCI(s)
HCI
Person + IT(s)
IT
Software + Device(s)
Technology
Any Device
HCI is then just the extension of this but
has links to psychology, so some extend
the term IT to refer to applications built to user requirements, i.e. HCI. Business uses information
systems (IS) as a general term to refer to any type of computing. Education uses the term
information communication technology (ICT), defined as any IT system used to communicate.
Different groups use different terms to reference the inclusion of human and social factors in the
study of computing. This chapter uses the term HCI but replacing HCI by terms like IT, IS, ICT
or informatics would not change the core concepts.
Figure 2. Computer system levels
Here, all the levels of Figures 1 and 2 are computing, whose complexity arises from its discipline
promiscuity. In socio-technology one designs a computer product as a social and technical
system. Limiting computing to hardware (engineering) or software (computer science) denies its
evolution.
Levels in computing are ways to view it, not ways to partition it, e.g. a pilot in a plane is one
system with different levels, not a mechanical part (the plane) plus a human part (the pilot). The
physical level is not just the plane body but also the pilot's body, as both are physical, with
weight, volume etc. The information level isn't just the onboard computer but also the neuronal
processing in the pilot’s brain that generates the qualia11 of human experience.
So to the pilot, the plane is an extension of his or her body, like extra hands or feet, and computer
data is like extra eyes or ears. On this level the pilot is acting and the plane is just a tool. On the
physical level pilot+plane includes the pilot's body, but on the human level there is just the pilot.
In an aerial conflict, the tactics of a piloted plane will be different from a computer drone. Finally
a plane as part of a squadron will do things it would not do alone, like expose itself as a decoy for
others to attack.
1.3
10
11
The reductionist dream
The study of information processing
A qualia is a basic subjective experience, e.g. the pain of a headache.
4
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
The reductionist dream, based on logical positivism12, is that the only the physical level is "real",
so everything else must reduce to it. Yet when Shannon and Weaver defined information as a
choice between physical options13, the options were physical but the choosing wasn't [7]. A
message physically fixed in one way, has by this definition zero information. So hieroglyphics
one can't read contain in themselves no information at all. They only generate information when
deciphered, when reader choices give information. If this were not so, data compression couldn't
put the same data in a physically smaller signal, which it can. Information is defined by the
encoding not the message. If the encoding is unknown, the information is undefined, e.g. an
electronic pulse sent down a wire could be a bit, or a byte (an ASCII “1”), or as the first word of a
dictionary, say Aardvark, it is many bytes. The data a message conveys depends on the decoding
process, e.g. every 10th letter of a text gives a new message. Information doesn't exist physically,
as it can't be touched or seen, but because it derives from the physical, the feedback loop of
science still works.
That mathematical laws are real even though they are not concrete is mathematical realism [8].
Cognitive realism is that cognitions derived from the world are also science14, e.g. fear measured
by heart rate. Any discipline is scientific if it is empirical, i.e. derives constructs by interaction
with a world outside itself.
The physical level alone has no choices. It is as it is, so there is no information, i.e. reductionism
denies all informational and mathematical constructs. In physics, it gave a clockwork universe,
where each state perfectly defined the next, but quantum theory flatly denied this, as quantum
events are by definition random, i.e. explained by no physical history. Either quantum theory is
wrong, and it never has been, or reductionism, that only the physical is real, is a naive nineteenth
century assumption that has had its day. If all science were physical, all science would be physics,
which it is not. Physics today implies a quantum level below the physical, i.e. a primordial nonphysical15 reality [9]. Yet long ago Kant made the philosophical case that reality is a view, by
stating that we never see things as they are in themselves16 [10] p392. This approach returns the
observer to science, as quantum theory's measurement paradoxes demand. In philosophy,
psychology, mathematics, computing and quantum physics, the concept of levels is useful.
1.4
Science as a world view
12
Logical positivism is a nineteenth century meta-physical position, that all science involves only physical
observables. In psychology, it led to behaviourism [5] which is now largely discredited [6].
13
As an on/off line voltage choice is one bit.
14
So purely mental constructs, like love, with no physical referent, are outside science.
For example, quantum collapse ignores the speed of light limit.
16
He called a "thing in itself" the noumenon, as opposed to the phenomenon, or the view we see. A bat or a bee
would see the world differently from us. It is egocentrism to assume the world is only as we see it.
15
5
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
Abstraction
A level is a world view, a way of seeing that is complete and consistent in itself. In a mechanical
view, a computer is all hardware, but in an informational view, it is all data. One can't point to a
program on a motherboard nor a device in a data structure17. A mobile phone doesn't have
hardware and software parts, but is hardware or software in toto, where hardware and software
are ways to look at it, not ways to divide it up.
Hardware and software are views. We switch
Community
4. Social ………….
between them as one swaps glasses to see a
close-up object. All the disciplines of science
3. Psychological ....
Person
are valid world views, and so useful to
computing, as walking behind an object shows
another view18.
2. Informational ...
Software
Levels are a fact of science, e.g. to describe
World War II as a "history" of mechanical
1. Mechanical …....
Hardware
events would be ridiculous. Yet levels emerge
from each other, as higher abstractions form
from lower ones (Figure 3). Information needs
Figure 3. Computing levels as views
hardware choices, cognitions need information
flows and communities need common cognitions. Conversely, without physical choices there is
no information, without information there are no cognitions and without cognitions there is no
community19. A level must be chosen before one views, e.g. is a plane passenger a lift-off
equation weight or a person with loved ones? If levels are views, one must pick one then view.
A world view has properties, like being:
1. Essential. One cannot ever view a world without first having a point of view20.
2. Empirical. Based on world interaction, e.g. information is empirical.
3. Complete. A world view consistently describes a whole world.
4. Subjective. One choose one's view before viewing, explicitly or implicitly.
5. Exclusive. One can't view two ways at once, as one can't sit in two places at once21.
6. Emergent. One world view can emerge from another.
Levels as world views affect how we act, e.g. if we saw ultra-violet light, as bees do, previously
dull flowers would become bright, and every flower shop would have to change its stock. New
ways to view a system are also new ways to operate and design it, e.g. new protocols like
Ethernet can improve network performance as much as new cables.
New ways to view computing affect how we design it, and how social levels affect technology
design is socio-technical design. Level requirements cumulate, so socio-technical design includes
17
18
In data-flow diagrams people are information sinks or sources, i.e. contextual.
Or as one applies leverage from one fulcrum, then another.
19
A community is a set of people who see themselves as a social unit.
20
With a non-physical quantum reality below the physical.
21
One can of course view first from one perspective then from another.
6
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
hardware, software and HCI requirements (Figure 4). What appears as just hardware now has
requirements outside itself, e.g. smart-phone buttons mustn't be too small for people's fingers.
Levels are why computer design has evolved from hardware to socio-technology.
For a village beside a factory, social needs come second to productivity, with ethics an afterthought, but in socio-technology the community is embedded in the information technology. If
social needs are not met there is no community, and if there is no community there is no success.
Socio-technical design applies personal and community requirements to technology.
1.5
From hardware to software
Hardware is any physical computer part, e.g. mouse, screen or case. It doesn't "cause" software
nor is software a hardware output. We create software by seeing computing differently. Software
isn't hardware, as the same code can run on a PC, Mac or mobile phone. An entity relationship
diagram ignores physical storage, whether disk, CD or USB. Software assumes hardware, but
data entities are not disk sectors.
If any part of a device acquires software, the whole system gets an information level, e.g. a
computer is information technology even though its case is just hardware. We describe a system
by its highest level, so if the operating system "hangs22 we say "the computer" crashed, even
though the computer hardware is working fine. Rebooting fixes the software problem with no
hardware change, so a software system can fail while the hardware is still working perfectly.
Conversely, "a computer" can fail as hardware but not software, if a chip overheats. Now replace
the hardware part and the computer works with no software change needed. If software can fail
without hardware failing, and hardware can fail without software failing, they are independent
systems performing. Software needs hardware to exist but is apart from it. New hardware needn't
change software, and new software needn't change hardware. Each level has its own performance
Evolution
4. Community level ..…………………………………………..
3. Personal level ………….…………………….
SocioTechnology
2. Informational level …………..
Information
technology
1. Mechanical level
HCI
Technology
Figure 4. Computing application requirements
requirements: if software fails we call a programmer but if hardware fails we call an engineer.
Yet software requirements can be met by hardware operations, e.g. reading a logical file takes
longer if the file is fragmented, as the drive head must jump between physically distant disk
22 If the software gets in an infinite loop, we say it "hangs".
7
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
sectors. Defragmenting a disk improves software access by putting files in adjacent physical
sectors. File access improves but the physical drive read rate hasn't changed, i.e. hardware can
meet software goals, e.g. database and network requirements gave new hardware chip commands.
The software goal, of better information throughput, also becomes a hardware goal, e.g. physical
chip design today is as much about caching and co-processing as it is about cycle rate.
1.6
From software to HCI
HCI began with the personal computing era. Adding people to the computing equation meant that
getting technology to work was only half the problem - the other half was getting people to use it.
Web users who didn't like a site just clicked on. Web sites that got more hits succeeded because
given equal functionality, users chose the more usable product [11], e.g. Word replaced Word
Perfect because it was more usable - users who took a week to learn Word Perfect picked up
Word in a day. As computing gained a software level, so it now got a human level.
Human computer interaction (HCI) is a person using IT, as IT is software using hardware. As
computer science merges mathematics and engineering, but is neither, so HCI merges psychology
and computer science, but is neither. Psychology is the study of people, and computer science the
study of software, but the study of people using software, or HCI, is new. It is another computing
discipline that cuts across other disciplines. HCI applies psychology to computing design, e.g.
Miller's paper on cognitive span [12] suggests limiting computer menu choices to seven. From a
psychology requirement one gets a computer design heuristic, e.g. our many senses suggest multimedia computing.
1.7
From HCI to STS
Social structures, roles and rights add a fourth level to computing. Socio-technical design uses the
knowledge of the social sciences in computing design, as HCI uses psychology. STS is not part of
HCI, as sociology is not part of psychology, because a society is more than the people in it, e.g.
East and West Germany, with similar people, performed differently as communities, as is true for
North and South Korea today. To say "the Jews" survived but "the Romans" didn't is to say that
Roman society didn't continue, where a society is not just the people in it. People who gather to
look at a spectacle, or customers who come to shop for bargains, are not a community. A
community is here an agreed form of social interaction that persists [13].
Social interactions can have a physical or a technical base, e.g. a socio-physical system (SPS) is
people connecting by physical means. Friendships cross seamlessly from face-to-face to
Facebook because the social level persists even if the architectural base changes. Whether
electronically or physically mediated, a social system is always people interacting with people.
Electronic communication may be virtual, but the people involved are real.
A community works through technology as software works through hardware, so the
requirements of communities are now part of computing design [14]. While sociology studies the
social level alone, socio-technical design studies how social requirements can be met by system
design. Certainly this raises the cost of computing design, but then the socio-technical systems
created also have more performance potential.
1.8
The computing requirements hierarchy
8
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
Computing evolution implies a computing
requirements hierarchy (Figure 5). If the
hardware works software becomes the
priority, if the software works user needs
Social
arise, and when user needs are met, social
requirements arise. As the issues of one
level are met, those of the next appear, as
Psychological
climbing one hill reveals another. As
hardware over-heating problems are solved,
software data locking problems arise. As
Informational
software response times improve, user
response times become the issue.
Companies like Google and E-bay still seek
Mechanical
customer satisfaction but customers in
crowds have social needs like fairness,
Figure 5. The computing requirements hierarchy synergy and freedom. As systems evolve,
higher levels drive system success. STS
design is about having it all: reliable devices, efficient code, intuitive interfaces and stable
communities.
In general, the highest level defines system success, e.g. community web sites need a community
to succeed. If no community forms, it doesn't matter how easy to use, fast or reliable it is.
Conversely, any level can cause failure, e.g. it doesn’t matter how high community morale is if
the hardware fails, the software crashes or the interface is unusable. The entire system fails if its
hardware fails, or if its program crashes, or if users cant figure it out. Hardware, software, HCI
and STS failures are all computing errors (Table 2) with one thing in common – the system
doesn't run. In computing, what doesn't run doesn't survive to be part of the computing evolution.
When computing was just technology it failed for technical reasons, but now it has grown up into
Table 2. Errors by level
Level
Requirements
Reduce community overload, clashes,
increase productivity, synergy, fairness,
freedom, privacy, transparency.
Errors
Personal
Reduce cognitive overload, clashes,
increase meaning transfer efficiency.
User misunderstands, gives up, is
distracted, enters wrong data.
Informational
Reduce information overload, clashes,
increase data processing, storage, transfer
CPU hangs, data storage full,
network overload, data conflicts
Community
Unfairness, slavery, selfishness,
apathy, corruption, lack of privacy,
incompetence.
Reduce physical heat or force overload,
Overheating, mechanical fractures
clashes. Increase heat or force efficiency. or breaks, heat leakage, jams.
socio-technology, it can also fail for social reasons. Technology is hard but society is soft. That
the soft should direct the hard seems counter-intuitive, but trees grow at their soft tips not their
Mechanical
9
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
hard base, and a tree trunk doesn't direct its expanding canopy. Today's social computing was
undreamt of by its technical base.
1.9
Design combinations
Design fields differ in combination of requirements and design levels, as in Table 3:
Table 3. Design fields by target and requirement levels
Field
Target
Requirements
STS
IT
Community ...
Example
Wikipedia, YouTube, E-bay.
Fashion
Accessory
Community ...
Mobile phone as an accessory
HCI
IT
Personal ...
Framing, border contrast, richness.
Design
Technology
Personal ...
Keyboard, mouse
Ergonomics
Technology
Biological ...
Adjustable height screen
1) Ergonomics is the design of safe and comfortable machines for human use. To design
technology to human body needs like posture and eye-strain merges biology and engineering.
2) Object design, as defined by Norman [15], applies psychological requirements to mechanical
design, e.g. a door's
design affects whether it
is pushed or pulled. An
affordance is a physical
design that cues users to
use an object correctly,
e.g. a raised button cues
to be pressed. By
physically matching the
human requirement, the
whole system works
better. In World War II
planes crashed until
engineers
designed
cockpit controls to the
cognitive needs of pilots
as
follows
(with
Figure 5. TV Remote vs. Ipod
computing examples):
10
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
1. Put the control by the thing controlled, e.g. a handle on a door (e.g. context menus).
2. Let the control “cue” the required action, e.g. a joystick (e.g. a 3D screen button).
3. Make the action/result link intuitive, e.g. press a joystick forward to go down, (e.g. press a
button down to turn on).
4. Provide continuous feedback, e.g. an altimeter, (e.g. a web site breadcrumbs line).
5.
Reduce mode channels, e.g. on altimeter readings, (e.g. avoid edit mode, move mode,
zoom mode, etc. confusions).
6. Use alternate sensory channels, e.g. warning sounds, (e.g. error beeps).
7. Let pilots "play", e.g. flight simulators, (e.g. a system sandbox).
3) Human computer interaction applies psychological requirements to software design. Usable
interfaces respect cognitive principles, e.g. by attention, no user ever reads all the information
on a screen. HCI turns psychological needs into IT designs as architecture turns housing needs
into house designs. Compare Steve Jobs' IPod to a television remote. Both do the same job23,
but one is a sleek tool and the other a mass of buttons. One was designed to engineering
requirements and the other to human needs. Which then performs better?
4) Fashion is the social need to look good applied to object design. In computing, a mobile
phone can be an fashion accessory, just like a hat or handbag. Its role is to impress, not just to
function. So aesthetic criteria apply when people buy mobile phones, whether to be trendy [7]
or fashionable [8], i.e. color is as important as battery life in mobile phone selection.
Higher
Contexts
Better
. . . . Performance
Society
Community
Emergence
Organization
STS
Personal
Requirements
HCI
Informational
Requirements
Software
Dependence
Hardware
Community
Requirements
Group
Mechanical
Requirements
Requirements
Figure 6. Socio-technical requirements cumulate.
23
In fact the IPod does more.
11
SocioTechnical
Requirements
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
5) Socio-technology, the social design of information technology, applies social requirements to
software design. Anyone who goes online sees the power of socio-technology, but few study
this new discipline. Sociologists study society as if it were apart from physicality, which it is
not. Technologists study technology as if it had nothing to do with the community, which it
does. Only socio-technology studies both social and technical requirements.
Figure 6 shows how requirements have cumulated as computing has evolved, that higher level
requirements trickle down to affect lower level operations and design. This occurs not just for IT,
e.g. online communities make etiquette demands of people online24.
In Figure 6, the social unit expands as people form dyads, groups, tribes, communities, societies
and so on, where each higher unit has new requirements [1]. In physical society, over thousands
of years families formed tribes, tribes formed city states, city-states formed nations states, and
nations formed nations of nations, each with more complex social rules and structures [16].
1.10
The flower of computing
Pure engineers see mechanics, pure computer scientists information, pure psychologists
cognitions and pure social scientists social structures, but computing isn't pure. It is a mongrel, yet
it is the future. Evolution is about performance not purity, as practitioners clearly see [17].
The kingdom of computing cuts across disciplines, but academics specialize to get publications,
grants and promotions [18]. So the realm of computing is divided, as each discipline defends its
specialty with jargon walls, like medieval barons defending a castle, with the hostage here
knowledge that by its nature should be free. Disciplines like engineering, computer science,
health, business, psychology, mathematics and education fight for the computing crown in
universities round the world. Health even created a new field, informatics, with its own journals,
conferences and courses, for its non-engineering and non-business computing needs.
24
For an example of online "netiquette", see: http://www.kent.edu/dl/technology/etiquette.cfm
12
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
Every day, as more people use more computers to do more things, the cross-discipline of
computing is torn apart by academic parochialism. Reorganizations shove computing from place
to place like a football.
Computing faculty are
Sociology,
scattered over the academic
Political
Science,
landscape, like the tribes of
Economics
Mathematics
Computer
Israel, some in business,
and Philosophy
Science
some in health, some in
psychology,
some
in
Simulations
Sociotechnical
engineering,
some
in
Web
systems
computer science, etc. Yet
Science
Design
E-Commerce
science
IS
we are one. Computing is
Virtual
Web Analytics
the
Afghanistan
of
Reality
Art and
Business
Computing
IT
academia,
often
invaded
but
Design
System
never settled. It should be
Human
Design
Computer
ICT
MIS
our Singapore, a knowledge
Software
Interaction
AI
Engineering
trade
point
between
Bots
Biodisciplines. Universities that
technology
split it across faculties give
Informatics
Engineering
themselves no place in its
Psychology
and Physics
future. The cross-discipline
Biology and
of
computing
is
an
Health
expanding flower growing
at a discipline nexus (Figure
7). It belongs to no one
The cross-discipline of computing
discipline because it cuts
across them all. Computing
isn't within any specialty
Figure 7. The expanding flower of computing
because it is something new
in itself. Only if specialties integrate can a rightful rule of computing begin.
1.11
Discussion questions
For group or class discussion. Give reasons and examples with answers.
1. How has computing evolved since it began? Is it just faster machines or better software? What is the
role of hardware companies like IBM and Intel in modern computing?
2. How did the computing business model change as it evolved? Why does selling software make more
money than selling hardware? What about selling knowledge? What about selling friendships? What
about selling community identities?
3. Is a kitchen table a technology? Is a law a technology? Is an equation a technology? Is a computer
program a technology? Is an information technology (IT) system a technology? Is a person an
information technology? Is an HCI system (a person plus a computer) an information technology?
What, exactly, isn't a technology?
4. Is any set of people a community? How do people form a community? Is a socio-technical system (an
online community) any set of HCI systems? How do HCI systems form an online community?
13
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
5. Is computer science part of engineering or of mathematics? Is human computer interaction (HCI) part
of engineering, computer science or psychology? Is socio-technology part of engineering, computer
science, psychology or one of the social sciences25?
6. In an aircraft, is the pilot a person, a processor, or a physical object? Can one consistently divide the
aircraft into human, computer and mechanical parts? How can one divide it?
7. What is the reductionist dream? How did it work out? Does it recognize computer science?
8. How much information does a physical book that is fixed in one way, by definition, have? When we
say a book "contains" information, what is left out? How is the book's information generated? Can
the same physical book "contain" different amounts of information? Give an example.
9. If information is physical, how can data compression put the same information into a physically
smaller signal? If information is not physical, how does data compression work?
10. Is a bit physical "thing"? Can you see or touch a bit? If a signal wire sends a physical "on" value, is
that always one bit? If a bit is not physical, can it exist without physicality? How can a bit require
physicality but not be itself physical? What creates information, if it is not the mechanical signal?
11. Is information concrete? If we can't see information physically, is the study of information science?
Explain. Are cognitions concrete? If we can't see cognitions physically, is the study of cognitions
(psychology) still science? Explain.
12. Give three examples of how other species sense the world differently. If we saw the world that way,
how would it change what we do? Explain how seeing a system differently can change how it is
designed. Give examples from computing.
13. If a $1 CD with a $1,000 software application on it is insured, what do you get if it is destroyed? Can
you insure something that is not physical? Give examples.
14. Is a "mouse error" a hardware, software or HCI problem? Can a mouse's hardware affect its software
performance? Can it affect its HCI performance? Can mouse software affect HCI performance? Give
examples in each case. If a wireless mouse costs more and is less reliable, how is it better?
15. Give three examples of a human requirement giving an IT design heuristic. This is HCI. Give three
examples of a community requirement giving an IT design heuristic. This is STS.
16. Explain the difference between a hardware error, a software error, a user error and a community error,
with examples. What is the common factor of all these computing error types?
17. What is an application sandbox? What human requirement does it satisfy? Link to an online example.
18. What is the difference between a personal requirement and a community requirement in computing?
How do STS and HCI differ? How do socio-technology and sociology differ? Can sociologists design
socio-technical systems? Can HCI experts design socio-technical systems?
19. What does a physical person do if their needs are not met? What does an online user do if their needs
are not met? What happens to a physical community if its requirements are not met? What happens to
an online community? Give examples.
20. What is the difference between ergonomics and object design (as defined by Norman)? What is the
difference between object design and HCI? What is the difference between HCI and STS?
21. Why is an IPod so different from a TV or video control? Which is better and why?
25
Like, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, ancient history, etc.
14
Socio-technical system design, Brian Whitworth
22. How is an online friend different from a physical world friend? Can friendships use physical and
electronic interaction architectures? Give examples. How is this possible?
23. Why do universities split their computing experts across many discipline fields? What is a crossdiscipline? Give an example. Is computing a cross-discipline?
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
B. Whitworth and A. Whitworth, “The Social Environment Model: Small Heroes and the Evolution of Human Society,”
First
Monday,
Volume
15,
Number
11
1
November
2010,
vol.
15,
no.
11,
p.
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3173/2647, Nov. 2010.
L. von Bertalanffy, General System Theory. New York: George Braziller Inc, 1968.
B. Whitworth and R. Felton, “Measuring disagreement in groups facing limited choice problems,” THE DATABASE for
Advances in Information Systems, vol. 30, no. 3 & 4, pp. 22–33, 1999.
B. Whitworth, “The social requirements of technical systems,” in Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and
Social Networking Systems, B. Whitworth and A. De Moor, Eds. Hershey, PA: IGI, 2009, p.
http://brianwhitworth.com/STS/STS–chapter1.pdf.
B. F. Skinner, “‘Superstition’ in the pigeon,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 38, pp. 168–172, 1948.
N. Chomsky, Language and Mind, vol. Third. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
C. E. Shannon and W. Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949.
R. Penrose, The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe. Jonathan Cape, 2005.
B. Whitworth, “The Virtual Reality Conjecture,” Prespacetime Journal, vol. 2, no. 9, pp. 1404–1433, 2011.
I. Kant, “Critique of Pure Reason,” in The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietsche, M. C. Beardsley, Ed. New
York: The Modern Library, 2002.
F. D. Davis, “Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology,” Management
Information Systems Quarterly, vol. Sep, 1989.
G. A. Miller, “The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limitations on our capacity for processing
information,” Psychology Review, vol. 63, pp. 81–97, 1956.
B. Whitworth and A. deMoor, “Legitimate by design: Towards trusted virtual community environments,” Behaviour &
Information Technology, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 31–51, 2003.
M. S. Sanders and E. J. McCormick, Human Factors in Engineering and Design. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1993.
D. A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Bantam Doubleday, 1990.
J. Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel. London: Vintage, 1998.
E. S. 199. Raymond, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.” .
B. Whitworth and R. Friedman, “Reinventing academic publishing online Part I: Rigor, Relevance and Practice,” First
Monday, vol. 14, no. 8, Aug. 2009.
15