‫الجزء الثاني من عدد من االجزاء‬-

‫احمد العطاب‬.‫د‬

Najran University
College of Science and Arts - Sharoura
Dr. Ahmed Alattab
‫المعلوماتٌة االجتماعٌة لمصممً ومطوري ومنفذي األنظمة القائمة على تكنولوجٌا‬
‫المعلومات واالتصاالت‬

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 Social Informatics for Designers, Developers, and
Implementers of ICT-Based Systems
 Consequences of not considering Social Informatics
when designing ICT-Based Systems:

 high failure rates of many new ICT-based systems

 issues like user resistance and the increasing

attention to usability (as a means of making the

interface more pleasing to its users).

 Time consuming and costly learning curve (slow

uptake of users)

 Need for continues technical support

3 need for top management support

 Social Informatics for Designers, Developers, and
Implementers of ICT-Based Systems
 When designing ICT-Based Systems
we should consider both approaches

 Designer-focused approach “Pure

technical”

 Social-design approach “understand

a user’s perspective on design”

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 The Configurational Nature of ICT-Based Systems
 By configurational, we mean that an ICT-
based system’s uses are not fully inscribed
in its design (in contrast to a screwdriver).

 The designers of ICT-based systems are

faced with complicated problems.

 The extra time and effort needed to adjust

various aspects of ICT-based information
systems is just one example of the ongoing
problems resulting from their increased
complexity and potential power.

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 The Configurational Nature of ICT-Based Systems
 Enterprise systems are a powerful example of the
configurational nature of ICT-based systems because
their design is such that much of the modification
occurs during and after implementation.

 The design process for large-scale systems usually

involves a team (or team of teams) of designers from
different disciplines.

 The team must interact with the people who will use
its product and with the much larger organization of
which it is a part.

 In short, the design of technology-based products is

inextricably entwined with social and organizational
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 Usability Is a Partial Response to Designer-Focused
Approaches
 Designers face numerous and increasingly
complex challenges in crafting ICTs that will
work well for the organizations and people
using them.

 People’s expectations for flexible and useable

systems have risen greatly.

 In response, many designers have turned to

usability as a means to ensure users (and,
thus, organizations) can derive value from an
ICT-based system.
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 Usability Is a Partial Response to Designer-
Focused Approaches

 Usability testing was once the sole

domain of European software designers.

 there are professional organizations in

the U.S. focused on usability
approaches to software design (e.g.,
Usability Professionals’ Association, see
http://www.upassoc.org).

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 For example, some firms that
produce and distribute mass-market
software, such as IBM and
Microsoft, have invested in usability
testing and problem identification
programs in an effort to improve
customers’ difficulties with their
products.

 Today, most major software firms

have their own usability labs.

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 Principles for Social Design
 System developers need specialists in the field
(called “social systems analysts”) who will be
responsible for communicating technologists and
managing organizational change efforts.

 Tasks for the social systems analyst might include

the following:

“Shadowing” managers and workers to

determine likely uses of the planned
system. “Shadowing: to follow someone else while
they are at work in order to learn about that person's
job”.

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 Job shadowing is a type of on-the-job
training that allows an interested employee
to follow and closely observe another
employee performing the role. This type of
learning is usually used to onboard new
employees into an organization or into a
new role.

 Participating in system design

efforts to ensure that the system
fits the organizational structure
and culture.

 Facilitating user participation in

the design activity.
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 Principles for Social Design
 Tasks for the social systems analyst might
include the following:

 Assessing current work practices and

creating new ones.

 Planning the implementation, including

education and training.

 Observing the system in use and making

appropriate changes.

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 Principles for Social Design
 Designers of software should be skilled
observers of everyday work practices and
activities in which a particular community
of people engage

 Increasing the number, visibility, and

power of social systems analysts is
important to better design ICTs for use.

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Designing for a Heterogeneity of
Uses, People, Contexts, and Data

 The literature on systems design

methodologies uses a variety of terms that
embody the concept of socio-technical
design. These include

o user-centered design,
o customer-centered design,
o action-centered design usability testing,
o joint application design

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As a way of defining what constitutes the
design or use of human-centered computing,
Kling and Star (1998) identified four aspects
of the approach:

1. An analysis that encompasses the

complexity of social organization and the
technical state of the art.

2. An emphasis on more than just the formal

functions of an ICT. As with the architecture
of buildings, the architecture of ICTs raises
questions of their livability, usability, and
sustainability. 15
 Principles for Social Design

2. As part of both ICT design and evaluation,

explicitly asking whose purposes are best
served in the system’s development.

3. We use the term “social design of

computerized systems,” or “social design,”
to characterize the joint design of the
technological characteristics of a
computerized system and the social
arrangements under which it will be used

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 The Designing of ICTs Continues During Their Use

 Evidence from empirical studies of actual work

practices reveal that the people and groups that
utilize ICTs reshape them in ways that their
original designers did not anticipate. This
reshaping of system use suggests that an ICT
will change from its initial design.

 Configuring a system, or continuing design into

and through use, is an activity different from
initial design.

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 In addition to understanding specific
use situations, good design often
requires a critical, use-oriented
perspective to help ensure that
unintended problems/losses do not
result.

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 The Designing of ICTs Continues During Their Use

 Three reasons why systems design does not

end with the delivery of a final product or
service:

1. Because most ICTs are designed to be

used for long periods of time,
circumstances or the situation of use are
likely to change (i.e., needs change, uses
change, people who use the ICT change,
and the organization changes).

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 The Designing of ICTs Continues During
Their Use
1. The complexity of systems design and the
context of use makes it difficult, if not impossible,
to anticipate all the issues that will eventually be
of importance in the final design. It is inevitable
that the designers of ICTs and the people who
use them will overlook important issues.

3. The flexible use of ICTs by different groups of

people requires that ICTs be designed for many
different situations of use. Sophisticated
software “packages” are often designed to have
multiple configurations to allow them to satisfy
as many users as possible with a single
20 product.
 There Is Agency in the Design and Deployment of ICTs

 Stakeholders for an ICT design differ,

depending on the nature of the ICT and the
designing organizations.

 The stakeholders may include the design

team itself, the people who will actually utilize
the ICT, people and groups that depend upon
the functioning of the ICT (even if they do not
use it directly), and the designing
organizations.

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 The development of ICT applications
requires the collaboration or involvement
of a variety of distinct communities,
composed of workers with different skills
using different representational
frameworks.

 This necessary heterogeneity poses a

number of problems that cannot be
removed simply by ensuring good
communication between the differing
groups.

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 There Is Agency in the Design and Deployment of ICTs

 Example:
For example, the Worm Community System was an information system for helping
biologists who worked in hundreds of university laboratories to share information about the
genetics of certain worms. It was designed as a UNIX-based system because its designers
felt this was the most beneficial technical environment. In use, it required a socio-technical
infrastructure comprising network connectivity and UNIX computing skills. These skills had
to be a part of each laboratory’s (user) work organization—and also the local university’s
resources (Star & Ruhleder). Star and Ruhleder found that the Worm Community System
was technically well conceived. But it was actually rather weak in supporting scientific
communication because of the uneven and often limited support for its technical
requirements in the different university labs. The system had been designed by a group of
computer scientists who preferred UNIX; in making this decision, they failed to realize the
technical requirements they placed on their users. Few of the bio labs that could benefit
from the system had people with UNIX expertise, and therefore they found the system
puzzling and cumbersome to work with. In short, a lack of attention to the local
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infrastructure (of the users) can undermine the workability of larger scale projects.
 There Is Agency in the Design and Deployment of ICTs

 Solutions: Organizations will have to learn to cope

with issues such as:

 re-evaluating how work is done;

 increasing communications between administration,

 technical support, and front-line employees;

 re-training employees;

 and continuously evaluating changing hardware and

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software needs.
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