System-adaptation and reality's own dynamism

Abstract

In the course of discussions on designing a socially acceptable technology greater importance has recently been attached to criteria such as flexibility, adaptability and configurativity. The related idea of a “soft” technology that can be adapted and moulded to changing conditions “on the ground” (i.e. within the field of application) has gradually developed in computer science and led to several new concepts of varying breadth. As an issue of software-ergonomics it was first discussed in the 1980s under the concept of “individualization” and found its way into various guidelines and evaluative frameworks for the human-oriented design of application software [9]. Here, discussion first centred on the question of adapting application systems to personal characteristics of the user, such as this level of expertise in using the system, individual preferences for utilizing the system as a result of individual differences in style of acting, thinking and learning etc. In this discussion the research domain expanded step by step to problems of tasks and organizational contexts. Consequently, in software ergonomics we now speak of four mutually influencing factors (and thereby design factors): human, technology, tasks and organization. The following paper is based on research conducted as part of the SAGA project at the GMD (German National Research Center for Computer Science). This research drew on psychological and sociological investigations in order to examine the practical relevance and software-ergonomic quality of flexible systems. The point of departure for our investigations was a debate, which had already begun some time ago in computer Science, on suitable forms for the technical realization of system adaptation.