Situation Theory and the Design of Interactive Information Systems

Abstract

Although this general design principle expresses self-evident common sense, it is frequently ignored, as witnessed by Norman’s woeful list of poorly designated artefacts (1990). In the case of computer systems, technology-orientated - as opposed to people-orientated - design was understandable in the days when computer hardware was expensive and scarce, when computer memory was in short supply, when computer processing was relatively slow, and when computer programming was still closely wedded to the machine architecture. But today, the successful development, and, indeed, in recent years, we have seen a sugnificant shift in this direction (see, for example, Carroll 1991).

If you want to design a system to be used by people, start off by examining the way they work and tailor the system to their needs.