Information Systems Development and Practice 3 - UQI116S3

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3 -
UQI116S3

• extend knowledge, experience, and competence in
  practical IS development, from the base provided
  earlier
• provide a more advanced treatment of database
  design and implementation
• introduce object-oriented design
• develop a framework for the selection of an
  appropriate development approach
• develop group work further through engagement in
  a project of larger scale and broader scope
• bring user interests and participation to a
  central place in development practice

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• to explore alternative perspectives on the
  nature of design
• perspectives - you as the developer
• you as a software user
• what your user expects
• what your client
  expects
• the evolutionary nature of design - the social
  nature of design and perspective

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What do you see? Why do you think this is what it
is? What can you do with it? How does it
work? How does it really work? What it is really?
EXCEL
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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• the source of this lecture comes from two
  chapters in Winograd (Bringing Design to Software)

• Seely Brown, J. Duguid, P. Keeping it Simple
• Liddle, D. The Design of
  the Conceptual Model

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• Genre is an important concept in software design
• Design evolves and innovates
• The future of design lies in allowing increasing
  amounts to be under represented

• The ideas behind Seely Brown Duguids article
  are

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What do you see? Why do you think this is what it
is? What can you do with it? How does it
work? How does it really work? What it is really?
PHYSICAL WORLD
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The Harris Report Ivanhoe Avison Fitzgerald
PHYSICAL WORLD of Books
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Genre in books...
3 books of completely different sorts
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
The Harris Report on the Future of Higher
Education in England and Wales
Information Systems Development Methodologies,
Techniques and Tools (2nd Ed) by D. Avison and G.
Fitzgerald
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Genre opening lines in books...
3 books of completely different sorts
Information Systems Development Methodologies,
Techniques and Tools (2nd Ed) by D. Avison and G.
Fitzgerald
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal
Rinpoche
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
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My own first experience of death came when I was
about seven. We were preparing to leave the
eastern highlands to travel to central T Samten,
one of the personal attendants to my master, was
a wonderful monk who was kind to me during my
childhood. He had a bright, round, chubby face,
always ready to break into a smile. He was
everyones favourite in the monastery because he
was so good-natured.
In this chapter, we introduce the nature of and
illustrate this with examples and types of The
following two sections stress the human and
organisation aspects to counteract the stress
placed on the technology which is a feature of
many texts on...
In that pleasant district of merry England which
is watered by the Don, there extended in ancient
times a large forest, covering the greater part
of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie
between Sheffield and the pleasant town of
Doncaster.
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Genre opening lines in books...
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal
Rinpoche
My own first experience of death came when I was
about seven. We were preparing to leave the
eastern highlands to travel to central T Samten,
one of the personal attendants to my master, was
a wonderful monk who was kind to me during my
childhood. He had a bright, round, chubby face,
always ready to break into a smile. He was
everyones favourite in the monastery because he
was so good-natured.
Information Systems Development Methodologies,
Techniques and Tools (2nd Ed) by D. Avison and
G. Fitzgerald
In this chapter, we introduce the nature of and
illustrate this with examples and types of The
following two sections stress the human and
organisation aspects to counteract the stress
placed on the technology which is a feature of
many texts on...
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
In that pleasant district of merry England which
is watered by the Don, there extended in ancient
times a large forest, covering the greater part
of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie
between Sheffield and the pleasant town of
Doncaster.
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One Genre the novel
5 completely different types of novel
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
Virgin Soil Upturned by Mikhail Sholokhov
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
The Wishing-Chair Again by Enid Blyton
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1. Mollie and Peter had just arrived home for
the holidays. Their schools had broken up the
same day, which was very lucky, and Mother had
met them at the station.
2. It was us who set it on its feet during the
war, it was us who supported it with our
shoulders, so that it didnt break down. We know
what a collective farm is, and were all for it.
Give us machines! He stretched out a fist the
size of a turnip. A tractors fine, we know,
but you workers have only made a few of them. And
thats what we swear at you for.
3. He then took his aim with some deliberation,
and the multitude awaited the event in breathless
silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of
his skill - his arrow split the willow rod
against which it was aimed. A jubilee of
acclamations followed and even Prince John, in
admiration of Locksleys skill, lost an instant
dislike to his person.
4. He had found one of the sepoy ammunition
stores, had quickly scattered a train of powder
to it, and was now attempting to fire it. At
last, he succeeded, swung himself into the saddle
and was away. His horse cleared the sepoy
rampart and sped like an arrow after his men
across the open ground. Suddenly they saw him
hit. He slid out of the saddle and bounced in
the dust.
5. Isaac Sprague nodded. He looked as if he had
not slept all night. We had a Siberian plover
in the harbor in Halifax this summer, he said.
How remarkable, to be carried so far off course,
and where could it have thought it was going?
And how did it manage to cross the Atlantic? Let
alone the mass of Russia. No one but God can
answer this.
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The Wishing-Chair Again by Enid Blyton
Mollie and Peter had just arrived home for the
holidays. Their schools had broken up the same
day, which was very lucky, and Mother had met
them at the station.
Virgin Soil Upturned by Mikhail Sholokhov
It was us who set it on its feet during the war,
it was us who supported it with our shoulders, so
that it didnt break down. We know what a
collective farm is, and were all for it. Give
us machines! He stretched out a fist the size
of turnip. A tractors fine, we know, but you
workers have only made a few of them. And thats
what we swear at you for.
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
He then took his aim with some deliberation, and
the multitude awaited the even in breathless
silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of
his skill - his arrow split the willow rod
against which is was aimed. A jubilee of
acclamations followed and even Prince John, in
admiration of Locksleys skill, lost an instant
dislike to his person.
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
He had found one of the sepoy ammunition stores,
had quickly scattered a train of powder to it,
and was now attempting to fire it. At last, he
succeeded, swung himself into the saddle and was
away. His horse cleared the sepoy rampart and
sped like an arrow after his men across the open
ground. Suddenly they saw him hit. He slid out
of the saddle and bounced in the dust.
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
Isaac Sprague nodded. He looked as if he had not
slept all night. We had a Siberian plover in
the harbor in Halifax this summer, he said.
How remarkable, to be carried so far off course,
and where could it have thought it was going?
And how did it manage to cross the Atlantic? Let
alone the mass of Russia. No one but God can
answer this.
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Financial Times The Guardian Clifton College
Colliquy New Scientist
Removing some of the PHYSICAL WORLD
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Entering the ELECTRONIC WORLD
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I
L
D
A
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ALDI
LIDL
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JOHN
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Information Systems Development and Practice
3UQI116S3

• Content - can be minimal
• Context - a specific business sector type of
  trade identified, trading philosophy too,
  possibly
• Stimulates comparison, draws on other businesses
  information and trademarks

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• Seely Brown Duguids ideas Keeping
  it Simple

• In any form of communication, genres engage
  socially shared knowledge
• The more that a level of shared expectations can
  be assumed, the less needs to be said explicitly
  about how the information should be read
• Conversely, the less that is shared, the more
  needs to be said, and the harder communication
  becomes

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• Seely Brown Duguids ideas Keeping
  it Simple

HOWEVER

• Design needs to cross boundaries, rather than
  always respecting them - design MUST evolve
• In breaking through the old, we open new
  frontiers
• Crossing boundaries is not always beneficial

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• Seely Brown Duguids ideas Keeping
  it Simple

• The future of IT design lies not in developing
  means of increasingly full representation, but in
  allowing increasing amounts to be under
  represented - by helping people to leave more
  unsaid

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• Seely Brown Duguids ideas Keeping
  it Simple

• not in refining abstractions, but by making use
  of their inevitable impurity
• not by making more things explicit, but by
  leaving as much as possible implicit, and in the
  process keeping things simple

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• David Liddles ideas the Conceptual
  Model

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• David Liddles ideas the Conceptual
  Model

• Software design is the act of determining the
  user's experience with a piece of software
• It has nothing to do with how the code works
  inside
• The designer's task is to specify completely and
  unambiguously the user's whole experience

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• David Liddles ideas the Conceptual
  Model

• Everything else should be subordinated to making
  that model clear, obvious, and substantial
• That is almost exactly the opposite of how most
  software is designed

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• Consider the following 3 slides
• decide
• what the slides seem to show
• whether they are genuine
• are they are connected
• whether there seems to be a time sequence
• what have been the main influences on the
  changes in design

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3
The 3 slides are about

• desktops for Windows 3.1, MSDOS and Windows NT
• they are not genuine (they are pictures of the
  desktop - no cursor shown)
• they are connected (all screen captures of
  desktops)
• there is a perceptible time sequence (B - A - C)
• the use of icons - a graphical user interface
  (GUI) - simple, user friendly computing
• is this completely successful? (see Chapter 2,
  D. Liddle In Winograd, T. - Bringing design to
  software)

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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from Liddle, D. - The Design of the Conceptual
Model

• the desktop is only a metaphor
• it is NOT their purpose to imitate real-world
  objects
• they are abstractions which users can use to
  relate to their jobs
• they allow people to use RECOGNITION rather than
  RECALL

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3 -
UQI116S3
from Liddle, D. - The Design of the Conceptual
Model

• people are good at managing through RECOGNITION
• we are rather bad at performing even routine
  actions through precise RECALL

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
- UQI116S3

• BOB

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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from Winograd, T. - Bringing Design to Software

• The desktop metaphor is replaced a cartoon
  picture of a room in a home
• Familiar objects, such as a calendar, a cheque
  book, and a notebook, are scattered throughout
  the room
• Bob conveys an immediate impression of "This is
  not an office - it's not heavy-duty business or
  technical stuff"
• Rather than using the abstract dialogue boxes
  of most current interfaces, Bob communicates with
  the user through an animated character, such as a
  cute little bunny rabbit, or a squawky petulant
  parrot.
• Bob does not entice the user to become an
  expert
• The message to the beginner is "You're as good
  at using the system as anyone else is, so
  go-ahead!"
• Microsoft released its Bob software in early
  1995

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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Questions for you

• who has ever heard of Bob?
• Why hasnt something like Bob taken off? become a
  new standard?
• Is computing still in some sort of elitist
  stranglehold?

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• If it is still in some sort of elitist
  stranglehold, what does that mean for software
  design principles?

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• David Liddles ideas the Conceptual
  Model

• Software design is the act of determining the
  user's experience with a piece of software
• It has nothing to do with how the code works
  inside
• The designer's task is to specify completely and
  unambiguously the user's whole experience

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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So why was BOB not a success?
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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• David Liddles ideas the Conceptual
  Model

• in the first phase, the new technology is
  difficult to use and its benefits are not yet
  obvious. It appeals mainly to those people who
  are fascinated with it for its own sake -
  enthusiasts.

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• David Liddles ideas the Conceptual
  Model

but progress is made

• In the second phase, the economic benefits are
  the focus in order to attract business users
• the bottom line - not whether the technology is
  fascinating or easy to use, but whether it will
  promote greater efficiency, productivity, and
  profits
• In designing for it, the main consideration is
  cost effectiveness

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• David Liddles ideas the Conceptual
  Model

and more progress

• The third phase reaches the public - the
  discretionary users who choose a product because
  it satisfies a need or urge
• They don't care about cost benefit analyses, but
  they do care about whether the product is
  likeable, beautiful, satisfying, or exciting
• design needs to focus on the user, rather than on
  the mechanisms

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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So why was BOB not a success?

• I would hypothesise that BOB failed because the
  product fell between second and third phases of
  development - it was neither

• The third phase ...but they do care about whether
  the product is likeable, beautiful, satisfying,
  or exciting
• the second phase bottom line - not whether the
  technology is fascinating or easy to use, but
  whether it will promote greater efficiency,
  productivity, and profits

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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The main point

• In considering software design and the evolution
  of interface design in particular we must also be
  aware of many other influences.

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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Important influences

• The changing perception of self and other in
  society
• The expectations of users
• Anthropomorphisation by many users of their
  interaction with computers
• Increasing confusion between hardware and
  software
• Increasing confusion between content and context

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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Important influences

• is it, or is it NOT, reasonable to consider that
  a computer, or an information system, is human?
• At first sight, this sounds crazy, but a deeper
  understanding of systems development, and
  computing in general, might indicate that it is
  not unreasonable to assume a human dimension to
  software (lecture 5)

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Information Systems Development and Practice 3
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• Seely Brown Duguid and Liddle touch on the same
  core idea

• Abstractions are very important - the Conceptual
  Model must be well designed but there must be a
  balance in this design between breaking new
  ground and establishing familiarity