This is a first posting:
Values In Design: Control, Trust, and Information Systems
By: Gary Wynn Kelly
*- Historical Perspective
As we have evolved technological systems, our interactions with
them have become more virtual and less within our direct control.
When we all utilized pencils, paper, and printed material as our
primary method for recording and storing information, we had direct
control over the process, and the outcome. We could ourselves,
either inscribe the information of our choice, or supervise the
process by reviewing the recording directly with our own senses.
Our information access was direct, and most often totally under our
control. Privacy was assured by our own behavior and choices.
When we stored information, we could place it in what we regarded
as a safe place, and again, we could see the repository of the
information, or check it as often as necessary to see that it was
secure. We might even carry some of that information with us on
our person in a form that made it both portable and available for
access—the ubiquitous pocket notebook. We might elect to code the
information to ensure a higher degree of privacy, should our
notebook become separated from us.
In this transitional time of migration to the cloud, each person
still has the option of carrying around media with precious data.
It is too often a nightmare that the many hours of effort can be
lost, misplaced, or destroyed beyond recovery. Our privacy is no
longer so simple, as the machines we use can be compromised, and
our methods of privacy have had to become more complex and
restrictive of legitimate access.
It is human to value what we do. When we put our time and feelings
into our creations, we endow them with a value not given to other
items perhaps not created by ourselves. A book we bought at the
bookstore is not likely to have quite the same value as the one we
wrote ourselves, even if the one we wrote is not yet published, or
is never intended for publication. The uniqueness of our own
effort has a value to us emotionally, simply because we have a
relationship to it that is unique.
When we record our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, observations,
calculations, or other cerebrations, we give them a value that may
be quite disproportionate from any intrinsic material value they
have to anyone else. When we record them by manual methods, and
have access to them directly through our senses, we have both
control and security of the creation and storage process. When we
have them in a physical form of our choice, that permits direct
access to verify the security and authenticity of our records, we
have control and trust in our system for storage and security.
With more of our works now being both created and stored in virtual
form, and most often on complex systems with large operating
systems, we are both more removed from our created products, and
more at the effect of the system in which we have entrusted them.
Essential mechanisms to protect privacy increase the separation,
while affording more of a sense of security than meaningful
privacy.
The process of moving our ideas from our minds to a form in which they
may be stored and preserved independent of our own well being, has been
one that has occupied mankind for all of human history. Man has been
creative in finding ways to express thoughts, and preserve them for
generations, or even millennia, to come. One need not journey to Egypt
to find examples of information preserved in rock or on simulated paper
like papyrus, to information preserved through the very geometric
relationships inherent in the architecture of structures. While
scratching out hieroglyphics on papyrus may be fast and convenient as compared
to carving stone, or aligning it according to astronomical knowledge, it
is hard to beat rock for permanence, and direct access at a later date.
As we evolved information systems, we sought to add convenience and
ease of production/reproduction to the values we desired our
creations to have. With the invention of the printing press,
culture took a leap forward in the ability to distribute massive
amounts of information in a uniform manner, and evolved the concept
for cross-referencing information, which had not existed
previously. This system not only permitted more people to read and
add their thinking to the available knowledge, but also allowed the
material to have an organization, and a method of access most
relevant to the time.
In this respect, the recent advancement of moving information into
virtual media and storage is a continuation of the effort to make
that information more easily distributed and accessed, as well as
to aid the production of that information. The mechanical
typewriter beat the pen for production, but the word processor and
laser printer trump the typewriter for most people.
Changes have come with this evolving ease that are implicit to the
system, but not often examined in terms of the inherent value
attributes of the system. When one is writing with a pencil or
pen, one places the pencil on the paper, and directly controls the
production process. The look and feel of the product is under
direct manipulation, and can be examined at any time during and
after production. It cannot be as readily modified or changed, so
often these methods required a rewriting of the original draft in
order to obtain clarity.
With the advent of word processing, production has been made
easier, but some fundamental changes occurred in how the creator
interacts with the production. The document no longer has either
the look or feel while being produced that it might have after
production, in that while it is being generated, it is most often
displayed in a form not the same as the printed product that
results from printing later. Modifications are greatly facilitated
by editing tools. Multiple drafts and reproduction of the original
through manual effort are no longer required.
Access to the document becomes more indirect, as the document
exists in virtual form while in production. It may be converted to
a physical copy after creation. This separation of human from
product during production requires the person to TRUST the system
to preserve and maintain the intent of the creation with no method
of guaranteeing that this should happen.
In this sense, the creator of the material now has less control
over that process which occurs from the time of creation to the
time of production in a “hard” form. The person has to surrender
direct control in order to have the ease of modification and
editing provided by the system, and trust in the system for the
faithful storage and production of the document later. This
amounts to a fundamental change in the relationship that a person
has with the process of creating and producing one’s work.
The current pace of cloud development carries the production into
virtual mode, as many projects exist as virtual productions with no
end point in the production process. Storage is in cloud-based
systems, and the entire effort remains virtual from creation
through the service cycle.
To summarize this paradigm shift, people moved from direct control
over the production, reproduction, and storage of information to
systems that permit only secondary control. All control over the
production, reproduction, and storage of information is now
indirect, and done only with the aid of sophisticated technology.
*By changing the unit of analysis from that of the individual to
the interaction of the individual with information systems; we can
now understand that fundamental relationships between the two have
changed, and people are reacting to those changes when expectations
are not met or continue to be altered.
The software systems themselves have become larger and require more
knowledge to use. This knowledge and training required to use and
maintain the system and peripheral components is now beyond the
normal scope of training and knowledge for most people desiring to
use the system. This has necessitated the addition of “help
systems”. These were never necessary in previous writing systems—
even for mechanical typewriters, but are a common feature of
today’s systems. These often are not helpful at all, leading to an
entirely new instructional system via human videos on YouTube..
Too often, the person using the system is made to feel inadequate,
diminished, and even incompetent. The former equity relationships
have been changed, as the person now is at the effect of the
system, and the system designers. If the wrong selection or key is
activated, the information may suffer damage or loss. This was
never true in previous systems. The communications from the
designers to the user of the system through such help systems are
necessarily indirect, and lack a clear understanding of the human
and the context of the human’s orientation to the system. It is
not surprising that misunderstandings occur that result in further
anxiety on the part of the person, and a potential for damage to
the information being manipulated and stored. A person who feels
helpless or inadequate will generally have less success in making
well reasoned choices when performing critical tasks.
Virtual systems exist in physical hardware which is remote, and
itself subject to hazards such as floods, earthquakes, and other
natural disasters. Those same systems are subject to power
failure, cyber attacks, and damage through cyber vandalism—none of
which is under the control of the customer.
When this occurs, the person experiences emotional reactions to the
event. The person was required to trust the system, but that trust
has been compromised, and the valued work lost or damaged. The
trust has been betrayed, and the loss of control experienced by the
person using the system is a very real emotional factor in the
human-machine interface.
Once trust is breached, the relationship is changed, and may or may
not ever return to the former state of trust. The feelings of loss
of control may be exaggerated, and may lessen over time, or may
lead to other emotional reactions in using the system, such as
avoidance. This is a parallel to what might occur in a human to
human interaction.
This shift in relationships may seem inconsequential, but people
are motivated by their feelings, and people act on their feelings
much longer after an incident than the repair or replacement of the
data takes. People may become aware at an emotional level, of the
shift in the power of the relationship. They will have a change in
behavior as a consequence.
Some of these consequences can be reasoned in terms of what we do
know about the trust and control relationships inherent in the
design of these information systems. When a person becomes aware
that the system controls their creations, and that they have no
option but to trust it, they are being asked to accept that they
can purchase trust, and sacrifice direct control, because they paid
for it. If the trust has been betrayed once or more, this is no
longer a logical behavior.
When the product fails the person, or is perceived to have failed
the person, the person may, or may not, accept any responsibility
for the failure. It is often easier to blame a faceless system for
the failure than take personal responsibility, and it is more
likely to gain the understanding of other people. This can have
disastrous consequences to the organization responsible for the
service or product, as it erodes confidence in the future
performance expectations of any other service or product from such
an organization.
It is essential for the designer of any information system to be
aware of the emotional interactions that people experience when
using systems, and to accept responsibility for the human
experience through attention to control, trust, and privacy
factors. Data to date inform the designer that people using cloud
systems are not accepting the amount of responsibility given to
them for security and privacy. This necessitates new thinking as
to how privacy and security will be maintained.
_End of Article.
I reckon that I might add to this from time to time.
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