WHO IS THE USER? INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS, COMMUNITIES - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 30

C HAPTER 4
WHO IS THE USER?
INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS, COMMUNITIES
G ERARDINE D E S ANCTIS
Abstract: The progress of management information systems over the last fifty years has brought
an ever-expanding notion of computer “user.” We have witnessed the evolution of computer user
from a single person to an interacting group, from a group of people to an entire firm or other
organization, and from an organization to a diffuse community with dynamic membership and
purpose. The result is a profound expansion in the scope of human-computer interaction (HCI)
design and an explosion in the mandate for HCI research. This essay highlights some of the major
design and research challenges associated with today's broad notion of computer user. These
challenges do not reduce the earlier HCI agenda. Instead, they expand it and imply a continued
need for the study of HCI at multiple levels of analysis.
Key Words: User-Computer Interaction, User Behavior, Research Directions
INTRODUCTION
A paradox of our time is that computers have become at once personal and communal, less visi-
ble yet ubiquitous, mobile yet entrenched in the dense fabric of information and communications
technologies that permeate our lives. At the interface between human and computer, this paradox
unfurls in an ongoing transformation of computer “user” from an individual to an interacting
group, from a group of people to an entire firm or other organization, and from an organization to
a diffuse community with dynamic membership and purpose.
Although information systems have long been designed for use by many people, the concep-
tualization of “end user” by HCI designers has broadened over time. During the past fifty years,
information technology has migrated from offering limited types of computational support in rel-
atively confined organizational settings to providing intelligent mediating devices that connect
large groups of people and business processes on a global scale. In the early days of mainframe
computers, system developers conceived of end users as a relatively homogeneous lot. The user
of an information system was an individual at a keyboard, or perhaps a manager or technical spe-
cialist reading a computer-generated report. Either way, the user was presumed to be “the decision
maker” who used system outputs to make a judgment, select a choice, or formulate a plan (Alter,
1980; Davis and Olson, 1984).
In the early days of computing, the boundaries of the user, technology, and task were fairly
obvious. Systems design focused on satisfying the needs of distinctive user groups, such as finan-
cial analysts, accountants, or general managers, confronted with fairly bounded decision tasks.
HCI researchers assessed the success of an information system in terms of user acceptance, the
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