WHO IS THE USER? INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS, COMMUNITIES - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 31

Table 4.1

Shifts in the Conceptualization of Computer User Over Time

Who Is the User? Scope of Work Technology Systems Support

Individual Worker-based Terminal or personal computer Decision support systems (DSS)

Group Team-based Networked computers Group systems (GDSS, GSS)

Organization Distributed work Web-based platforms; Enterprise-wide systems

multimedia (e.g., EIS)

Community Globalization Ubiquitous computing Electronic commerce, online

forums, and communities

quality and efficiency of user decision processes, and user perceptions of the technology. In the
early days of organizational computing, designers attempted to accommodate variations in user
preferences where possible, but for the most part users were treated as common collectives.
Indeed, individual differences and their implications for design were not center stage in systems
design for several decades; research focused instead on designing technology to fit work task
demands and assuring user motivation and acceptance (e.g., see Huber, 1983).
Though not to be underestimated, this relatively confined world of HCI was a comforting setting
for systems designers and IS researchers until collaborative systems (i.e., groupware) came along.
Suddenly the user became the group, tasks became multi-party, and decision processes became
entwined with computer-mediated communication systems (Applegate, 1991; Gray and Olfman,
1989; Hiltz and Turoff, 1981; Olson and Olson, 1991). So-called advanced information technologies
offered the potential to dramatically impact the social dynamics of organizational life (Huber, 1990;
Rice, 1992). The complexity of the HCI setting increased dramatically. Systems designers and IS
researchers, with their roots in psychology and organizational behavior, quickly became students of
organizational communication and sociology. Issues of collaboration, coherence, conflict manage-
ment, group decision processes, and so on, were added to the more traditional HCI concerns (e.g.,
Jessup and Valacich, 1993; Galegher, Kraut, and Egido, 1990; Malone and Crowston, 1994).
Today we are witness to a further explosion in the complexity of HCI as information systems are
developed to support dynamic groups and communities, and work moves across the traditional
boundaries of task, locale, and corporation. On the surface it may be the individual who types, talks,
and looks at a computing device; but the presence and participation of others is near omnipresent.
Further, the parties involved and nature of the work that people are doing together via computer is
likely not fully specified. Groups are scattered and transient. Tasks are murky, and the organizational
context is a shifting ground of business units, partners, or other entities—not all of which are com-
pletely clear or known. In sum, we are witness to a confluence of changes in technology and the
nature of work that are expanding our notion of “user” and the essentials of human-computer inter-
action. Computers may be easier to use today than in the past, in the sense that machines are more
intelligent and interfaces are more multimedia-based and friendly; however, human-computer sys-
tems are also more challenging to design, because they must accommodate collections of people
from a multitude of backgrounds with diverse personal and professional needs who are interacting
across organizational, geographic, and task boundaries. Thus, today we are witness to a profound
expansion in the scope of HCI design and an explosion in the mandate for HCI research. Table 4.1
summarizes how the conceptualization of computer user in HCI design has broadened over time.