Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
There can also be cultural effects (on several levels), so there may be a tradition for
doing a task in a particular way, which is an effect of organizational culture.
The main message to take away is that all systems are deployed in an envi-
ronment that includes social elements that you need to take into account. If you
ignore them, you increase the risk of your system being unacceptable, because it is
less likely that it will fit in with their way of working. The other important thing to
remember is that the social environment is likely to change, so you should at least
be aware of this, and design your system to take account of this, where possible.
9.6 Summary
We hope that this chapter has convinced you that social aspects of users are
important. We and many designers certainly did not think so 20 years ago when a
lot of systems were created. Increasingly, the individual aspects are either well
supported or in some cases less important, so social aspects are becoming more
important, or at least can be paid attention to.
Social factors appear to be complex, and currently it appears to be difficult to
combine them a priori. Social factors include the group members (which are
complex), their organization (which can be complex), their mutual and individual
tasks (which can be complex), and the task distributions (how often each task has
to be performed). This makes the social factors not reducible to a single number or
summary because the construct is a group, a set of individuals and their rela-
tionships to each other, and their ability to perform a range of tasks that might not
be equivalent. These factors are also moderated by the task environment, including
other groups and other members of the team's family, culture, and nation.
Designers will need to keep in mind during design the social aspects of the
system, sometimes on a par with the technical system. There are more examples
where ignoring social aspects of systems lead to risks that can cause systems to
fail. Casey ( 1998 ) notes several, and Goolsby ( 2005 ) starts her paper with an
example of a system that failed immediately because it ignored social and political
aspects.
9.7 Other Resources
Cheyne and Ritter ( 2001 ) argue that there are right ways and wrong ways to
contact people on the Internet. Their position has been upheld by most responsible
organizations, but is consistently being violated by less responsible organizations
(e.g., spammers). They offer an application of some of the theories in this area to
how to make announcements using email, bulletin boards, and through search
engines, rather than unsolicited direct email, which pushes the cost on the receiver.
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