ch13.ppt

Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
HCI: Developing Effective Organizational Information
Systems
Dov Te’eni
Jane Carey
Ping Zhang
Chapter 13
Social and Global Issues

Road Map
6
Affective
Engineering
9
Organizational
Tasks
4
Physical
Engineering
7
Evaluation
8
Principles &
Guidelines
11
Methodology
12
Relationship, Collaboration
& Organization
10
Componential
Design
3
Interactive
Technologies
5
Cognitive
Engineering
Context Foundation Application
Additional Context
1
Introduction
2
Org &
Business
Context
13
Social &
Global Issues
14
Changing Needs of IT
Development & Use

Learning Objectives
 Define and discuss the nature of the social context of HCI
development
 Define and discuss the nature of the global context of HCI
development
 Understand and discuss the following social aspects of
information systems and how HCI can ameliorate these
aspects:
 Anxiety
 Alienation
 Potency and impotency of the individual
 Complexity and speed
 Organizational and societal dependence
 Unemployment and displacement
 Valuing human diversity

Learning Objectives
 Understand and discuss the following ethical aspects of
information systems and how HCI can ameliorate these
aspects:
 Accessibility
 Accountability
 Privacy
 Property
 Understand how to utilize computers to support social
responsibility
 Understand and apply the software globalization process
 Understand and apply the software localization process
 Understand and discuss the social and global impacts of the
Internet

Introduction
 This chapter looks at the larger social and
global context within which human-computer
interaction occurs.
 We are concerned with two aspects of the
social and global contexts:
 the impact of using information systems on
society
 and the impact of the context on the way we
design information systems

Social Context
Social Issues Concern Implications for Design
Anxiety Fear of computers
Design for ease of use and ease of
learning
Standardization is critical
Alienation
Feelings of separation and
disenfranchisement
Design to enrich computer-mediated
interactions (i.e., add emotional
indicators)
Potency and Impotency of the
Individual
Feelings of powerlessness
Design to support empowerment (i.e.,
internal locus of control)
Complexity and Speed
Feelings of bewilderment and
confusion
Design to reduce complexity and give
user control over rates of speed
Organizational and Societal
Dependence
Feelings of helplessness and
inability to perform
Design for reliability and human
backup
Unemployment and displacement Fear of financial incapacity
Design for job enrichment
Design retraining systems
Valuing Human Diversity Feelings of belongingness and fit
Understand diverse user populations
and design to fit
Table 13.1 Summary of Social Issues and their Impacts on HCI

Anxiety
 What can designers do to alleviate the anxiety
that inexperienced users may feel about the
use of computers?
 The key lies in ease of use.
 Natural user interfaces
 Forgiving systems
 User control

Alienation
 Computers can contribute to feelings of
alienation in society.
 Consider, for example, the changing nature of
white-collar work in large organizations.
 Face-to-face communications have been replaced
by computer-based communications
 Although work is collaborative, it is often remote
 Human intervention is lessened

Alienation
 What can designers and implementers of computer-
based systems and social-technical engineers do to
combat this potential alienation that is an unintended
outcome of computer use?
 Designers must therefore be socially active
 Communication support systems can indicate emotions
 Emoticons
 Multi-media systems may include video and voice

Alienation
Figure 13.1Assorted Instant
Messenger Smiley Faces
Figure 13.2 Emoticons –
Combinations of Special Characters
that can be Added to Text
Communications to Convey Emotion.
:) classic smile
:-* kiss
:-@ screaming
:-< very sad
:-c very unhappy
:-] tongue in cheek
]:-> devil
|-o Yawn
‘:-) raised eyebrow

Potency and Impotency of the
Individual
 Modern life with its huge bureaucracies and rules and
regulations already creates a feeling of impotence on
the part of the individual.
 The prevalence of computer-based systems as
interfaces between people and organizations can add to
our feelings of impotence.
 When a seemingly simple task, such as correcting a
mistake in a bill, puts us in contact with a computer
rather than another human we may feel powerless and
frustrated.

 Computers allow us to accomplish more
tasks in less time.
 The interjection of computers into our
daily lives increases the complexity and
speed of our experiences.
 Designers should try to simplify and slow
down some tasks

Figure 13.3 A clean well-designed web
site
Figure 13.4 Too much complexity on a web site.
Although difficult to illustrate there are 3 flashing
Graphics,
multiple fonts and several popup windows on this site.

Dependence
 Societal dependence on computer-based
systems means that if these systems
break down, the society or organization
breaks down.
 This possibility contributes again to a
feeling of helplessness and reliance on
machines.

 The key is for computers to behave reliably.
 They should shut down only as a result of a
control action not because of failure.
 Designers should design failsafe systems that
are robust
 Breakdowns due to human errors should be
prevented
 Reliability is directly connected with careful
design and thorough testing
Dependence

Unemployment and
Displacement
 Re-engineering and automation of work
processes often leads to job displacement.
 The amelioration of this problem cannot be the
direct responsibility of systems designers since
their job is to build efficient and effective
systems.
 It is the responsibility of an organization to
anticipate these changes and offer retraining
and other jobs within the organization.

Valuing Human Diversity
 What can computer-based systems do to
increase the perception that humans, of diverse
backgrounds and skills, are valued?
 The most obvious suggestion is to design interfaces
that take human diversity into consideration.
 Interfaces should be flexible and adaptable
 Designers should make clear design choices that
reflect a neutral, non-biased interaction.

Ethical Considerations
 Accessibility
 As computers become more and more
prevalent in our society, the consequences of
the gap between those who have access to
computers and those who do not become
greater and greater.
 Access: Providing access to information
via information systems and technologies is
critical to full societal participation. HCI can
play a role in breaking through barriers to
access.

Ethical Concerns - Privacy
 Privacy: Protecting against public
access to personal information about
individuals.
 Computers provide information about
individuals in ways we only begin to
understand.
 Credit bureaus in the US such as Equifax
have computerized data about almost all
Americans.

Table 13.3
International Privacy Principles
U.S. http://www.cdt.org/privacy/guide/basic/generic.html
Canada http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/news/nr/1998/attback2.html
European
Union
http://www.cdt.org/privacy/guide/basic/generic.html
Multiple
countries
http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/phr2000/countriesag.html

Ethical concerns – Accountability
 Accountability and Accuracy:
Understanding who shares responsibility
for the outcomes and impact of
information systems.

Ethical considerations – Intellectual
Property
 Intellectual Property: An intellectual property
is any product of the human intellect that is
unique, novel, and has some value in the
marketplace.
 Electronic form of intellectual property is difficult
to safeguard.

Software Globalization
 Software Globalization: Creating a “generic”
and functional version of software that is devoid
of cultural context. The focus is on functionality
and not packaging.

The Global Context:
 Localization is the opposite of globalization.
Localization takes a generic product and adds
features and elements to fit the target culture and
market (Carey, 1998; Taylor, 1992).

Figure 14.3. Stages in Global Software Development
Preparation Stage Design Stage Implementation Stage
Selection of
Locale/s
Determine
Locale-specific
Legal Constraints
Team and
Management
Locale-based
Cultural Education
Test -
Domestic &
Locale/s SW
Documentation-
Domestic &
Locale/s SW
Contract w/
Locale/s
Experts
Develop
International
Functional
Requirement
Document
Design all
User Interfaces
International &
Domestic
Develop Plans
for Testing &
Documentation
&Release
Release -
Domestic &
Locale SW
Support -
Domestic &
Locale SW
Figure 13.5 Global Software Development
Process

User Interface &
Documentation for
the software, in target
language
INPUT in target
language consists
of target language
text and numerals
OUTPUT in target
language consists
of target language
text and numerals
“TRANSLATED
SOFTWARE”
processes Input
according to rules
of target
language to
produce output
Figure 14.6 Translation Process
Adapted from Luong (1995)
Figure 13.6 Translation Process (Adapted from Luong
(1995))

Software Localization
 Software Localization: Adding the cultural
and locale-specific distinctiveness to globalize
or generic software.
 Locales are the features of the user’s environment that are
dependent on language: country, and cultural conventions.
 Locale-sensitive means exhibiting different behavior or
returning different data, depending on the locale.

 In order to localize software, the following are
required:
 A set of international APIs (Application Program
Interfaces) for switching from one locale to
another,
 A locale definition for each locale you would
want to support, and
 A locale compiler to make the locale information
accessible to your program

Market Forces
International
Design Input
Language
Specialists
Marketing
Plan
Usability
Testing
Release to
Manufacturing
Beta
Testing
Final
Design
Feature
Design
Development
Localization
Testing
Translation
Tools
Figure 13.7 The Software Localization Process (Adapted from Kano,
1995)

 Ito and Nakakoji (1996) have explored the
impact of user interface design in the global
context. They call the information presented
from computer to user the “Listening Mode”.
 The logical name for the mode in which
information travels from user to computer is
called the “Speaking Mode”.

The Social and Global Aspects of
the Internet
 Internet: a global network of networks that
follows certain standards and protocols in order
to support access, communication, and
connectivity
 The Social Impact of the Internet
 The Internet has created opportunities for people to
connect with each other.
 Blogs: short for web logs which are online journals
accessible to Internet-enabled users.

The social aspects of the Internet
 The availability of the Internet for various tasks
(public and business-related) has resulted in a
shift of responsibility to individuals.
 Instant Messaging (IM): allows one-to-one
“real time” interactions via typed text.

Negative social impacts of the Internet
 Negative social impacts: include
anxiety, alienation, potency of the
individual, speed and complexity, societal
and organizational dependence,
unemployment and displacement, and
valuing of human diversity

Global Impact of the Internet
 E-Commerce in all its forms (B2B, B2C, C2C) is
having a tremendous impact on the nature of global
business.
 While the Internet has the potential of reducing the
costs associated with doing business globally, it also
increases the likelihood that international
competition will increase.
 Global suppliers and customers are connected to
each other in a cheap, easy, and dependable way.

 The global digital divide is just as important
as domestic access issues.

 The virtual communities discussed in the
previous section are also global in nature.
 Refuges and expatriates can stay connected
to their families and countries via the
Internet.
 Communities can exist across national
boundaries.
 Language may be a problem, but translation
interfaces that allow interactions to occur are
improving all the time.

Global impact of the Internet
Figure 13.8 Hebrew web site for Haaretz Newspaper
http://www.haaretz.com/
Figure 13.9 Arabic site for As-safir newspaper
(http://www.assafir.com/iso/today/front/summ
ary.html).

Global impact of the Internet
Figure 13.10 Spanish edition of El Universal
Newspaper
http://estadis.eluniversal.com.mx/ol_nacion.html
Figure 13.11 Romanian Version of Evenimentul
Zilei newspaper
http://www.expres.ro/topstory/?news_id=14571
0

Figure 13.12 Chinese version of China Today
(http://www.china.com/chinese/index.htm).
Figure 13.13 English version of China Today
(http://www.china.com/English/index.htm).

Summary
 This chapter explores the social and global
contexts within which human-computer
interaction takes place. The authors
recommend an active individual initiative
regarding social responsibility.
 Computer specialists who are designing and
building interfaces for information systems
should take an active role in leading the nation
towards a better quality of life through
integrated systems that promote social well
being and also combat the problems associated
with the information age.

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