Luca Sabatucci Engineering socio technical systems: technical and social aspects CNR-ICAR SE Seminars 29/05/2012, Palermo, Italy

1. Socio-Technical Systems
Luca Sabatucci 29/05/2012 – SE Seminars – Palermo, Italy

2. The ACube Project
A monitoring system for nursing homes connected to the environment
through a distributed sensor networks and actuators.
• Multidisciplinary nature:
– software engineers, sociologists, analysts
– end-users involved in the process
• Technology:
– Operate in complex scenarios and to be able to recognize, analyze and
support complex physical and social processes.
– Highly technological, autonomous and self-configurable.
– Adaptation capabilities to fit different environments and users
• Non Functional Requirements:
– Low Intrusiveness
– Acceptance
– Privacy

3. DESCRIPTION
Func Req with Visual Scenarios
EMERGENCY MONITORING AND PREVENTION – FALLS/3
the sensor on the door
sends a signal to
Maria is leaving Sabrina’s PDA that
the room alerts with a vibration
Restoration Maria is going upstairs in
room - order to reach her room.
RSA. 01:50 She falls in the staircase.
pm. Maria
is getting
up from
sofa.
Caregivers The camera
are not identifies the
aware of event and
this event sends signals
A vibration alerts to caregivers’
Sabrina that PDA.
Maria’s leaving
When Sabrina and
POSSIBILE Gianna ends their
CADUTA day shift, they must
SCALE 1° write a report, but
PDA displays PIANO they find a already
that an compiled report
unknown describing the event
occurred in the
person is fallen afternoon. They add
down in the information and
staircase validate the
between information
automatically
second and collected by the
third floor system
The nurse, Gianna, receives this signal Video, audio sensors and PDA
automatically send collected data
and succour Maria. She notifies by PDA to the system that builds the daily
that she is taking the event in account. report.

4. A demo is available at: http://acube.fbk.eu/it/node/106

5. Design Challenges
• The core problem is not technological
• No clear-cut separation from the “software” and the
“physical” world
• Central role of People
– Identify real needs and integrate them into the design.
– Users must easily push their preferences into the system
execution.
• AmI and Society
– Law compliance: effects of existing laws and new laws
trying to regulate this new reality
– Adaptability to the evolution of users’s needs and
organization changes.
Walter Van de Velde. Ambient Intelligence and Beyond. European Commission DG
Information Society and Media Future and Emerging Technologies

6. Socio-technical systems
SLIDE BY IAN SOMMERVILLE
Fitting software to the organisation. 2008
• A socio-technical system is a system that exists to
serve some organizational purpose. It includes:
– Computer
– Software
– Business processes
– Organizational rules and regulations
– Human operators
• Examples:
– A system to support admission and discharge of
hospital patients
– A system to support purchasing in a company

7. What STS is not
• Traditionally “technology” is perceived as
some kind of monolithic entity hidden in the
environment
• Technical people believe that
– People will follow processes
– Users are all the same
– Design is about meeting requirements rather than
providing an efficient and effective system
• In many projects, developers never meet or
observe the users of a system

8. STS - Premises
• Socio-technical systems focus on the social
and technical together rather than consider
technical issues in isolation.
• Design should take into account how social
and technical factors influence the
Socio-technical systems
functionality and usage of STSs.
Laws, regulations, custom & practice
System Business
users Software intensive system processes
Organisational culture

9. Key Features
• Based on a pragmatic acceptance of the world as it is, populated by
differing and imperfect people
• Global Properties (that are not the sum of parts), e.g.:
– acceptability,
– familiarity,
– trust
• Not deterministic
• Their success depends on the stability of human goals
– Process evolution
– Changes in working practices
– Changes in the organization
Ian Sommerville

10. Gap between Social and Technical
• Years of research have demonstrated the
importance of STS issues on the success or
otherwise of large organizational systems
• This gap seems a major problem facing social
software today (Ackerman, 2000).
• Value-centered computing counters this gap by
rounding software more on social aspects
(Preece, 2000).

11. Digital Products Need Better Design Methods
• Most digital products are built
from an engineering point of
view
• The result of these approaches
is, unfortunately, software that
irritates, reduces productivity,
and fails to meet user needs.
• Software too frequently
The user has failed again
assumes that its user is
computer-literate.

12. Designing STS
• A new development process requires
systematic approach to considering:
– How STS issues affect the system requirement, use
and evolution
– Understanding people in the context where they
live and work
– Balance users' needs with business goals, social
values and technological capabilities
– People should be involved in designing the
relationships between technology and work

13. TECHNOLOGY
DESIGN
USER STUDY

14. Fieldwork
• Systematic observation of work in the context
where the work is performed
• The aim is to develop a rounded
understanding of the details of how the work
is done and the contextual influences on the
work

15. Participatory Design
• Requirements are not well-defined entities but
should be collaboratively negotiated during the
whole design life-cycle
• Requirements are constructions produced by a
number of actors (users, analysts, developers ,
designers) each acting in specific context

16. Starting from needs often is not possible
If I’d asked my customers what they wanted,
they’d have said a faster horse.
Henry Ford

17. Design passes between different
semantic communities
We need to
improve our
service..and
to decrease
… we should improve our costs
algorithms and
infrastructures to
recognize events, We need to
situations, activities.. assure patient
assistence,
support, Family, support,
privacy, … ..human
contact

18. STSs quickly evolve
• Requirements for STS do change overtime
• Why changes? causes by a variety of factors:
– the operational environment
• e.g. new or alternative technologies or new usage conditions
– the organization within which the system is used
• e.g. new organizational structure and procedures, new
regulations
– user’s needs
• e.g. new functional features, new class of users as well as
new users’ preferences or ways of doing things
18

19. Socio-technical systems are striving to
become the next grand challenge in
ICT research
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/programme/

20. • SOCIONICAL is an Information and
Communication Technologies Project funded
under European Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7),
• aiming to develop modeling, prediction and
simulation methods for large scale socio-
technical systems.
• the technical components of the system are not
just passive mediators of human interactions
(e.g. like the in Internet in social networks)
• but are active, situation aware participants in
the interaction.
http://www.socionical.eu/

21. Disaster/Emergency Scenario

22. Transportation Scenario

23. Thanks