A Site About Bringing Information, Influence, and Desirability Into Technology Design
by John Soellner
Peter Drucker said, in a Forbes magazine interview, “For top management tasks, information technology so far has been a producer of data rather than a producer of information—let alone a producer of new and different questions and new and different strategies. …It can be argued that the computer and the data flow it made possible, including the new information concepts, actually have done more harm than good to business management.” (Forbes ASAP: the Next Information Revolution August 24, 1998)
For those unfamiliar, Drucker is the guru of all business gurus. It is especially troubling given Drucker is said to have coined the term knowledge worker. The implications of so important a figure to make such a statement point to a fundamental and crucial flaw in the information technology industry. It didn’t take long to find a lot of different voices which reflect different variations on Drucker’s words. Books using terms like technostress and data smog touch on the implications of ignoring them.
The general idea of new and different questions and strategies intrigued me. Searching for answers lead me to question the way information technology is constructed.
AntiAssumption One: New Information Concepts. Define what information is, and how it differs from data. What this definition means for information systems, and how this might result in new ideas for products and services, including technology design. This site is my idea of what would be in a toolkit for information design work, from definitions to examples. Information to be of any use at all has to move from the realm of a Zen koan uttered by a theorist, to something the user can work with and understand. So if you think I’m talking about Shannon–Weaver and what techies define as information, you’ll find my ideas quite different. But perhaps not antithetical to today’s tools and programming techniques.
AntiAssumption Two: Desirability, Not Only Usability. Usability seems concerned with the demotivations of cognitive friction in task completion. But reducing friction can only do so much. Certain features will cause a product to fail if they are missing, but will not motivate buyers when present. Few designs identify motivational requirements, those key differentiators just as vital as bare minimum function and satisfaction. Usability books inferring (or plainly stating) users don’t want to think overlook an alternative explanation. Users are thoughtful and spend a lot of time learning and thinking. They learn and think about those things affect (emotion) has first flagged as important. Products which forge an emotional conntection with users are easier to brand. Designing for desirability is also governed by metrics and testing, in service to the motivational complement the word friction implies must be there.
AntiAssumption Three: Human–Computer Influences. Captology seemed to me the perfect counterpoint to the design philosophy which treats human nature like the weather: you can protect against it, but it largely just happens outside the systems we design. The idea automobiles influence American culture is an easy one to accept. Not so that network structure can determine how much frivolous usage occurs. The old era of business mirrors nothing so much as Soviet–era of command, control and reductionism. Captology concerns how system design influences emergent human interaction patterns of behavior.
What’s An Information Worker Without a Good Working Definition for Information?
I have spoken about and demonstrated some of these technologies to programmer SIGs, computer training facilities, and even a couple of colleges. So I know the objections raised, and part of the focus of this site is on answering some of those objections. Rest assured, for every reason to do a thing there are ten arguing for the status quo and why something can’t be done. All I ask is a little open minded exploration. Try something. Test something. Ask how something might work or why it didn’t in a given detailed application. Then, and only then, make up your mind.
Every information worker should be able to define and develop information to qualify as information literate. At the very least a working definition is coupled with test methodology. My definition says information is desirable, persuasive, and has context; and these qualities differentiate data processing from information work. Computer systems produce data and test technology system state. Information systems support decisionmaking. You can do three things with decisions, make them, influence them, or change their desirability. We already have a perfectly good job title for people who can’t define information or lack a sophisticated understanding of how you work with information: data processors.
Resources
- The Next Information Revolution, Peter Drucker interview, Forbes.
- In InformationAnxiety2, Paul Kaufman is quoted as saying “This is the kind of information that engineers are rightly proud of: pulses and signals zipping along through optical fibers, rather indifferent to the meaning of it all. However, to use information productively, (toward some valued end or purpose), people must know what they are doing and why.” (page 20)