socio-technical systems
DESCRIPTION
Luca Sabatucci Engineering socio technical systems: technical and social aspects CNR-ICAR SE Seminars 29/05/2012, Palermo, ItalyTRANSCRIPT
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Socio-Technical Systems
Luca Sabatucci 29/05/2012 – SE Seminars – Palermo, Italy
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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
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Func Req with Visual Scenarios
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A demo is available at: http://acube.fbk.eu/it/node/106
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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
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Socio-technical systems
• 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
SLIDE BY IAN SOMMERVILLEFitting software to the organisation. 2008
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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
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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 functionality and usage of STSs.
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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
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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).
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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 assumes that its user is computer-literate.
The user has failed again
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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
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DESIGN
TECHNOLOGY
USER STUDY
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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
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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
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If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.
Henry Ford
Starting from needs often is not possible
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Design passes between different semantic communities
We need to assure patient
assistence, support,
privacy, …Family, support, ..human contact
We need to improve our service..and to decrease
costs… we should improve our algorithms and
infrastructures to recognize events,
situations, activities..
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• 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
STSs quickly evolve
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Socio-technical systems are striving to become the next grand challenge in ICT
research
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/programme/
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• 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/
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Disaster/Emergency Scenario
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Transportation Scenario
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Thanks