This is an extended abstract of a paper I wrote in -93 called MESS -Ett enaktivt system för användarstöd. The original report is available through me or my department, but be warned, it is written i Swedish.
When I wrote my paper on MESS back in -93 I had never even heard of things like the World Wide Web. Now that I have I think that the Web very well could be the right environment for implementing at least some of the ideas described in my paper.

 

MESS -A New Way to Support Computer Users

MESS stands for Mike's Electronic Support System. The purpose of this essay is to show why a system like this is needed, what it should look like and how it works. I have deliberately left out the social and political aspects of the matter and concentrated on the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) related aspects.

What then is an ESS? That question is best answered by defining a few other terms. Let us start with CSCW which stands for Computer Supported Cooperative Work. That is a generic name for everything that has to do with group supporting Information Technology (IT). Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) is the field of research that deals with IT support for group decisions. GDSS includes, among other things, Information Centers (IC). The IC is a place where computer users can get help with problems like, how do I do this, why does not this work, what the he** is happening, and so on. It is meant to be a link between the users and the computer department. Today's user support is mainly accomplished by phone and through personal encounters. This is where the ESS comes in. It is meant to be a computerized tool that will improve the abilities of the ICs.

Today there is to my knowledge only one system that fits in to this description in existence. That is a system called ICE/H. A tool like this is needed to deal with some serious problems associated with IC support. One of the problems is that the need of support has increased rapidly through the last few years. Another problem is that the ICs are not providing the services that the users want due to communication problems between the users and the ICs. Furthermore the users should have better control over their tools in order to increase productivity and work satisfaction. To give the users this control the rational model of user support has to be abandoned. Unfortunately ICE/H only addresses the IC work overload and thus leaves a lot more to be desired.

Today's rational model of user support is a part of an objectivistic model of the world with the following outlines:

 

• The world can be described theoretically.
• The world consists of fixed entities and relations between these.
• The world exists independent of any observer.
• Logic relations exist objectively.
• Symbols represent reality.
• Cognition is equivalent to symbol processing.

Other parts of this model of the world is the cognitivistic model of the user, the cognitivistic model of interaction and the behaviouristic model of learning. The reason for the domination of these ideas in the field of computer science is that the world and man is described as entities with properties resembling those of computer systems, which makes these ideas easy to implement.

As a theoretical foundation for a new model of user support I have chosen Autopoiesis. Autopoiesis is the name of a theory developed by two scientists from Chile, Varela and Maturana. The emergent property of man is according to Autopoiesis the self-support of his own organization. It is a network of processes that produce components that, through its interactions and transformations, continually regenerate and realize the network of processes that produce them. Varela and Maturana claim that all enquiry and all resulting knowledge is realized through biological individuals' behaviour. One of the central concepts of Autopoiesis is the observer. To observe is the beginning of all understanding and logic. A description is not a representation of an object or a phenomenon. It is a separated part of the observer's own experiences. Cognition is treated by Autopoiesis as a biological phenomenon. Information is not quantifiable and and humans are not information processing machines. The organism is its world's history. When people communicate they do it on a common arena consisting of their previous interactions. The important thing is not what is being transferred but what is happening to the interceptor. Communication leads to increased concordance between the interactors. All communication needs a background to which it can relate. The communication also influences that background.

The Autopoietic view of the world leads to an enactive model of user support. According to this model the user needs to have a virtual picture of how the system works, to be able to use and learn more about the system. The picture has to be manufactured by himself and can be used as background to the conversation whenever he needs help from an IC. The picture has to be multi-dimensional in order to allow the user to move to lower levels of abstraction without losing the higher ones. The model is called enactive because it implies an active learning process.To conclude. We need a system that can make use of the user as a resource in the support process. The users have one important advantage to the IC-experts when it comes to supporting other users and that is the fact that their pictures of the system are on approximately the same level of abstraction. The users are also needed to relieve the ICs of some of the pressure. We also need better ways for the users to influence the ICs. Therefore we need MESS.

MESS consists of several Personal Dictionaries (PD) and connections between the users and the IC. The PD is used to store information about the personal system environment. This information can be in the form of text, icons and pictures. The PD works as a data base where you can create links between different pieces of information. This means that you can create a top layer consisting of the main purposes of the computerized tool e.g. typing, lay-out and printing, each represented by an icon. You can then create a link between each of the icons and screens containing information about that area. As the user gets to know the system better, the requirements of stored information about it grows. More levels of information adressing specific problems and details are added.

The user does not, however, have to contribute all the information himself. In its initial state the PD contains a foundation of information based on other users' experiences. The idea is that the user should fortify this information as he takes it in. This is done by changing its colour. So if, for example, the initially provided information is blue, the user changes everything that he has understood and considers relevant to red. Everything that the user enters himself is of course also red while additions made by others would appear in blue.

The interaction channels between the IC and the users can be switched between on- and off-line mode so that messages either appear as talk requests or e-mail. The user's PD is used as a setting for all communications. The interaction channels also serve as a way for users to influence the IC through discussions. Finally, let us have a look a the problems stated earlier and see what MESS can do to solve these problems:

 

• The ICs are overloaded:
  • The users can solve more problems by themselves.
  • The users can be used as a resource.
  • Sometimes only the PD has to be consulted.
• The users can not influence the IC:
  • Better channels for communication and discussion.
  • The IC can centre on the needs of the users.
• The users can not control and utilize their tools properly:
  • The computer maturity grows faster.
• The methods for solving problems does not increase the users knowledge:
  • The model supports better methods for solving problems.

 

To Mikael Jakobsson's [ home page ]

Responsible: Mikael Jakobsson (Last updated 22 Apr 1999)