Just for the record, today is my official graduation day from Claremont Graduate University. I printed the following from the student portal. My friend Jeff Ranck once referred to my list of graduate degrees as "more education than any decent person should have". I heartily agree. The actual diploma will take a while to receive. My plan is walk in commencement in May. Date and time to be determined. I'll let family know about it, but quite frankly, I wouldn't wish attending on an enemy, let alone family. Cue Brahm's Academic Festival Overture......
Warning!! The following information has been known to cause drowsiness and loss of consciousness. Do not read while driving or operating heavy machinery!
Abstract of the Dissertation
Audience Directed Models and Software Design: How Developer Mental Models of Users Influence the Design of Enterprise System Features
By
Rand Weston Guthrie
Claremont Graduate University – 2008
Information science research frequently seeks to discover the means by which practitioners can use information technologies (IT) to accomplish their goals. From an organizational perspective, the goal of IT is generally presumed to be an increase in individual and/or organizational performance. A successful implementation of an information technology can therefore be thought of simplistically as one in which the use of the new technology improved performance. Prior research has shown that one determinant of improved performance is how well the functionality of an organization’s information technologies fits with the user’s tasks. Theories relating to IT acceptance, adoption and success suggest a positive relationship between the task the user needs to accomplish and the task the software was designed to accomplish, but little has been done to explain how the IT artifact makes design intent apparent to the user.
This research examines a possible relationship between design intent and fit: namely, how the designer’s mental model of an enterprise system’s intended use influences the design of the functionality and appearance of the application’s component features. Using a positivistic case study methodology, mental models of intended use held by seven teams of enterprise system software developers were identified and classified. These models were then related to the developers’ statements about their specific design decisions. The results confirm that developers’ mental models influence the design of software UI in ways that are apparent to the end-user, and supports theories that suggest that software has a “spirit” that consists in part of an intended use. The research contributes to our understanding of the source of that spirit, and identifies specific ways in which software developers bias features towards a specific type of use.
7 comments:
Congratulations! Quite a killer accomplishment. Lori (James Mom)
Zipidi-du-dah (or however you spell that)!
What a relief. You are amazing. I don't know how you stuck with it for so long. But you did.
Well, I actually did read the abstract and the theory sounds interesting because I've had to teach myself how to use several complicated music programs, and I have seen a huge difference between the program designs.
I think that the idea behind your research should be more obvious to software developers and programmers than maybe it is. My questions are these:
WHAT did you prove (although from the abstract it is obvious that you confirmed a relationship)?
HOW did developer ideas actually influence software design?
And, probably the most practical question from a design standpoint, HOW do you get each design team to envision the same "spirit" so that each aspect of the program design functions congruently as a whole?
Please describe in 250 words or less your results...
Congratulations! Thanks for the abstract rather than your hundreds of pages! Glad to hear you made it!
-- Melissa
A rule of thumb in my line of work is that you lose half the audience with every equation you present. In this case, you've managed it with no equations at all. Good work!
Congratulations! I envy you.
I am very proud of you and very impressed. I didn't realize you had all those Degrees. But what impresses me more is that I actually understood your Abstract.
Maybe it's because I've been fasting all day....I'm still in zen. I can hear Dad's sigh of relief on the completion of a job well done. Congratulations brother!!!
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