Human-centred system
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In 1974 Harry Braverman[1] suggested that that technology tends to undermine the skills that people use in their work. (There is evidence of this even in the software development industry[2]).The idea of human-centred systems is a reaction against this notion; human-centred systems aim to preserve or enhance human skills, in both manual and office work. Mike Cooley coined this term when he discussed,[3] amongst other work, the transition from traditional drafting at a drawing board to Computer-Aided Design .
A number of projects have attempted to see whether and how human-centred systems can be developed:
- the Utopia project in Scandinavia, where a group of computer scientists, social scientists and print workers together combined to design a workstation for newspaper layout.[4]
- in machine tools and computer-aided manufacture.[5]
- in clerical work.[6]
A different approach, with a similar name is Human-centered computing.
[edit] References
- ^ Labor and Monoply Capital. The Degradation of Work in the 20th Century, John Bellamy Foster and Harry Braverman, Monthly Review Press, 1998
- ^ Programmers and Managers: The Routinization of Computer Programmers in the United States, Philip Kraft, 1977
- ^ Architect or Bee?, Mike Cooley, South End Press, 1982
- ^ Ehn, P. & Kyng, M. . The Collective Resource Approach to Systems Design. In Bjerknes, G., Ehn, P., & Kyng, M. (Eds.), Computers and Democracy – A Scandinavian Challenge. (pp. 17–58). Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1987
- ^ Designing human-centred technology, HH Rosenbrock, Springer-Verlag, 1989
- ^ Gendered by Design?: Information Technology and Office Systems, Eileen Green, Jenny Owen, Den Pain, Taylor & Francis, 1993
