UCD

Joshua Seiden said: "What does it mean to "optimize the goals of multiple
human perspectives"? How can you optimize a goal? Are we designing people's
goals, or the stuff they use to fulfill those goals?"

1. Optimizing the goals of multiple human perspectives...let's take a
particular scenario to bear. Assume that we're designing a system that
employees interact with to support a customer (for example: the 60+
applications call center reps have to switch between to support a call to
any Verizon center). While the 'user' would be the call center
representative, the greatest impact is on the customer calling in and
whether or not their goals are being met. But those goals have to be weighed
against the goals (as a 'human bean') of the call center rep trying to 'play
the game' and make as much money as they can and meet their sales quotas
(which, from my perspective were incredibly aggressive) -- all the while
receiving communications via wall displays, alarms, pages being thrown on
their desk, all redirecting and updating them on their goals for the day -- 
individually and as a team. That same system could impact the team
coordinators and their payout (incentives...why they come to work each
day...their goals for being at work and doing their job). Standing in the
middle of a scenario like this, it could take a full-time effort (dedicated
resource) just to sort out and mitigate all of these goals and the impact
they have on design.

2) You optimize a goal by first defining it in context to the priority it is
assigned by the individual to their other goals...this too, can be a
full-time effort. I've seen far too many cases where an individual expressed
a 'need', but that need was never set in context to a whole list of other
needs that had a higher priority. The business ended up investing
considerable resources to deliver something that only had moderate value to
the individuals impacted. The goal is to optimize a business's resources by
delivering high-value goal assistance first.

3) This is really important as to why I'm anti "user". It is important to
keep the 'stuff' in perspective. Even when designing the 'stuff' to fulfill
the goal, it's important to make the 'stuff' secondary to the goal. We don't
design goals, we optimize designs to achieve the goals. The highest order of
success is when the 'stuff' becomes invisible (or as close to absolute zero
as possible) to the process (method to achieve the goal). Except in the case
of 'being' (vs. 'doing') scenarios, individuals could care less what they
use, as long as it helps them meet their goal and satisfies their other
high-priority needs (having fun, not getting frustrated, getting done as
quickly as possible, etc....we should have a standard list to start
from...).

Good questions!



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