Potential from The Phoenix...

Eric Schaffer concurs that under today's corporatism, the first step  
in any usability implementation is to identify the executive to  
champion the effort, and to rely on the authoritarianism of this  
individual to motivate group actions toward efficient communication  
output. Under today's top-down authoritarianism, usability effort is  
useless without first establishing an executive champion. However,  
since executive champions are also humans, reliance on their  
subjectivity, authority, and human bias is anything but scientific;  
the method is, in fact, political.

If strict objectives are the means by which to establish scientific  
methods and reliable data upon which to draw valid conclusions and to  
establish more valid research, then the top-down model is no longer  
viable in information science. This is, in part, because  
authoritarianism misappropriates the problem-solving method that is  
the very basis for the objective science; Do it, "because The Boss  
says so" undermines the investigation process that would otherwise  
render valid development specifications.

Further, the ONLY possible means a corporate executive champion posses  
to motivate individuals intent on implementing a user-centered project  
is that of fear--not of desire. The establishment has come first; the  
executive champion has been established, and team members know from  
where their paychecks come. Yet, motivation via fear is neither a  
cultivator of honest, open-minded willingness to collaborate, nor is  
it a creative force, as is the willing desire to create something of  
beauty. Moreover, fear might be a good motivator for a war effort, but  
it is completely out of context for peaceful healthcare  
administration, since healthcare is the antithesis of war. As the  
result, motivating healthcare and its information management via fear,  
is actually a form of politics--therefore, war by other means.

Under no circumstances are corporatism and usability analysis/ 
usability development compatible. Since corporatism must serve  
authority rather than the cooperative collaborative effort, it MUST  
continue to produce dancing bears of novelty to sell--efficient,  
usable tools only by chance. Willing cooperative collaboration through  
direct, accountable responsibility of ownership of one's actions and  
liabilities, is the underlying truth to be coded into user-centered  
healthcare informatics projects. Healthcare informatics projects that  
do not employ users as sole proprietary methods to achieve  
interactivity specifications are inexact in goals, since they do not  
serve users--they serve authorities.

Therefore, false hierarchy has neither place in hardcoding healthcare  
information management projects, nor in healthcare in general.  
Instead, conflict resolution between individuals engaged in user- 
centered projects and healthcare must rely on moderated, unbiased  
socratic methods to unanimously adjudicate ultimate authority that  
leads group efforts.

Expect the old Industrial-Age paradigm of top-down--that which has  
even been applied to software development--to go the way of the  
dinosaur. With its demise, the Truthful Information Age has a  
possibility of being born--with healthcare informatics leading the way.

Greg Austin
[email protected]
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