Holistic performance assessment PART 5/7 : User-friendliness of the tools and their correspondence to natural human behavior

In this series of seven articles I want to focus on the qualitative assessment part of the holistic project assessment method that I created back in 2004. These articles focus on the part that assesses the working environment i.e. the human factors that affect the project performance and project to project learning.

The working environment is affected by the organization(s), groups, individuals, information systems and software involved in the project/operations. These are all factors that are very difficult to evaluate accurately and objectively.

The theoretical framework of the human part of the assessment method includes systems thinking, living systems theory, the holistic concept of man, hyperknowledge environment and motivational and behavioral theories. I will also dig into the theory behind each article in this series.

The parts of this article series are:

1. Communication efficiency
2. Efficiency of knowledge conversion
3. Organizational support for knowledge creation
4. Ability of working method to support decision making
5. User-friendliness of the tools and their correspondence to natural human behavior
6. Technical usability of the tools
7. Contribution of the operating environment

Now, it's time for the fifth part. This part is heavy on theory but it's interesting and worth to remember when assessing performance of human collaboration.

Part 5/7 : User-friendliness of the tools and their correspondence to natural human behavior

The user-friendliness of the methods and systems and their relevance to human behavior is perhaps the most important area to evaluate in the working environment of the holistic assessment method. The theoretical framework for dealing with these issues is extensive and discussed in later chapters of this article. User-friendliness is assessed through a disaggregated grading scale and is closely related to the information system user interface and internal data structure. The user interface should provide the user with the most natural means of communication with the system.

Support for Human Corporeality                          1       2       3       4       5

Support for Human Consciousness                       1       2       3       4       5

Support for Human Situationalism                       1       2       3       4       5

Support for Memory Systems of the Brain            1       2       3       4       5

Support for Interpretation Systems of the Brain     1       2       3       4       5

Support for Motivational Systems of the Brain      1       2       3       4       5

Support for Automatic Systems of the Brain         1       2       3       4       5

Likeness to Hyperknowledge Environment           1       2       3       4       5

Multisensory System                                           1       2       3       4       5

In order to be as humane as possible, the user interface should take into account the multisensory nature of the human being i.e. the human being observes the environment with all five senses. In addition, the system should be an extension of the user's cognitive world i.e. the interface should be so flexible that the user does not notice a shift from his or her own consciousness to the information environment. The information environment, in turn, should be similar to the hyperknowledge environment, where the form and location of the information are irrelevant.

According to the holistic concept of man, man is a being with three forms of existence: corporeality, consciousness and situationality. The working method and information system should consider man as a holistic entity and serve man in all forms of being. The method should take into account human bodily (e.g. ergonomics), conscious (e.g. meaning creation) and situational (e.g. mobility) needs. Different people want to use systems in different situations and according to different mental models. In addition, people may have physical limitations.

User-friendliness is also considered from the perspective of how the method or system supports human consciousness and conscious experience. The unconscious systems of the brain are closely related to the conscious experience of the human being. This can be thought also by using the theater metaphor introduced later in this article, being closely related to the unconscious audience of the theater play. Unconscious systems fall into four categories: memory systems, interpretation systems, motivational systems, and automatic systems. When considering user-friendliness, the ability of the working method to support these human unconscious systems must be considered. The better the method or information system supports human consciousness, the more it is a continuation of the human cognitive world and thus increases the human capacity for action.

Holistic perception of man

There have been many definitions of human existence over time. Philosophers have always been aware of the importance of analyzing human perception and have worked hard to find out what man is. There is a wide variety of different human concepts as defined by philosophers and their diversity has been influenced by many environmental factors (e.g. culture and era).

According to Rauhala [1], the basic ontological form of man can be presented in three divisions. Ontology is a discipline of philosophy that explores what the world is and what it contains [2]. Rauhala's three basic forms of human existence are illustrated in Figure 1 and can be named as follows [1]:

·        Corporeality (existence as an organic event)

·        Consciousness (psychic-spiritual existence)

·        Situationality (existence as relations to reality).

From the point of view of empirical human research, this basic ontological tripartite structure is not sufficient, but it reveals the fundamental difference between problem types and is therefore significant. All three aspects of being are equally primary and necessary for the realization of man as what is called man - no aspect can be missing. However, in the holistic view of the human being, the aspects of man are not separate in the way that causal relationship would require, but they are together in a much more intimate way, since the very aspects of man in their mutual connection form the basis for one another. [1]

The holistic concept of man offers three different but closely interwoven levels to look at. Business leaders and decision-makers can also take a holistic view of people into their own operations. Particularly when operating in environments composed of multiple organizations, groups, and individuals, it is important to consider that each individual is a different entity consisting of three forms of existence. This helps to better understand a particular person in a given situation and as part of a group or organization. See Figure 1 below. [3]

Figure 1. The basic forms of human existence according to the holistic concept of man. [3]

Human Corporeality

Externally visible behavior manifests itself as bodily activity, with experience forming the conscious dimension that intertwines with it [4]. Corporeality builds up the physical component of human existence and allows for two other forms of being. The brain, nervous system, and sensory organs are necessary for human observation of objects in a given situation, and consciousness to create meaning for them [5]. In human interaction (active computer user or decision-maker) with the computer or other physical activities related to decision-making, bodily function is also manifested in the use of the musculoskeletal system [6]. The basic characteristic of physicality is that a person must have a certain physical location [5].

There are also two other forms of human being reflected in corporeality. A negative situation can manifest itself as physical nausea and physical pain can cause a person to experience their entire existence as a gloom. Also, a mere thought (a consciousness phenomenon) can manifest itself as a bodily reaction and manifestation of a situation different from the moment before. [7]

Human Consciousness

The way of consciousness and its events are completely different from that of corporeality. Consciousness is the whole of human experience, the basic structure of which is mindfulness. The mind is the means by which one understands or knows, feels, believes, dreams, etc. The mind is always manifested or experienced in some state of consciousness or experience. One can never perceive consciousness itself, but always its contents, where consciousness exists. [1]

In the holistic concept of man, the terms consciousness and mind (thoughts) are distinguished. Consciousness is the totality of a person's psychic-mental existence. The mind is used in a more functional sense to describe the mental processes that make up consciousness. Thus, according to the holistic conception of the human mind, the mind is a continuous process in which meanings are created, changed and related to one another. Thus, mind does not exist as it is without being born of meanings [6]. The emergence of meaning is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The emergence of meaning [6]

Meanings are interconnected in thoughts and thus form networks of meanings. The totality of these networks is called the human worldview. It is a kind of personal repository that captures the accumulation of knowledge or understanding and the connection with the mind throughout a person's life. Man understands new and old phenomena in relation to his or her worldview. [6]

Meanings can be classified into different categories. One important group of meanings is knowledge. Knowledge can be defined either narrowly or broadly. Narrow definition encompasses scientific findings and other types of explicit knowledge. Broadly defined, all types of meanings are information known as tacit knowledge. Knowledge can also be thought of as a subcategory of information. [6]

The meanings are not always clear and unambiguous, but they may be unclear or distorted. In any case, man always understands the present subject on the basis of meanings. Meanings in the human mind are constantly rearranged and at the same time meanings can be forgotten, meaning they are sinking into the subconscious, from which they can eventually be reintroduced. Figure 3 depicts an active person making decisions and acting on different types of meanings. In other words, man is not merely acting on the basis of knowledge in its narrow or broad sense. [6]

Figure 3. Active person and different meaning types [6]

Understanding refers to the understanding of an object by means of minds and meanings. For example, when looking at a company decision-maker from the point of view of consciousness, he/she always acts on his/her own understanding. There are both psychic and spiritual aspects to this. The psychic side is merely the instinctive experience of all beings, and the spiritual side is only the human inherent ability to look at their actions and experiences as if from the outside and to subject them to evaluation. Thus, man is not merely a mechanically responsive being to stimuli. [4]

Consciousness is associated with an ability that is specific to humans. Man is able to think himself thinking the world. It also means that one is able to think of the world in many different ways, to connect what he or she perceives to his or her experience of the world, and thus to make judgments that can influence one's intentions and ultimately actions. This line of thought refers to the model of an active person in the world. This model is shown in Figure 4 below. Man is able to perceive parts of the world, to assign meanings to his observations, to evaluate his observations, to formulate intentions for certain acts and to perform those acts. These actions change the perceived world slightly and thus the process begins again from the beginning [8].

Figure 4. Process model of an active person in the world [8]

Human Situationality

Situationality is based on situation, or the situation of life. It refers to everything that the human corporeality and consciousness have relations with. The situation thus defines the part of the world with which man is related. [9]

To put it simply, situationality means that as one intertwines with the components of his/her situation, one becomes as what is required by their nature. Some of the components of a person's situation are determined by fate i.e. they cannot be influenced by the person. Many components of one's situation, on the other hand, can be selected by the person and thus he/she can modify his/her situationality. A very fundamental division in the structure of the situation is the division into concrete and ideal components. The human situation is independent of the constraints of time and place. [1]

The components of the situation are divided into concrete and ideal in order to illustrate the diverse nature of the situation. The concrete components are all kinds of real and physical factors, while the ideal ones are mainly intangible factors such as values, norms, ideas and relationships. [4]

Situationality emphasizes that man does not exist as such in a vacuum-like state, but always in relation to reality and its many facets. The world (reality) means everything that exists either concretely or conceptually. Situation refers to that part of the world with which a certain person forms connections and relationships. Different people may understand exactly the same object in their situation in different ways. This is due to differences in their worldviews, because people understand objects based on their worldviews. [6]

The Theater Metaphor of Conscious Human Experience

Consciousness encompasses many things: immediate perceptions of the world, inner speech and imagery, the present and its dull remnants in immediate memory, bodily emotions (pleasure, pain, excitement, etc.), emotional distress, autobiographical memories, intentions, expectations, actions and beliefs about yourself and the world. Awareness is focused on a specific situation and under certain circumstances. However, a very large part of brain is unconscious functioning of countless small and specialized parts of the brain. So the brain works in a decentralized way, with the real work done by millions of specialized and sophisticated systems without any detailed instructions from any command center. [10]

Theater metaphor is practical in this context because consciousness creates access to many sources of information in the brain. And yet, only a fraction of the brain immediately supports conscious experience. This network of awareness includes the sensory areas of the cortex and some of the surrounding areas and structures. Together, they create a stage for the unconscious audience of other parts of the brain. Consciousness can thus be regarded as the "public body" of the brain, as it supports access to information, its sharing and exchange, and control over the whole. In fact, all models of mental activity today are theater models. [10]

The content of awareness at a given moment is surprisingly limited. For example, it is difficult for a person to read a text and listen to a conversation at the same time. In fact, human sensory systems receive little conscious information at any given time. Consciousness is the private arena in which man lives his/her life. Consciousness can be illustrated with theatrical metaphor by imagining a situation where a person enters the theater just before the show begins. As he enters the theater, he notices a stage, a rumbling audience, and some side doors that lead behind the stage. As the lights dim and the audience becomes silent, the lone beam of light passes through the descending darkness and is ultimately the only thing visible. The viewer knows that other viewers, actors, contributors, and the user of the spotlight are present and working together under invisible guidance to perform events on the stage. As the lights dim, only the focused content of the consciousness remains visible and everything else is dark. [10]

Figure 5 shows Bernard J. Baars' view of conscious experience in theater metaphor. In it, the content of consciousness is limited to a brightly lit focus on the stage, and the rest of the stage corresponds to a person's immediate working memory. Behind the scenes are the management processes, which include the play director and the users of the devices etc. operating in many different contexts and modifying the conscious experience without coming visible. There is a huge amount of intelligent unconscious mechanisms in the audience. Some members of the public are automated routines (such as brain mechanisms that control eye movement, speech, or hand movement). Others relate to autobiographical memory, semantic networks of human knowledge of the world, declarative memory of beliefs and facts, and implicit memories of attitudes, skills, and social interaction. Parts of working memory (on stage but not in the spotlight) are also unconscious. [10]

Figure 5. The theater metaphor of conscious experience. [10]

It should be noted that different "feeds" to the stage can work together to put the actor into the spotlight of consciousness. This process is called convergence. Once on the scene, however, conscious information is dispersed as it is widely distributed to members of the public. By far, most activities take place outside consciousness [10].

Theater metaphor of conscious experience can also be illustrated in another way. Figure 6 shows a theater metaphor of conscious experience developed by Hannu Vanharanta and resembling an ancient amphitheater [11]. The circles in the model can rotate in relation to the stage, so that the dynamics of the model and the variations in its capabilities are clearly visible. However, the structure of the model follows fairly closely the principles put forward by Baars.

Figure 6. Circles of mind [11]

Both models have the same actors, which will be explored in more detail below. The working memory acts as a stage for the theater. The working memory consists of images of the mind and of internal speech. It receives sensory perceptions and abstract information, controls internal conversation, and uses images of the mind to solve space problems. However, the working memory is considerably limited and can handle only one thing at a time. These things form a chain of events - just as in a theater, the audience can see in the spotlight one actor speaking to the audience at a time. [10]

Actors, in turn, act as content for conscious experience. Awareness is about competition and collaboration between aspiring “actors”. Conscious experience is always a mixture of collaborating factors and feeds that are incompatible with others are simply rejected by consciousness [10]. The content of the conscious experience becomes “visible” when the beam of attention is focused on the actor on the stage of the working memory. There are three types of actors: external senses, inner senses and ideas. The external senses, or rather their use, produce conscious experiences. Thus, seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling act as the content of conscious experience i.e. as actors. The inner senses, respectively, produce visual images of the mind, inner speech, dreams, and imagined emotions on the stage of conscious experience. Producing images of the mind can be called "seeing with the soul". The third type of actor is imaginary and verbalized ideas as well as intuitions on the verge of consciousness. Boundary awareness includes, for example, the following experiences: a feeling of knowing (though not knowing exactly), familiarity, beauty, kindness, inappropriateness of something, and deep feelings of 'justice'. All Actors can be compared to the meanings forming in consciousness. [11]

Contexts work behind the scenes and shape events on the stage. This involves unconscious operators in different contexts, who create a backdrop for the actors in the spotlight. Operators are invisible behind the scenes but have a powerful influence on consciousness [10]. Behind-the-scenes resources are unconscious sources of information that shape a conscious experience. There are three types of resources (operators): the director, the spotlight controller and the local contexts. [7]

The last and most important part of theater metaphor is the audience for which the entire play is designed. People do many things unconsciously, and neural networks that perform unconscious functions are so widely spread to cover the entire brain that there is a huge community of specialized systems (cf. general theory of living systems). The brain's unconscious community needs a stage, a beam and a director to answer the question of how to mobilize all specialized unconscious networks for survival and reproduction. According to this view, consciousness distributes a small amount of information to a huge audience in the brain. [10]

The unconscious audience is divided into four groups: memory systems, interpretation systems, motivational systems and automatic systems. Memory systems deal with vocabularies, semantic networks, autobiographical and declarative memory, beliefs, and knowledge about the world, ourselves, and others. These are conscious experiences stored in memory throughout life. Interpretation systems interpret the content of the spotlight of consciousness. They recognize objects, faces, speech, and space relationships, perform syntactic analyzes, and draw social conclusions. Motivational systems compare conscious events to a person's goals and deal with potential conflicts about goals. In addition, motivational systems handle emotional reactions and facial expressions and prepare the body for action. Automatic systems concern skill memory, language details, activity management, reading, thinking, etc. [11]

There is a certain connection between the stage and the audience. The spotlight selects the most important events on the stage that are shared with an audience of unconscious routines and information sources. The audience may whistle or clap to hear more or less a particular actor. Audience members also exchange information with each other and form groupings that seek to bring other messages to the stage. Thus, the audience triggers automatic reactions (e.g., information retrieval and actions) that are consistent with the goals. [11]

Hyperknowledge Environment

The concept of hyperknowledge is influenced by technologies of hypertext and hypermedia and the architecture of hypertext systems [12, 13]. Hypertext is linked text and does not need to be read systematically from beginning to end, but the reader can move from one paragraph to another based on logical context, regardless of where the paragraphs or documents are (logically or physically) relative to one another. Hypertext is a concept that describes the presentation, availability, structure and storage of computer-based documentation. Hypermedia, in turn, is the application of the concept of hypertext to multimedia documents. [14]

Hypermedia contains the same types of information as multimedia. An essential feature of hypertext and hypermedia is geographical independence [14]. Multimedia generally refers to "the multiple mediators between the source of information and the subject" or "the multiple means by which information is stored, transmitted, displayed, or detected". Digital multimedia can be defined as a discipline that involves the computer-controlled combination of text, graphics, images, animation, motion pictures and sounds. The multimedia discipline is also associated with all other media that allow the presentation, storage, transmission or digital processing of all types of information. [14]

However, the concept of hyperknowledge is broader than what can be explained with hypertext and hypermedia. Hyperknowledge is an environment that stores information and is similar in nature to hypertext and hypermedia. A person can navigate freely in a hyperknowledge environment and increase their knowledge of different concepts. The hyperknowledge environment is closely related to the theory of decision support systems [12]. The hyperknowledge-based strategic management support system can be considered as one of the tools leading to the success of a company [15].

Multisensory Systems

In a hyperknowledge environment, an active user receives one or possibly more impressions i.e. perceptions, from the concept they are considering [13]. This is illustrated in Figure 7 below. Each impression is represented by multimedia (text, graphics, image, animation, video, audio), possibly multisensory illustration. Presentation takes place through the system interface via output devices (e.g. computer screen, data projector, virtual helmet, speaker, headset, etc.). This way, the active user senses the concept through a number of "windows" and thus gets a holistic view of the concept.

Figure 7. Multiple windows conveying different perspectives on the same underlying concept [13]

Assisted and encouraged by the technologies, the user can get closer to the issues, objects, attributes, and their relationships of a particular area of interest. With the help of information on the computer, the active user can strengthen their associative thinking. This, in turn, gives the user new opportunities to monitor and analyze current information. [13]

Communication between different sources of information (people, groups, organizations, information systems) is constantly increasing. This carries with it the risk of excessive information arising from the difficulty of transforming the information into knowledge. Multimedia offers opportunities to enhance knowledge acquisition by returning to more natural communication channels that activate multiple human senses [14]. Generally speaking, a multimedia system has four features that can also define the concept of multimedia: systems are computer-controlled, they are integrated, the information they contain can be processed and presented digitally, and their user interface enables interactivity. [14]

People are multisensory i.e. they perceive their environment through a variety of senses (vision, hearing, sensation, smell and taste). Although many multimedia systems are multisensory, it is important that the multimedia field is not automatically perceived as multisensory. Multisensory systems provide a more natural and “user-friendly” connection between humans and multimedia applications [14]. Multisensory multimedia systems promote knowledge acquisition and retention (remembering) by providing people with a variety of sensory stimuli at the same time and by enabling human-system interaction. [14]

Hypermedia and thus the hyperknowledge environment is characterized by geographical independence. The objects in the information system, the physical parts of the information system, and the people using the system are thus free to move relative to one another. Wisely et al. [16] divide mobility into terminal device and personal mobility. Terminal mobility means that the mobile device changes its attachment point to the network and personal mobility means that the person using the system moves from one device to another. In both cases, the connection to the system can be maintained uninterrupted (either through a genuinely continuous connection or a seemingly continuous session connection). The terms "macro-mobility" and "micro-mobility" may also be used to address terminal mobility. These refer to mobility in either a large or a narrow area. [16] Mobility, combined with multimedia systems and devices, opens up new dimensions to information acquisition and management and enables new competitive advantages.

Holistic User of an Information System

By combining the theoretical frameworks of hyperknowledge and the holistic concept of man, one can look at the human conceptual frameworks and processes of the mind from a slightly wider perspective. At the same time, the integration of frameworks provides insights into the challenges and problems encountered in the design of decision support systems [3].

Thus, a computer system can be an object in the user's situation and thus affect his or her corporeality and consciousness. Man is connected to the information system through a certain kind of user interface. Through the user interface, a human can connect to and influence (or allow the object to influence himself/herself) an object in a hypertext environment. The user interface usually requires physical contact, which makes the user's body physically necessary. [3]

Corporeality has many dimensions that need to be considered when designing and using complex information systems. Many external factors influence human activity and activity when using information systems. Such factors include comfort, noise, screen reflections, keyboard, mouse, chair and lighting. Continued use of the computer is accompanied by physical symptoms such as headache, neck pain, wrist pain and eye fatigue. These symptoms are general and typical to some extent for all computer users, but using certain applications causes more problems than others. This is affected by the application's user interface, and in particular its layout, graphics, navigation functions and redundancy. The information system thus has an impact on the user's corporeality. The system also has a strong influence on the user's consciousness. [3]

Generally speaking, action always comes from the will of man to act. Thus, man uses the information system of his own free will, which is partly based on his previous experience, everyday knowledge and scientific knowledge. Will is also influenced by the conceptual side of the worldview, such as beliefs, feelings and intuition. Decision support applications should therefore be designed to best match human decision making processes and fit into processes of the human mind. Compatibility can be considered ideal when the user interface is so flexible that one does not notice the shift from consciousness to hyperknowledge environment. [3]

Situationality is usually only related to the external environment of a man. When looking at information systems and the hyperknowledge environment, situationality contains not only the human external environment, with its connections and relationships with corporeality and consciousness, but also with another component: the computer with its hyperknowledge environment. From the perspective of the computer user, it is not possible to distinguish the normal external environment from the hyperknowledge environment, since all human beings are woven into a holistic whole. [3]

However, the computer environment is only a small part of its user situationality and therefore the content of the hyperknowledge environment data structure plays a very important role. When designing an information system, it must be taken into account how often the data structure is updated, who decides its content, how detailed the information should be, etc. Since each user situation is unique, the application should allow for unique access for different users. [3]

References

[1] Rauhala, L. 1989. Ihmisen ykseys ja moninaisuus. Helsinki, Sairaanhoitajien koulutussäätiö.

[2] Checkland, P. 1981. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. Great Britain, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

[3] Vanharanta, H., Pihlanto, P., Chang, A-M. 1997. Decision Support for Strategic Management in a Hyperknowledge Environment and The Holistic Concept of Man. In: Sprague, R.H. Jr. (ed.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Vol V, Information Systems – Organizational Systems and Technology. Los Alamitos, IEEE Computer Society Press

[4] Pihlanto, P. 1991. Holistinen ihmiskäsitys ja laskentatoimen roolit. Turun kauppakorkeakoulun julkaisuja, Keskustelua ja raportteja 6:1991. Turku, Turun kauppakorkeakoulu.

[5] Pihlanto, P. 1997. The Holistic Concept of Man and Perspectives on Accounting Research. Publications of the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, A-11:1997. Turku, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration.

[6] Vanharanta, H., Pihlanto, P., Chang, A-M. 2002. A New Theoretical Framework for Computer Applications Using the Holistic Concept of Man and the Theater Metaphor for Conscious Experience. Proposal for a Paper to the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[7] Pihlanto, P. 2003. Ihmisen määrittelyä: Holistinen ihmiskäsitys ja tietoisen kokemisen teatterimetafora. Luentomateriaali alustuksesta Luonnonfilosofian seurassa Helsingissä 22.5.2003. Turun kauppakorkeakoulu.

[8] Checkland, P., Holwell, S. 1998. Information, Systems and Information Systems: Making Sense of the Field. Great Britain, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

[9] Perttula, J. 1995. Kokemus psykologisena tutkimuskohteena – johdatus fenomenologiseen psykologiaan. Tampere, Suomen fenomenologinen instituutti.

[10] Baars, B.J. 1997. In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind. New York, Oxford University Press Inc

[11] Vanharanta, H., Pihlanto, P. 2001. A New Theoretical Framework to Support Project Managers’ Personal Mastery. First Draft Report.

[12] Vanharanta, H. 1993. Competitive Financial Benchmarking with Hyperknowledge. Research report 5/93. Åbo, Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research.

[13] Vanharanta, H. 1995. Hyperknowledge and Continuous Strategy in Executive Support Systems. Academic dissertation. Åbo, Åbo Akademi University Press.

[14] Fluckiger, F. 1995. Understanding Networked Multimedia: Applications and Technology. Great Britain, Prentice Hall International Ltd

[15] Carlsson, C. 1995. Hyperknowledge Support Systems as Instruments for Corporate Success. Research report 9/95. Åbo, Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research.

[16] Wisely, D., Eardley, P., Burness, L. 2002. IP for 3G: Networking Technologies for Mobile Communications. Great Britain, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.