Hard choices: soft systems. A human-centred approach to computer-supported decision-making

The move towards computer-mediated teamwork in complex safety-critical systems has opened up some interesting possibilities for new kinds of working environments. However, it has also brought many problems: some of which may not be adequately recognised within the mainstream disciplines currently focused on fields such as computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW). One major source of such problems concerns the human response to complex information, particularly the subjectivity of interpretation within the context of apparent consensus. It is critically important that the design and operation of any computer-based system for collaborative decision-making should be attentive to potential sources of subjectivity and false consensus. It is no longer possible to assume that all participants in a complex decision-making system are operating according to any kind of consensus interpretation of the information available to them. The author argues that the engineering systems approach must be treated with great circumspection, and that we need to pay much more attention to human-centred approaches to interface design.