The Design of Microcomputer-Based Personal Decision-Aiding Systems

Over the past ten years we have witnessed a transformation in the computer-based problem-solving process. In the early 1970' s computer-based information, decision, forecasting, and evaluation software systems were clumsy, barely interactive, and generally resident on relatively inaccessible macrocomputer mainframes. By the mid-1970' s significant progress had been made via the use of minicomputers and microcomputers and the introduction of problem-solving algorithms which for the first time began to recognize "users" as an integral part of the problem-solving process. During this interim period myriad generic and problem-specific problem-solving software systems were developed, sometimes applied, and intermittently evaluated. Some of these systems accepted and processed empirical information and some were oriented to the manipulation of subjective data. But nearly all of the systems failed to engender any real degree of system-user problem-solving cooperation. In the late-1970' s computer-based decision-aiding systems of all kinds continued to proliferate. But their development by and large was driven by enhancements made in hardware areas; problem-solving software was not significantly altered from a user-computer perspective. The next generation of computer-based problem-solving systems should be developed from a unique set of working premises. First, we should acknowledge that enhanced computer-based problem-solving is by no means dependent only upon advances in computer hardware.