Don’t Just Automate
Re-Engineer

• The design team is in a unique position to re-design the work practice

• Consolidated models provide an overall picture of the current work practices

• Redefining roles, lines of communication, physical layouts, sequence of activities, and useful artifacts.

Slide Comments:

Note to Instructor: It is important for students to recognize that just going into a company and automating a current paper process is likely to result in a computer system that will not only have the same problems as the paper one, but is likely going to introduce new ones because it alters the dynamics of a system. The dynamics of the current system likely had ad hoc fixes that may no longer be possible after it is automated, so new ad hoc fixes will have to be created.

Design is about recognizing how a system works. The work models are to help designers recognize the different aspects of the work and how people go about their tasks and what problems they encounter. This is to help them see the implications to design of the system they are creating.