From Human Factors to Human Actors

I believe that there needs to be a better understanding among researchers, and many system designers too, about the "users" of computer systems and the settings in which they work. Part of the problem resides in an implicit view of ordinary people which, if surfaced, would seem to treat people as, at worst, idiots who must be shielded from the machine, or at best, as simply sets of elementary processes or "factors" that can be studied in isolation in the laboratory. Although psychology, particularly as represented by the fi eld of human factors (HF), or ergonomics, has had a long tradition of contributing to computer systems design and implementation it has often neglected vitally important issues such as the underlying values of the people involved and their motivation in the work setting.