ICS 131: Social Analysis of Computerization

Lecture 2:

Identifying and analyzing

social issues

Key Ideas

• Technical content operates in a

non-technical context.

• Social context is central to technology.

Identify Social Issues

• Goals of Project

• Assumptions

• Stakeholders

• Impacts

Goals of Project

• Why do it?

• Who’s deciding?

Example: Blog software

• Goals– Online journal– Rapid sharing of information– Easy to start up and use– Others

• Who’s deciding?– Coders

Assumptions

• Something that must be true in order for the rest of the discussion to be relevant.

• Implicit -> explicit

• Pre-conditions (make it possible) vs. post-conditions (make it relevant)

• Degree of importance/relevance (e.g., the Earth isn’t going to stop spinning)

Example: Blog software

• Assumptions– Pre-conditions

• Common technology.

• Networked computers.

• Freedom of speech.

• Technically feasible.

– Post-conditions• Someone uses it.

• Interested readers.

– Others…

Stakeholders

• Designer

• Client

• Society

• Others…

Example: Blog software

• Stakeholders:– Software Designers– Bloggers and potential bloggers– Readers– Society as a whole– Politicians– Businesses

Stakeholders

• What do we know about them?– Backgrounds– Goals/Motivations– Preferences/Needs

Example: Blog software

• Stakeholder - Readers:– Background:

• Technically competent

• Interested in topic

– Goals/Motivations:• Keep up with events

• Keep up with friends

– Preferences/Needs:• Seeking information

• Ease of use

Impacts

• Intended - What does it do for the client when it operates correctly?

• Side effects - What else does it do?

• Externalities - Side effect to someone other than the intended client.

Example: Blog software

• Impacts: Intended– Lets a blogger tell his/her friends what their cat

ate for dinner, or who they’re going to vote for and why.

– Lets a reader find out about their friends and see what other people think.

Example: Blog software

• Impacts: Side Effects– Makes bloggers famous– Gets the word “blog” in Merriam-Webster’s

dictionary

Example: Blog software

• Impacts: Externalities– Changes to political landscape.

• Howard Dean– Campaign greatly helped by

grassroots blogging.

– Until that fateful scream.

– Others?

Reading

• Herbert Simon– Economics, computer science, psychology,

design

• Definition of design– “Everyone designs who devises courses of

action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” (1969)

Software Design

• Understand existing situations

• Conceive of preferred ones– Preferred by whom?

A Note on Readings

• You may need a dictionary.• Terms I looked up the first time I read this:

– Club of Rome - global think tank– Externalities - defined earlier– Bounded rationality

• Rational - “acts in pursuit of its goals”• Bounded - “experience limits in formulating and solving

complex problems and in processing (receiving, storing, retrieving, transmitting) information” (Simon)

– Desideratum - “something desired as essential”

Discussion

• Process– Questions– Talk about them with neighbors– Eight people called up to the front to answer

them and discuss.

Topic for Discussion

• Imagine that someone invents a small, self-contained, wireless, web camera, and asks you to write software to allow anyone on the net to see what that camera sees in real time.

• Questions:– What are the goals?– What are the assumptions?– Who are the stakeholders?– What are the impacts?

• Discuss with neighbors - 5 minutes.

And our lucky contestants are...

• Kang, Ho-fan • Chen, Victor • Hasegawa, David Kiyoshi • Asuncion, Arthur Uy Jr. • Kan, Long Ting • Touch, Sika • Phimmasone, Navin • Bobba, Paul Vincent

…come on down front!

Next class

• Monday - Guest Lecture– Trends in Library Research– Julia Gelfand– Reading: SPARC Open Access Newsletter

• URL on syllabus, web site