Stressing Office Technology's Non-Technical Side

Office technology projects are not a “quick and easy fix”. They often fail to meet their objectives. This is probably due to a lack of attention for the non-technical element in office technology projects. To develop this non-technical side, in this chapter we introduce the concepts of spirit and appropriation, adopted from Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST). Spirit concerns the intention of a certain technology. Advanced information technology use must be considered as a matter of appropriation. In theory, office technology carries a certain spirit, which should guide users, but this spirit can only be materialized when users work with, or appropriate, the technology. A precondition is that users have to have a clear image of this spirit. In this chapter, we report about the results of a study that show that if users of office technology find the spirit of the technology clear, they incorporate the technology better in their day-to-day tasks. Based upon these results we come up with a number of recommendations for office technology implementation and use.

Surfacing Occupational Threats to IT-Enabled Change

While the business press is awash with claims that investing in information technology (IT) is the key to delivering superior economic performance, unfortunately, it appears that reaping the benefits of IT investments is fraught with difficulty. Indeed, the introduction of IT into work organisations is generally marred with persistent reports of underperformance and failure. This chapter critiques the nature of this dilemma and, in particular, explores the role of diverse occupational groups in its perpetuation over time. Executive management tend to view the introduction of IT as an economic imperative while IT specialists tend to view it as a technical imperative. The coalescent nature of these two imperatives is such that the human and organisational aspects of IT related change are frequently marginalized and ignored. Achieving a more integrated approach to the introduction of IT is inordinately difficult since the narrow perspectives embraced by the executive and IT communities do not naturally attend to change in an integrated manner.

Service-Oriented Human Computer Interaction and Scripting

The emphasis of human-computer interaction (HCI) design on the technology and computer action tends to obscure consideration of the contribution of the computer interface to the service interaction. This chapter suggests that since a majority of commercial information systems support or provide services, the nature and progression of the service encounter should be a key concern of human computer interface designers. The chapter proposes the concept of service-oriented HCI in which HCI design is derived from service design, dialog is driven by customer needs and perceptions, activities that have led up to the service encounter are considered, and the service interaction dialog is aligned with the computer dialog. As part of service-oriented HCI, the chapter illustrates the use of scripting to examine ex-post the role of a computer interaction in a service encounter. It demonstrates that the computer dialog can drive the service interaction in such a way that the quality of the interaction is reduced and customer satisfaction affected. It concludes that the role of the computer system in a service interaction is an area for further research. Furthermore, script analysis may enable the development of human-computer dialogs that meet some of the criteria of service-oriented HCI.

Human Factors in the "System Selection" Stage of Library Automation

The aim of this study was to gain further insight into the suitability of a couple of different methods for investigating the possible human factors that have a significant bearing on the system selection of an automated library system. The two methods tested in this study included first a set of interviews whereby a number of people involved in library automation were asked to identify the factors that they perceived as having a significant bearing on the selection of an automated library system. The second interview method tested was the story telling approach, whereby a librarian was asked to tell her story of how and why the library that she worked for had chosen a particular library system. The results of this study showed that although both methods involved interviews, their outcomes varied somewhat where the story telling method highlighted the social interactions in a more noticeable way. A major point learned from this study was that particular attention should be paid to extracting information about more complex issues where the informants may not be able to easily identify or convey the required information.

Interactive Proxy for URL Correction

This chapter will address the issues of Uniform Resource Locator (URL) correction techniques in proxy servers. The proxy servers are more and more important in the World Wide Web (WWW), and they provide Web page caches for browsing the Web pages quickly, and also reduce unnecessary network traffic. Traditional proxy servers use the URL to identify their cache, and it is a cache-miss when the request URL is non-existent in its caches. However, for general users, there must be some regularity and scope in browsing the Web. It would be very convenient for users when they do not need to enter the whole long URL, or if they still could see the Web content even though they forgot some part of the URL, especially for those personal favorite Web sites. We will introduce one URL correction mechanism into the personal proxy server to achieve this goal.

Change and Challenge

In addition to changing the ways organizations do business, the adoption of e-business forces significant changes to the organizations themselves—in culture, structure, and in what needs to be managed and how it is managed. This chapter describes characteristics of e-business that impact organizational management, focuses on four major ways in which organizational management is impacted, and offers some major guidelines for success in managing in an e-business environment. Understanding the challenges and adopting new management styles and techniques are critical success factors for the netcentric organization.

Issues in End-User Behavior

What happens when end users do not respect the IS organization and have high computer self-efficacy? Will the end users develop usable systems and will they ignore IS? This chapter reports on a study of end-user computing within the engineering organizations of an electric utility undergoing deregulation. The study was initiated when management perceived that too much engineering time was spent doing IS functions. The study found that there was significant effort being expended on system development, support, and ad hoc use. Several issues were identified affecting system development, use of programming standards, documentation, infrastructure integration, and system support.

Emerging Practices and Standards for Designing Business Web Sites

A well-designed and implemented Web site can give a business the edge in the online environment. In part this can be achieved by utilizing the appropriate encoding language, incorporating metadata into Web pages and addressing accessibility issues for the disabled. These aspects of Web site implementation tend to be technically tangible and thus relatively easily definable. However, some of the subjective aspects of Web site development associated with information design, such as information quality, effective information visualization and presentation also contribute to a successful Web site strategy. In this chapter we report on some of the emerging technical and information design practices that a developer should consider in the implementation of business Web sites.

Web-STAR

This chapter introduces the research and application of the Web-STAR project, which began at Towson University in 2002. The main goal and purpose of the Web-STAR (Web-Survey Tool for Analyzing Requirements) project is to provide a standardized survey tool that developers can use to determine the user requirements for existing or new Web sites. The Web-STAR will allow this most vital stage in the development process to take place within a convenient, tested, and cost-effective method. Based on existing work in user evaluation design, Web-STAR will take sound development practices and apply them to user requirements in the design of informational websites. This chapter presents the research-in-progress development, testing and current status of Web-STAR.

User Acceptance of Online Computer Games

User interface design makes an important contribution to the effective presentation of online entertainment products. In this chapter, we examine two models in predicting user acceptance of online computer games. The first is the technology acceptance model (TAM) from the information systems field, while the second is a consumer behavior model based on marketing and advertising research. A field study was conducted to empirically test the two models. Results indicate that both models explain a significant amount of variance in our dependent variables: attitude toward the game and intention to return to the game, with TAM a more consistent predictor of both result variables. This study sheds light on research of Web-based product presentation in general and that of entertainment products such as online computer games in particular.