From Pelle Ehn's writing, we get the idea that the understanding of the task to be done may never be perfect, but it may never need to be perfect. The magic lies in the back-and-forth between developer and user, creating new understanding about the task at hand and the tools being created. It is easy to look at Ehn's team's assignment from 1986 and think that we are long past the days when people couldn't understand how the computer could help them. However, every organization working on improving their organizational process is faced with this problem. Until the system gets delivered and put into use, there is really no way that the users can tell how the presence of the new system will change the ways they work with each other, and the ways they carry out their jobs. |