The Human Element in Systems Design

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews the work of Edsger Dijkstra and mentors who brought human factors to the science of systems design. The author explains Dijkstra realized in the early days of operating system design that computers had the ability to become familiar household items but only if they were easy to use and did not cause more problems than they solved. The paper stresses that many computer design engineers become stuck in the abstract phase of design and fail to make the jump to thinking that their ideas are an actual sellable product.

From the Paper:

"There were many systems designers who were his technical equal, but few had the foresight to make the computer marketable to the general public. He tackled systems design form a problem-solution perspective instead of just designing bigger and bigger systems, he realized that a system that was clumsy and slow would be on no use to humankind. While other designers focused on faster and bigger, Dijkstra preached simplicity. He also emphasized stability. If the system continuously locked and crashed then it was of no use to the user. Dijkstra realized that these issues were important if computers were to enter into mainstream society."

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