Human Total Cost of Ownership: Measuring the Impact of Human Factors on System Engineering

The procurement process often results in information systems that are of limited usefulness, usability and understandability. A focus on short-term cost of acquisition, as a main driving force in procurement, always comes with a hefty price that weighs most heavily on the shoulders of those who have to conduct cognitive work using the new technologies. Procurement that is driven primarily by Designer-Centered Design and the goal of reducing immediate cost fails because it does not recognize the value of the human component. Zachary et al. (2007) proposed a new family of measures for use in procurement, referred to collectively as Human Total Cost of Ownership (HTCO). HTCO might be defined in a number of ways, and from the conceptual definitions one might generate a number of operational definitions of how to actually calculate metrics. Panelists will address the overarching questions of HTCO measures and their integration into the acquisition and development process, current obstacles to Human-Centered Design, ways in which HTCO might gain entry into the procurement process, and alternative approaches to creating specific HTCO measurables.