A better mythology for system design

The past decades have seen huge improvements in computer systemsbut these have proved difficult to translate into comparableimprovements in the usability and social integration of computers.We believe that the problem is a deeply rooted set of assumptionsabout how computer systems should be designed, and about who shouldbe doing that design. Human organizations are continually evolving to meet changingcircumstances of resource and need. In contrast, computers arequite rigid, incapable of adaptation on their own. Therefore whencomputer systems are incorporated into human organizations, thoseorganizations must adapt the computers to changing circumstances.This adaptation is another human activity that technology shouldsupport, but our design philosophies are oddly silent about it. This paper explores the origins of these problems in the normsdeveloped for managing human organizations, proposes partialsolutions that can be implemented with current systems technology,and speculates about the long-term potential for radicalimprovements in system design.