1. Camp Digital March 2014
ComplexUX
Attending to the human parts
of information systems
David Kreps

2. background
❖ self taught web developer for (nearly) 20 years!
❖ Tamworth Arts Centre website 1995!
❖ fourquarters 2000 - present!
❖ Lecturer in Information Systems 2004 - present!
❖ Sociology of Information Society !
❖ Philosophy of Virtuality

3. intro
❖ usability / UX!
❖ complicated / complex!
❖ irreversibility!
❖ KTP

4. usability : computing
❖ traditional usability!
❖ numbers of clicks!
❖ errors!
❖ task execution times!
❖ computer science departments!
❖ hardware!
❖ software engineering!
❖ ‘users’
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/upa_voice/volumes/2005/february/low_cost_usability.html

5. user experience : information systems
❖ multi-disciplinary approach!
❖ usability, yes, but also!
❖ sociology!
❖ psychology!
!
❖ information systems!
❖ human beings parts of the
systems
http://www.theeyecareblog.com/tag/computer-glasses
❖ IS not the IT and formal processes, or the people, but what emerges from
the usage and adaptation of the IT and formal and informal processes by
all its users (Ray Paul EJIS 2007)

6. bridging the old divide
❖ W3C retreat from XHTML,
paving the cowpaths to HTML5!
❖ Continental philosophy (distributed, de-centred, multiplicity)
vs Anglo-American (analytical, instrumental, reductionist)!
❖ Old certainties of 20th cent giving way !
❖ ‘Life isn’t like that’ !
❖ Biology, environmental science, computational modelling of
living systems
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Fugle%2C_ørnsø_073.jpg/1600px-Fugle%2C_ørnsø_073.jpg

7. complicated systems
❖ predictable,
mechanical, certain
equilibrium systems !
❖ complicated!
❖ restricted to our
machines
http://thefourthrevolution.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/watch.jpg

8. complex systems!
❖ complexity theory!
❖ dissipative structures!
❖ open systems interacting
with environment!
❖ living systems !
❖ spontaneous order in far-
from-equilibrium
conditions!
❖ bifurcation - irreducibly
random elements
http://thenatureofbusiness.org/2012/08/15/superorganisations-learning-from-natures-networks/

9. information systems
❖ IS departments in Business Schools!
❖ Business drivers away from simple usability towards UX!
❖ recognition: human parts of information systems cannot be
understood by mere usability alone!
❖ web 2.0 user generated content!
❖ web 3.0 internet of things around us, our information, our
needs!
❖ Pre-existing conditions cannot be used to predict outcomeshttp://glass-apps.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/google-glass1.jpg

10. irreversibility
❖ mechanical, mathematical,
analytical approach is
reversible!
❖ more experiential ‘living’
systems are NOT reversible: a
customer’s anger at an
interface failure cannot be
deleted!
❖ impulse, above all, depends
on a smooth and increasingly
personalised experience
3 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 3
1 - 2 - 3

11. salford : sigma
❖ Knowledge Transfer Partnership - Govt scheme!
❖ See Paul Cihlar here for more information on KTPs!
❖ David Kreps, Marie Griffiths, Maria Kutar from SBS
working with Sigma for two years!
❖ Research rigour and social science methodologies for a
better UX process and offering

12. salford : sigma
complex ux
❖ RESEARCH <—> IMPLICATIONS!
❖ monitoring non-reversible experiences in UX!
❖ studying what they are, how they unfold!
❖ implications for design!
❖ site personalisation calculable on-the-fly by
initial choices?!
❖ conversation between developers and
customers mediated by a learning system…!
❖ more than just continual iterations…/…
permanent beta…?
?

13. thanks
❖ Dr David Kreps!
❖ d.g.kreps@salford.ac.uk!
❖ snipr.com/davidkreps !
❖ Full academic paper, ‘The Time of Our Lives: Understanding
Irreversible Complex User Experiences,’ being delivered at Human
Choice and Computers Conference (HCC11), Turku, Finland July 2014.
www.hcc11.net . Proceedings to be published by Springer Verlag,
Autumn 2014.!
❖ Book ‘Bergson and Complexity Theory’ due to be published by Palgrave
MacMillan in 2015