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“20 Years a-Growing”: Revisiting From Human Factors to Human Actors

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Reframing Humans in Information Systems Development

Part of the book series: Computer Supported Cooperative Work ((CSCW))

Abstract

Almost two decades ago, I published an article entitled “From Human Factors to Human Actors” (Bannon, 1991) in the book “Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems” (Greenbaum and Kyng 1991). This short polemical essay on the need to re-formulate our goals in the fields of information systems design and human-computer interaction to take account of people’s general motivation and abilities, as well as their work setting, seemed to strike a chord. The article was anthologized in the popular HCI collection “Readings in Human–Computer Interaction” (Baecker et al. 1995) and is still, somewhat to my surprise, cited today. (witness the reference in the Chapter by Hovorka and Germonprez, this Section).

The phrase “Twenty years a-Growing (Fiche blíain ag Fás)” is the title of a well-known Irish ­memoir by Maurice O’Sullivan from Great Blasket Island, first published in Irish and English in 1933. It is also the first line of a well-known Irish proverb about the stages of life.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In his Foreword to the book, The Labyrinths of Information (Ciborra 2002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Liam J. Bannon

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  1. Liam J. Bannon
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Correspondence to Liam J. Bannon .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Mathematical Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Mattilianniemi 2, Jyväskylä, 40014, Finland

    Hannakaisa Isomäki

  2. , Business Information Mgt. and Logistics, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, 33101, Finland

    Samuli Pekkola

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Bannon, L.J. (2010). “20 Years a-Growing”: Revisiting From Human Factors to Human Actors . In: Isomäki, H., Pekkola, S. (eds) Reframing Humans in Information Systems Development. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-347-3_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-347-3_11

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