The catch-22 The levels at which impacts of change are major are not understood while the levels at which impacts are minor are easily understood. Why? Most managers believe people resist change because humans have a natural desire to keep the status quo. They believe that resistance to change is a defense mechanism caused by frustration and anxiety. With this diagnostic, executives belief that good change leadership comes with a strong message from the top, effective communication plan, mandatory training and sometimes, removing undesirable parties that are labeled as strong change resistant.

Evaluating user interface is becoming an important skill.  At some point on your career, it is likely that you will be involved in information technology initiatives. During the course of a project, you may have to critique user interface choices. The two main techniques for evaluating a user interface are 1) Empirical Evaluation (testing with users) and 2) Heuristic Evaluation (based on a set of rules).  While empirical evaluation is by far the best technique, mastering Heuristic Evaluation is also a necessary skill.

I expect the system to provide me all  information I need without being overload. I want to be able to accomplish my task in the natural flown of my thinking without being distracted. I don’t want to have to perform unnecessary steps, actions, calculation, or take notes. I want to be able to read and understand, symbols an graphic instantly. I expect have feedback following my actions. I want interaction techniques to be consistent and familiar. I expect the system prevent errors or provide errors recovery mechanism. I want the system provide rapid method for frequent task and guidance for unfamiliar task. I want visibility. I don’t feel uncomfortable with hidden processes. I want to find my way easily.  

In May Cognitive Group met with peers to present “Uncertainties in complex dynamic environment”. The presentation was connected with the review paper of Hasmik Atoyan recently accepted by JIPS (Journal d’Interaction Personne-Système). The paper is done in collaboration with Dr. Jean-Marc Robert (École Polytechnique de Montréal) and Dr. Jean-Rémi Duquet (Lockheed Martin Canada). The paper is a part of Hasmik’s PhD research at École Polytechnique related to uncertainties in complex systems. Automation can expose and create several types of uncertainties, especially in dynamic complex environments.This subject has become a topic of interest for Hasmik during her work with new technologies being developed at Lockheed Martin Canada. Poorly designed automation can increase uncertainties in the system. These uncertainties would create additional ...

Topic: Decision Illusion This talk from Dan Ariely is a must see (presented at the TED conference, posted May 2009) People have visual illusions and cognitive (decision-making) illusions. In visual illusion we can easily demonstrate mistakes. For example, we can measure to verify if our visual comparison is right. Cognitive (decision-making) illusion is not easy to see, it’s much-much harder to demonstrate people the mistakes (for example, our selection for an option is influenced by how the information is presented). We have a feeling, we think we are in control and we are making the decision. It’s very hard even to accept the idea that we have an illusion of making the decision rather than actual decision. When decision is ...

Situation The Quebec Worker Compensation Board (CSST) provides services to 3 million workers across the province of Quebec in Canada. The information technology department of the CSST was looking to improve the quality of their help desk.   The Information Technology support service provides on-line technical support and maintains the CSST network infrastructure.  There was indications unreliability in the services offered. Even if 95% of trouble ticket were resolved within 24 hours in respect with the internal service agreement, there was high level of complains. Having heard of the reputation Cognitive Group for Business Process optimization. The Quebec Worker Compensation Board CIO decided to hire Cognitive Group to optimize the CSST’s customer services. Approach The project began with a review ...