#16. The Science of Willingness

Before we summarize our work so far, and further build the next logical step in series, we now may be best served to view our project from a few different vantages. We can return to developing human interfaces that front computer data structures later; right now let's regroup for a moment, and consider our own motivations into action.

Since we are usability scientists, and we are interested in human actions and human-computer interactions, we must consider their sources. Since we are largely studying human actions and reactions, we must be clear about the sources of these actions, instead of merely recording what they were, or how they manifested once they have already occured. We know that if we can anticipate likely future actions of end-users, based on their past actions, we can learn from our mistakes; however, we also know that it is best to categorize this behavior before we even get started. Therefore, we can again start with the broadest category, and work down to the minutia.

The Classical Greeks discovered that humans, as well as other organisms, are motivated by only two factors; that is, if all factors that motivate humans can be categorized, they will fall under one of two headings (or a percentage of both of them, in reality). These two factors that motivate actions are Fear and Desire—those are the only two options. People either move away from something, or move toward it. Although people may not act as the result of Fear or Desire, we know action (and sometimes inaction) is motivated by either of those two factors.

If our own desire is to create user-friendly healthcare software, then we can manifest that desire by cultivating the desire of the end-users of this software. This will be a completely different motivation to create software than relying on forcing healthcare workers to learn a faulty system, lest they lose their jobs. Not only would such threats be unfriendly, they would impede our ability to learn from our own mistakes; a user-hostile system would incorporate mistakes, and disallow all user input, except for that which the system channels.

Humans can be motivated by fear, but that is not the basis for the profession of healthcare, in general. The basis for healthcare is the desire to selflessly help others to achieve health. A desire for better health has sent willing patients to healthcare professionals, and these patients have willingly agreed to treatment from willing professionals.

At no point does fear make this system run more efficiently.

As the result, we know that we scientists are best served if we purposefully focus our own efforts toward cultivating willing participation of end-users without instilling any self-willed fear whatsoever, if that is possible. This will afford us the greatest possibility to extract the most accurate information from end-users, and will likely grow the system that mines data.

If user-friendliness is one benefit of user-centered design, then humble willingness will prove more profitable than proud willpower. This leads us to the next topic: We need to determine "profitable".