MITRE | The MITRE Digest | Understanding Customers' Technology Needs

Understanding Customers' Technology Needs

October 2008

Editor's note: This article and others on the topic of social and behavioral sciences research at MITRE can be found in the latest edition of our advanced technology newsletter, The Edge.

Designing new technological solutions requires a thorough understanding of the customer's requirements, tasks, workflow, work environment, and skill levels. Less obvious is the need to consider the customer's worldview, cultural milieu, and interactions. The subtle customs of an organization often are not brought to the attention of the designer who develops or acquires new systems.

To better understand a sponsor's needs, MITRE often practices a class of anthropological observation techniques called ethnography. One such ethnographic method is contextual inquiry. Contextual inquiry focuses on observation in the workplace—to see the context in which technology is being used. Such observation is crucial in designing solutions that fit the customs of an organization.

The military is a prime example of an organization whose customs might not be immediately apparent to an outside IT developer. The military's strict adherence to hierarchy, for instance, is well known, but the behaviors resulting from that adherence may not be. In MITRE's many projects with the military, we have discovered that ethnography is a potent tool for understanding how to design solutions well suited to the military mission at hand. By carefully observing operations and asking questions, we can better understand why problems occur and how technology can help solve them.

MITRE was invited to attend a joint military exercise and asked to observe an unmanned aircraft verifying bombing accuracy. The unmanned aircraft, the Pioneer, was tasked to capture images of real-time bombing damage to buildings next to an airstrip in the northern part of the military reservation.

The Pioneer's task almost ended in failure. Rather than flying to the designated airstrip, the pilots incorrectly guided the aircraft to an airstrip in the southern part of the reservation. Although a sergeant noticed the problem during flight, his efforts to redirect the Pioneer crew met significant resistance. At the last minute, the Pioneer's operator recognized the navigation error and swung the camera north, just capturing the bombing event.

By closely observing the exercise, and conducting question and answer sessions following the exercise, MITRE uncovered two critical hurdles—one technological, one cultural—that led to the near failure.

The technological hurdle involved the Pioneer's display systems. By relying on unaugmented video from the aircraft, the Pioneer's display did not provide sufficient geospatial reference points; thus, the Pioneer pilot believed that the aircraft was located on top of a ridge behind the northern airstrip. When the sergeant observing the exercise was unable to locate the ridge in the video, he used a wall-mounted topographical map to confirm that the Pioneer was, in fact, nearing the southern end of the reservation. Because the combination of video and computer-based displays provided few cues regarding the surrounding terrain, the Pioneer operators were unable to develop accurate mental models of the aircraft's location.

As a result of this experience, MITRE conducted new research in the design of display systems focused on providing operators with critical contextual information.

The cultural hurdle uncovered during the analysis of the Pioneer exercise involved the military's adherence to hierarchical communication. After discovering the navigation error, a low-ranking imagery analyst was unable to obtain the attention of a higher-ranking Pioneer commander. As a result, a higher-ranking analyst had to walk over to the Pioneer commander to request that he address the issue.

This scenario revealed that technical and procedural designs must account for cultural artifacts, such as organizational hierarchies, to enable users to successfully achieve their missions.

Employing our expertise in ethnography and leveraging our close ties with our customers, MITRE is uniquely qualified to provide our sponsors with solutions that not only fit their technological needs, but their cultural needs as well.

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