Grudin’s Law

by Karl on April 20, 2003

Grudin’s Law:

When those who benefit are not those who do the work, then the technology is likely to fail, or at least be subverted

(not sure where this was first proposed but I found it in Donald Normans essential book “Things that make us smart” pg. 113)

This is very applicable to the realm of Experience Design, I found it especially relevant when designing a knowledge management system a couple of years ago.

Most IT applications that are put in place fail or our subverted because they are designed to benefit management. It is much better to build a system that makes employees lives easier *and* achieve management goals. How many IT systems have failed or limped along due to adoption issues? More like subverted IMHO.

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