(2002-02-11) b

Formality Considered Harmful (1999) in GroupWare, Knowledge Management, HyperText, Group Discussion (argumentation, e.g. IBIS). The difficulties that users have in formalizing information is not just an interface problem. Users are hesitant about formalization because of a fear of prematurely committing to a specific perspective on their tasks; it may also be difficult for them to formalize knowledge that is usually tacit. The added cost of formalizing information over using informal information makes formalized information far less attractive for users to provide. In a collaborative setting, people must agree on a formalization and the heuristics for encoding information into it... As system designers, it is tempting to add more whiz-bang features that rely on formalized information. We must temper that urge and consider the difficulty that the user will have providing that information before counting on it for the success of our systems.