Expert Systems as Decision Aids for Public Managers: An Assessment of the Technology and Prototyping as a Design Strategy

Decision support technology is involved in the process of knowing reality. Its purpose is to gather and interpret data, to present some facet of for the convenience of the user. Just as telescopes are designed to extend human sensory capacities, decision support technology is designed to extend human cognitive capacities. This means two things. First, it means that implicit in all decision aid technology is a theory of what knowing is, what objective knowing is, and hence what reality is. Second, it means that if a decision aid is accurately to extend human cognitive capacities, the assumptions about cognition and reality operative in that system must be critically correlated to the actual performance (praxis) of human knowing itself. We must, however, recognize that this technology is built to support goal-directed behavior. Therefore, the decision aid must include in its conception of reality the ability to provide information about means of achieving desired goals. Just providing descriptions about the decision situation is not sufficient; suggestion and recommendations of what ought to be done are required. I A relatively new technology for decision support, expert systems, is the subject of this paper. We will also suggest prototyping as a design strategy for implementing these systems. The usefulness of this technology is illustrated by describing two systems that we have implemented for demonstration and research purposes. These systems were designed to support operational decisions, those typically made by front-line administrations.