Foundations of cognitive support: Toward abstract patterns of usefulness

Abstract

Computer tools for cognitively challenging activities are considered useful, to a great extent, because of the support that they provide for human thinking and problem solving. To analyze, specify, and design cognitive support, a suitable analytic framework is required. Theories of “distributed cognition” have been offered as potentially suitable frameworks, but they have generally failed to plainly articulate comprehensive theories of cognitive support. This paper seeks to clarify the intellectual foundations for studying and designing cognitive support, and aims to put them in a form suitable for design. A framework called RODS is described as a type of minimal, lightweight intellectual toolkit. Its main aim is to allow analysts to think in high-level cognition-support terms rather than be overwhelmed by task- and technology-specific implementation details. Framing usefulness in terms of cognitive support makes it possible to define abstract patterns of what makes tools “good”. Implications are drawn for how the framework may be used for the design of tools in cognitively challenging work domains.