Organization overviews and role management: inspiration for future desktop environments

In our exploration of future work environments for the World Bank we proposed two concepts. First, organization overviews provide a consistent support to present the results of a variety of manual or semi-automated searches. Second this view can be adapted or expanded for each class of users to finally map the multiple personal roles an individual has in an organization. After command line interfaces, graphical user interfaces, and the current “docu-centric” designs, a natural direction is towards a role-centered approach where we believe the emphasis is on the management of those multiple roles. Large visual overviews of the organization can be rapidly manipulated and zoomed in on to reveal the multiple roles each individual plays. Each role involves coordination with groups of people and accomplishment of tasks within a schedule