Page 44 - EngineerIT AugustSeptember Issue 2026

EDUCATION

Completion may show that a task was performed without showing that Building the feedback loop while
it was understood. Activity may indicate movement through a system change is still possible
without demonstrating progress, while compliance with a process says I recognised this logic in work I had
little about whether the process itself is useful. begun doing with schools around Dalza,
a parent-controlled platform designed
The data becomes more useful when it is tied to a clearly defined human to help families manage and share
outcome. What would success look like, sound like and feel like in the life selected information about a child.
of the person using the system? What evidence would distinguish genuine
value from successful navigation, and what might the available data fail Rather than approaching schools with
to reveal? a finished solution and asking them to
adopt it, I began building small pilots
Once success is described in recognisable terms, the gap between an around direct engagement. Teachers
organisation’s intention and the user’s experience becomes easier to see. and parents needed to tell us what felt
A learning platform should be judged by whether it contributes to the useful, what was laborious, what was
intended learning, while workplace systems and automated processes intuitive and what did not translate into
should improve the work rather than merely relocate its burden. daily life.

This is where learning science adds something more specific to user While explaining the approach to Dick, I
experience and human-centred design. A system may be easy to realised that I had absorbed something
navigate and still fail to support understanding, retention or the transfer of from watching him and the Injini team
knowledge into practice. Learning science examines how prior knowledge, work: understand people before trying
attention, motivation, practice, feedback and environment affect whether to persuade them, let them shape the
using technology produces the change it was intended to support. process and build the feedback loop
while change is still possible.
If the outcome is unclear, almost any activity can be presented as
evidence that the technology is succeeding. The harder test of user-centred design
is whether the user influences the
When a user problem is a system problem decisions that matter. Consultation
Our language often locates failure in the person closest to the visible after the architecture, workflow and
problem. Users are resistant. Employees are underperforming. Teachers measures of success have been fixed
are reluctant to adopt technology. Learners are disengaged. may improve presentation without
correcting the underlying assumptions.
Those descriptions may capture what can be observed. They do not
explain what produced it. A meaningful feedback loop does
more than collect opinions. It tests
Dick described hearing that several people in a warehouse were failing whether the problem has been
to complete what was required. His response was not to begin with defined correctly, whether the
their inadequacy. He asked what they had been told to do, what system proposed solution fits its environment
had been created, when the work was expected and how progress was and whether the outcome matters to
checked. the people expected to use it.

An instruction cannot simply be dropped into an unstable environment The interview stopped being about
and later treated as evidence of someone’s character. education
Our conversation moved through
The same principle applies when a platform is introduced. What appears workplace systems, motivation, design,
to be resistance may arise because it interrupts a workable process, its adult learning and human behaviour,
purpose was never made clear, the training did not resemble the real revealing why the subject extends
task, or it asks users to capture information without giving anything beyond education.
useful back.
People do not stop learning when they
Examining the mechanism allows responsibility to be placed more leave a classroom. Every new platform
accurately and gives the organisation something it can change. Calling or process asks users to understand its
people resistant may end the inquiry. Identifying where the process purpose, connect it to what they know
becomes confusing, burdensome or inaccessible creates the possibility of and apply that knowledge under real
improving it. working conditions.

44 | EngineerIT August/September 2026