The automatic understanding approach to systems analysis and design

An innovative approach is presented here as a possible paradigm shift for the new generation of information systems (IS). This is a first attempt in bringing automatic understanding (AU) to the attention of the IT community as a new possibility for the systems analysis and design. The novelty of this new approach is in the previously used method of AU in the area of medical image interpretation to a more general and needed area of systems analysis. It is our conjecture that the enhancement of traditional systems analysis via AU will not only contribute to the development of a new generation IS, but it may become the only way of attacking the problem considering the ever growing number of more and more complex IS with an expected development time ‘for yesterday’.The proposed AU approach is, in essence, different from other approaches such as, for example, those based on neural networks or machine learning. AU enables the determination of the meaning of analysed data, both numeric and descriptive. Cognitive methods, on which the AU concept and construct are based, have roots in the psychological and neurophysiological processes of understanding analysed data—as they take place in the brain of a competent and particularly gifted person.