Craig McDonald

Reframed contexts: design thinking for agile user experience design

The effectiveness of user experience design is dependent on many factors including complete and accurate contextual information, design approaches, and methods followed. The recent HCI literature clearly shows that there is a growing research interest on integration of User Experience (UX) design and agile software development. A framework based on design thinking is proposed that enhances the current user experience design by integration of three design approaches - design thinking, designing for user experience and agile software development. These three different design approaches of the framework complement each other to benefit effective derivation of contextual requirements that include functionality of the system as well as aspects of total user experience based on the shared understanding gained from stakeholders in the context. Implications of each design approach on stakeholders and the context are discussed in detail to show the significance and value of the proposed framework on the whole design and design process. It is expected that the proposed framework is capable of enhancing the design quality and user experience of products, systems, and services created through agile software development approaches.

A design science framework for designing and assessing user experience

User Experience is a well recognized factor in design and evaluation of artifacts in Human-Computer Interaction. There are many user experience models reported in the literature to reflect this status. Techniques and instruments for managing user experience are still not sufficient. In this paper, we discuss design science research and important user experience models reported in the literature and propose an integrated design science framework for designing and assessing user experience. We also present the results of an experimental study to validate our proposed framework and the instrument employed.

Defining a conceptual framework for telework and an agenda for research in accounting and finance

The past three decades have seen volumes of research published that report on various examinations of the issues concerning telework practices. However, much of this research has merely examined the advantages and disadvantages of telework without adopting a broader research perspective to examine the deeper issues and roles played by the various interest groups affected. Over the same period, the incidence of telework in the accounting and financial services sectors has increased significantly. The motivation for this paper is twofold. Our first objective is to develop an overarching conceptual model capable of informing both researcher and practitioner communities about telework. Our second objective is to illustrate how the framework can be used to identify important aspects concerning existing gaps in knowledge about telework adoption by accounting and financial services professionals.

A design science approach to an HCI research project

Usability is an important and determinant factor in human-computer systems acceptance. Usability issues are still identified late in the software development process, during testing and deployment. One of the reasons these issues arise late in the process is that current requirements engineering practice does not incorporate usability perspectives effectively into software requirements specifications. The main strength of usability-focused software requirements is the clear visibility of usability aspects for both developers and testers. The explicit expression of these aspects of human-computer systems can be built for optimal usability and also evaluated effectively to uncover usability issues. This paper presents a design science-oriented research design to test the proposition that incorporating user modelling and usability modelling in software requirements specifications improves design. The proposal and the research design are expected to make a contribution to knowledge by theory testing and to practice with effective techniques to produce usable human computer systems.

User and Usability Modeling for HCI/HMI: A Research Design

A key reason for the presence of poor usability in products is the insufficient specification of usability perspectives effectively in product requirements specifications. The explicit expression of usability perspective in product requirements specifications is quite important in providing a clear visibility of usability aspects for both product developers and testers. Such specifications incorporating usability of human-interactive systems can be built for optimal usability and also evaluated effectively to uncover usability related issues. In this paper, we present a design science-oriented research design to test the proposition that incorporating user modeling and usability modeling in product requirements specifications improves design. We expect our proposal and the research design will make a contribution to knowledge by theory testing and to practice with effective techniques to specify usable human-interactive systems.

Design science-oriented usability modelling for software requirements

An identified key reason for degraded usability in software systems is the deficiencies of current RE practice to incorporate usability perspectives effectively into SRS. The explicit expression of user and usability aspects in SRS benefits designers, developers, and testers in ensuring optimal usability in software products. This paper presents the results of a design-science oriented user interface design study to validate the proposition that incorporating user modelling and usability modelling in SRS improves design.