Susan M. Dray

The importance of designing usable systems

a consultant, I have had the opportunity to see how a lot of different organizations accomplish h / our kind of work. I see how (:. , F-they succeed, and (more often) how they struggle and even fail. And the thing that is causing so many of , the problems they face is change. It is almost a truism today that Information I Systems (I/S) is changing dramatically, and along with it, the roles and skills of I/S professionals. Many companies are trying hard to adjust to these changes in real time, as they are I also attempting major design, Client/Server development, Object-oriented design, in a climate of increasing cost-consciousness and staff cuts. In such a climate, I/S must scrutinize every expense and every activity. Therefore, it is more important than ever to make sure that we communicate clearly the importance of the User Interface, and find practical , cost-effective ways to make systems more usable. The following is adapted from a White Paper initially written for a client to help their internal UI group to get buy-in from their management. The happy outcome in the case was that their senior management team became major backers of the work.

Designing for the rest of the world: a consultant's observation

A C o n s u l t a n t s O b s e r v a t i o n It ought to be obvious that it is important to evaluate the usability of user interfaces in all of the cultures in which they will be used. After all, as Human Factors professionals, we preach that it is important to understand the user; yet, only recently have we begun to see active international usability testing of designs. Perhaps this should not be too surprising. It can be hard enough for developers to focus on understanding users close to home, let alone people on the other side of the globe. Too, they may be unaware of the vast differences that exist among different cultures, or how these differences can affect technology usage. In the past several years, however, there have been more reports of companies doing international usability testing. It makes good business sense, after all. For many U.S. companies, the main avenue for growth is their overseas sales. It is important, therefore, to make sure that products will work equally well in Bonn, Boston, Bogota, Beirut, Beijing, and Brisbane—a tall order indeed, and one which calls for our discipline to take the lead in creating ways to gather performance and preference data quickly, effectively , and accurately. Ideally, a project would be iteratively designed with input from each target culture at each step in the process. This is not possible in the real world, however, where cost and schedule dictate a much tighter process. If you are able to do some of this, count yourself very lucky. An alternative strategy is to come up with a global base design, plan for localization, and then do as much usability evaluation as you can as the interface matures. This approach can also

User-centered design and the “vision thing”

business T The Paradox of Vision User-centered design (UCD) offers a comprehensive vision of an alternative design process, involving different activities, practices, and methodologies appropriate for different phases of system development. In our experience, despite the growing awareness of such things as the importance of good user interface (UI) design, usability, and UCD practices, it is extremely rare that companies adopt a fully integrated UCD approach in one grand strategic shift. Rather, companies tend to adopt UCD practices and methods in stages or adopt a particular method or practice only when a complex set of factors align to create readiness. Usually, a companys motivation results from a combination of painful lessons and glimpses of possible solutions. Furthermore, it is difficult to tell in advance whether a methodology adopted by a particular development team will be a one-time

Why do version 1.0 and not release it?: Conducting field trials of the tablet PC

The Challenge of New Technology Design There have been many discussions at conferences and in journals on the merits of various user-centered design (UCD) methodologies to address different types of design problems and how they fit into the design lifecycle. Generally, user-centered design professionals have promoted ethnographic work before the beginning of the design process, and iterative usability testing in the lab as the design progresses. Arguments for these UCD methods are well known to this community, and there is no question their adoption is a tremendous step forward over traditional software development approaches. However, we should guard against a too rigid division between ethnography and usability, and a too rigid sequence in practice, with ethnography only in the predesign phase, and laboratory usability testing as the sole UCD method later in design. In this article, we look at a situation that highlights potential limitations of this approach, one in which there were both a clear research need and a strong business case for a hybrid approach, integrating ethnography and usability throughout the development process. We call this approach “ethnographic field trials.” In our experience, the arguments for such an approach and its costjustification are the strongest when introducing innovative technology. We will illustrate this with the example of a series of field trials we carried out over one and a half years to study three different iterations of the Microsoft Tablet PC prototype. We hope to follow up in subsequent articles with more detailed discussion of methodological issues and examples of ways in which the studies influenced the evolving design.

Job transformation in the age of the net

Inevitably, new technology brings change in many arenas. As businesses adopt new tools and move from one technology to another, changes in jobs and work activities always follow. With the meteoric increase in Internet access, a fundamental question arises: what is going to happen to these as a result? • What will be the impact of the Internet on work, both in the near-term and the long-term? • How will emerging electronic tools change the way we interact with our customers, our co-workers, and our organizations? flora petrinsularis by Jean-Louis Boissier techno-pioneers we sought were, by definition , atypical. At first, we tried combining a variety of recruiting strategies, including traditional phone recruiting from a list, posting notices on local electronic bulletin boards, and World Wide Web surfing to look for potentially interesting sites. We quickly found that the first two strategies were not effective. We then invested our efforts looking for interesting Web sites to identify candidates, who were invited to participate in the study. This process led to a fascinating set of sites. One interesting consequence of this strategy was that many of the sites we located in this way were small businesses—often very small. This confirmed what every book on doing business on the Internet mentions: that one of the advantages the Internet offers small businesses is the possibility of having an electronic storefront that looks big, even if you are really a very small company. Even a one-person business can reach an international clientele , and can create a presence which allows them to compete with large, well-established companies[3]. We had no idea of the size of a number of the businesses we arranged to visit until we spoke with them directly. Our Web searches also made it difficult to pinpoint businesses geographically. Not all Web sites provided addresses. We tried a number of search strategies, and ended up with a combination of constrained searches using zip codes or area codes. In addition, we identified large regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and used their home pages to launch a search of pages they hosted. This led to a diverse sample of businesses. Visits to sites. Our visits followed a traditional ethnographic approach that has been described elsewhere[1]. We established a rapport prior to each visit, and focused on expanding it upon arrival. Then, we proceeded to do a …

Business: thoughts from 35,000 feet: the evolving real-world context of user centered design

business For years we have been hearing the mantras that drive home the theme of growth and proliferation of technology: pervasive computing , embedded computing, ubiquitous computing, the networking of the world, the global economy and the shift to an information economy. Of course, these broad trends have indeed been playing out. But growth does not just bring more and more of the same. As any technology grows in pervasiveness, its character changes. As information technology links more and more of the world, its function, usage, and role in society are undergoing changes These changes in the role of technology will in turn bring changes in the way people interact with it, which will need to be addressed by changes in the conceptual, logical and physical levels of interaction design. Those who forecast trends, or at least those who do so usefully, are not reading the future in tea leaves. They are merely early noticers, who allow themselves to project into the future what they have already seen and ask themselves how what they have noticed could in principle affect the big picture. They are eyes and ears for the rest of us, who may be too preoccupied for this type of reflection. However, anyone can potentially be an early noticer. All it takes is to change your vantage point. You will inevitably note things that had not caught your attention before. If you are willing to assume that anything that surprises you might surprise others, or at least might not be on their radar screens yet, that if its interesting to you it may be interesting to them, and youre willing to spread the news of what your vantage point has shown, presto change-o, youre a pundit! A change in vantage point can achieved by a change in attitude, involving stepping back from ones immediate or daily preoccupations to reflect on the broader landscape in space and time. However, to stimulate such changes in attitude, it sure helps if your work throws you into situations that force new perspectives on you, or that just surprise you. Over the past several years, I have had the privilege of being thrown into a wide range of situations as an observer of many kinds of users in North America, Europe and Asia interacting with many kinds of technology, or doing …

Business: penny-wise, pound-wise: making smart trade-offs in planning usability studies

business W When you are doing usability or other user studies, reality always imposes constraints—on time, on personnel, or on money. The issue is not whether to make trade-offs, but, rather, how to make them so that your usability efforts are truly cost-effective. Beware of expediency as a basis for decision making. We have seen situations where cutting the wrong corners in the interest of sometimes relatively small, apparent savings undermined the value of the rest of the sizable investment in a project. You dont want the value of your study compromised by skimping on one area, especially if other trade-offs might have yielded bigger savings.

Business: going global with the product design process: does it make sense?

In the global economy, many companies are scrambling to find ways to make their products accessible— and saleable—in markets outside their traditional ones. Often this means that they need to learn new ways to design, translate, localize, and globalize their products. With this in mind, we asked Jose Coronado and Carrie Livermore of Hyperion to describe the solution conceived by their company. As you will see, the process they use has evolved and allows for both flexibility and structure. It has helped them as a company to manage costs and to create a high-quality, international product. — Susan Dray

The past recaptured: In search of lost paradigms

In the mid 1980s, a cluster of HF professionals described a new paradigm in which technology would be designed for a better fit not just with individual users but also with organizational systems and dynamics. The term Macroergonomics took hold to describe this broadening of perspective. This concept was a manifestation of the holistic design philosophy and values of the user-centred design (UCD) paradigm, but tended to place more emphasis on how technology fit into organizational systems than on either design or on individual use of technology. While the benefits in the quality of work life that were expected to result from paying more attention to how organizations managed technology and technological change were many, the track record has been disappointing. The promotion of a focus on the organizational context of technology did not lead directly to practical application or make companies more humane for either their workers or for external customers. Today, however, with the maturation and broadening application of user-centred design approaches, the time is ripe to apply them to the design of information systems within companies as vigorously as they are being applied to products and systems intended for consumers.

Business: Learning the ropes of conference and meeting organization

business Working in HCI, many of us attend conferences at least occasionally. Others of us are involved in helping our organizations to adopt user-centered design methods by putting on internal conferences, Summits, or training sessions. Still others do trainings or work with customers who need these same services. For all of us, understanding how to coordinate and plan such events is potentially an important element in our toolkit. Donald Day has been involved in HCI for many years, and, as a Conference Chair of the last IWIPS and International Programme Chair of the upcoming IWIPS, he has learned many important lessons which I have found to be very useful. Because this conference is a very good example of a well-run conference, I asked him to write this column to help a wider audience to understand some of the nitty-gritty aspects to be aware of when planning conferences or large organizational meetings.