Chapter 9 User-Centered Approaches

Chapter 9 User-Centered Approaches

1. Importance

   • Degrees of involvement
     • users may be co-opted to the design team so that they are major contributors.
     • users may be kept informed through regular newsletters or other channels of communication

2. What it is...

   • Gould and Lewis described it as a "useful and easy to use computer system".
     • early focus on users and tasks
     • Empirical Measurement
     • Iterative design
       • User's tasks and goals are the driving force behind the development.
       • Users' behavior and context of use are studied and the system is designed to support them.
       • Users' characteristics are captured and designed for.
       • Users are consulted throughout development from earliest phases to the latest and their input is seriously taken into account. A
       • All design decisions are taken within the context of the users, their work, and their environment.

3. Ethnography in Design

   • It aims to find the order within an activity rather than impose any framework of interpretation on it.
     • Ethnography of
       • Refers to studies of developers themselves and their workplace, with the aim of understanding the practices of development
     • Ethnography for
       • Yields ethnographic studies that can be used as a resource for development, e.g., studies of organizational work
     • Ethnography within
       • here the techniques associated with ethnography are integrated into methods and approaches for development

4. Coherence

   • Paperwork and computer work.
   • Skill and the use of local knowledge.
   • Spatial and temporal organization.
   • Organizational memory.

5. Contextual Design

   • Contextual Inquiry
   • Work Modeling
   • Consolidation
   • Work Redisign
   • User Environment Design
   • Mock Up and Test with Customers
   • Putting it into practice

6. Participtory Design

   • PICTIVE : (Plastic Interface for Collaborative Technology Initiatives through Video Exploration)
     • Empower users to act as full participants in the design process
     • Improve knowledge acquisition for design
   • CARD ; (Collaborative Analysis of Requirements and Design)
     • A CARD session could have the same format as that described for PICTIVE. During the design brainstorming part of the session, the playing cards are manipulated by the participants in order to show the work flow between computer screens or task decision points.