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work practice and system design, especially
within the field of Computer Support Cooperative
Work (CSCW) (e.g., Suchman, Blomberg, Orr, &
Trigg, 1999; Suchman & Trigg, 1991; Goodwin
& Goodwin, 1997; Hughes, Randall, & Shapiro,
1992), and can also be found in other collections
(Button, 1993; Chaiklin & Lave, 1993; Engeström
& Middleton, 1996; Greenbaum & Kyng, 1991;
Resnick, Saljo, Pontecorvo, & Burge, 1997).
In Penner and Steinmetz (2002) and Stary
(2000), task-based and user-centered development
approaches are presented to support the automa-
tion of user interface design. The TADEUS project
(Stary, 2000) proposes a development methodol-
ogy starting from a business intelligence model to
generate user interfaces or portals by integrating
a model-driven, task-based, user-oriented, and
object-driven life cycle. Moreover, to cope with
the complex and continuously changing needs
of end users, Penner and Steinmetz propose a
iteratively created operational prototype called
DIGBE (Dynamic Interaction Generation for
Building Environment) (Penner & Steinmetz,
2002). DIGBE is a multiplatform and generic
building control system (heating, cooling, ventila-
tion, access control, security, and so on). A domain
expert, typically a building manager, starts up the
DIGBE application and, through a simple dialog,
sets the initial state of the system. In response,
DIGBE creates a dedicated child application for the
other domain experts (i.e., managers, operators,
technicians), accessible through a log-on screen.
After the domain expert successfully enters the
new system, DIGBE designs and presents (in real
time) a user interface dedicated to the underline
task set of the logged user. Moreover, during
the interaction, the system dynamically adapts
the ongoing user interface. This methodology is
similar to the SSW methodology, but it is simply
user-centered and leads to a unique general suit-
able system that can be specialized according to
the domain and user community needs.
Finally, other works focus on experience-cen-
tered domains, that is, domains requiring six to
12 years of intensive practice before practitioners
achieve the most effective levels of skill (Hayes,
1985). In these domains (i.e., medical diagnosis,
chess, professional design, planning tasks, etc.),
one of the main challenges in building decision
support is that users, at different levels of domain
experience, have often very different needs. For
example, a system designed to satisfy domain
experts' specific needs may frustrate novices and
vice versa. DAISY (Design Aid for Intelligent
Support System) (Brodie & Hayes, 2002) is a
design methodology for building decision sup-
port systems in complex, experience-centered
domains. It provides a technique for identifying
the specialized needs of users within a specific
range of domain experience.
ConClusion
This chapter discusses a novel methodology,
proposed to design interactive systems in which
operations are easy to perform and many interest-
ing activities can be carried out, thus avoiding a
fall into the Turing Tar Pit and into its inverse.
To reach this goal, the software environments
(application workshops) made available to end
users the option to adopt a Visual Interaction
Language tailored to end-user culture, in that it
is defined by evolving the traditional end-user
notations and systems of sign, with the constant
support of domain experts, acting as designers
in the design team. Each application workshop
allows end users to develop a specific types of
activities. Hence, it makes available to the end
users all and only the tools to perform such ac-
tivities. The data on which end users operate are
however interoperable within a set of application
workshops.
The domain experts contribute in the design
team to the creation of the set of application
workshops. Indeed, the methodology offers to
each stakeholder a software environment (system
workshop), by which the stakeholder contributes
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