Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The UCD approach just looks beyond principles of physical design — beyond traditional ergonomics
— to consider more fundamental issues such as the structure of information presented, the degree of
process automation, implications of skill transfer and retention, and training requirements. If operators
and supervisors are involved only at the later phases of the design process, then the final product may be
difficult to learn, and incompatible with the existing well-established working practices, while also trig-
gering increases in vigilance tasks and diminished user acceptance and trust (Kontogiannis and Embrey,
1997).
The result is a set of integrated techniques, which combine users' assertions with observations across
several levels of the organization, and several classes of users and stakeholders. Damodaran (1996) has
suggested a well-defined taxonomy of the roles of individuals involved in the design process and the
identification and selection of the most representative users from the organization. In fact, users
should be identified at several levels from within an organization, ranging from end users to middle-
and top-level management. This focus on all stakeholders is because the outcomes of technical design
decisions may have profound implications on job design, and subsequently working life (Damodaran,
1996; Damodaran et al., 1980).
7.2.2 Summary
This chapter will focus on the inclusion of users at the two phases in the design process during which user
feedback can have the greatest influence on its eventual success. This includes, as illustrated by Figure 7.2,
understanding the work system and the testing and evaluation of designs and prototypes. The integration
of specifications into tangible designs will briefly be touched on, as a more complete explanation is out of
the scope of a manuscript of this length. The actual design production step is best learnt through practice
and case studies of the experiences of others. In a study of the efficacy of novice designers to UCD, Sugar
(2001) investigated the challenges that novice designers face in the application of UCD principles and
guidelines. These designers were observed to have incomplete mental models of the translation of
requirements into creative design solutions and tended to focus on overt observations of user needs.
In this chapter, readers will be provided with guidance on how to incorporate users into and leverage
their knowledge and insight during the UCD process. UCD is partly a structured methodology and partly
a skillful improvization. Readers should recognize the importance of practical experience and reviewing
actual design case studies, both grounded in empirically validated guidelines and underlying philos-
ophies of UCD in order to achieve effective designs. In UCD, those designing the system are responsible
for: (1) facilitating the task or work for the user; (2) ensuring that the user can use the product as it was
intended to be; and (3) making certain that the training and learning required to use the product is
minimized.
7.3 Common Tools and Techniques for UCD
7.3.1 Overview
There are, in both literature and practice, several well-documented and commonly applied methods for
gathering user information and including users in the design and evaluation processes to achieve UCD.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in an attempt to consolidate these methods
has published principles of UCD and steps required in the UCD development cycle (ISO 13407,
1999). In his article entitled “Methods to support Human-Centered Design,” Maguire (2001) provides
an overview of the main UCD principles and an extensive list of methodologies appropriate for each
step in the UCD process.
There are a seemingly infinite number of approaches and frameworks for UCD. These range from
general principles (e.g., active user participation or iterative design and testing) to specific tools [e.g.,
the Unified Modeling Language (Booch et al., 1998; Rumbaugh et al., 2004) or hierarchical task analysis
(Shepherd, 2000, 2001)] or techniques [e.g., contextual design (Beyer and Holtzblatt, 1998; Holtzblatt,
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