Managing Design Processes
Introduction
In the first decades of computer software development, technically-oriented
programmers designed text editors, programming languages, and applications
for themselves and their peers. Their experience and high motivation meant
that complex interfaces were accepted and even appreciated. Now, the user
population for office automation, home and personal computing, and digital
libraries is so vastly different that programmers' experiences don't match
the users, and their intuitions may be inappropriate. Current users are
not dedicated to the technology, their background is more tied to work flow,
and their use of computers may be discretionary. Designs should be based
on careful observation of current users, refined by thoughtful analysis
of task frequencies and sequences, and validated through early prototype,
careful usability, and thorough acceptance tests.
In the best designs, the techno-centric style of the past is yielding to
a genuine desire to accommodate to the user's skills, goals, and preferences.
Designers are seeking more direct interaction with the users during the
design phase, during the development process, and throughout the system
lifecycle. Iterative design methods that allow early testing of prototypes,
revisions based on feedback from users, and incremental refinements suggested
by usability test administrators are catalysts for a high quality system.
Around the world, usability engineering is becoming a recognized discipline
with established practices. The Usability Professionals Association, formed
in 1992, has become a respected community with a growing number of members
from large corporations and dozens of small independent design, test, and
build firms.
Corporate marketing and customer assistance departments are more aware of
the importance of usability and are a source of constructive encouragement.
When competitive products provide similar functionality, usability engineering
is vital for product acceptance. Many organizations have created usability
laboratories to provide expert reviews and conduct usability tests of products
during development. Outside experts can provide fresh insights and usability
test subjects perform benchmark tasks in carefully supervised conditions
(Whiteside et al., 1988; Klemmer, 1989, Nielsen, 1993; Dumas & Redish,
1993). These and other evaluation strategies are covered in Chapter 4.
The importance of user interfaces has led an increasing number of companies
to create a chief usability office (CUO) or a vice president for usability.
High-level commitment helps promote attention at every level. Organizational
awareness can be stimulated by "Usability Day" presentations,
internal seminars, newsletters, and awards. Of course, resistance to new
techniques and a changing role for software engineers can cause problems
in organizations. Organizational change is difficult, but creative leaders
blend inspiration and provocation. The high road is to appeal to the desire
for quality that most professionals share. When they are shown data on shortened
learning times, faster performance, or lower error rates on well-designed
interfaces, they are likely to be more sympathetic to applying usability
engineering methods. The low road is to point out the frustration, confusion,
and high error rates due to the current complex designs, while indicating
the efforts of competitors to apply usability engineering methods.
Most large and many small organizations maintain a centralized human-factors
group or a usability laboratory as a source of experience and expertise
in testing techniques (Gould et al., 1991; Nielsen, 1994). However, each
project should have its own user-interface architect who would
develop the necessary skills, manage the work of other people, prepare budgets
and schedules, and coordinate with internal and external human-factors professionals
when further expertise, references to the literature, or usability tests
were required. This dual strategy balances the needs for centralized expertise
and decentralized application. It enables professional growth in the user-interface
area and in the application domain (for example geographic information,
medical laboratory instruments, or legal systems).
As the field matures and projects will grow in complexity, size, and importance.
Role specialization will emerge, as it has in architecture, aerospace, and
book design. Eventually, individuals will become highly skilled in specific
problems such as user-interface building tools, graphic-display strategies,
voice and audio tone design, and message, menu, or online tutorial writing.
Consultation with graphic artists, book designers, advertising copy writers,
instructional text-book authors, or film-animation creators may be useful.
Perceptive system developers will recognize and employ psychologists for
experimental testing, sociologists for evaluating organizational impact,
educational psychologists for refining training procedures, and social workers
for guiding user consultants or customer-service personnel.
As design gives way to implementation, the choice of user interface management
tools is vital to success. These rapidly emerging tools enable designers
to build novel systems quickly and support the iterative design-test-refine
cycle. Guidelines documents were originally seen as the solution to usability
questions, but they are now seen as a broader social process in which the
initial compilation is only the first step. The management strategies for
the 3Es - enforcement, exemption, enhancement - are only beginning to emerge
and become institutionalized.
The business case for focusing on usability has been made powerfully and
repeatedly in the past decade (Mantei and Teorey, 1988; Karat, 1990; Chapanis,
1991). It apparently needs frequent repetition because traditional managers
and engineers are often resistant to changes that would bring increased
attention to the users needs. Karat's (1993) business-like reports within
IBM became influential documents when published as conference papers. She
reported up to $100 payoffs for each dollar spent on usability, with identifiable
benefits in reduced program development costs, reduced program maintenance
costs, increased revenue due to higher customer satisfaction, and improved
user efficiency and productivity. Other economic analyses showed fundamental
changes in organizational productivity (as much as 720% improvements) when
usability was kept in mind from the beginning of development projects (Landauer,
1995). Even minimal application of usability testing followed by correcting
20 of the easiest-to-repair faults was found to improve user efficiency
by 19-80%.
Chief usability officers and user interface architects are gaining experience
in managing organizational change. As attention shifts from software engineering
or management information systems (MIS), battles for control and power manifest
themselves in budget and personnel allocations. Well-prepared managers who
have a concrete organizational plan, defensible cost/benefit analyses, and
practical development methodologies are more likely to be winners.
Design is inherently creative and unpredictable. Interactive system designers
must blend a thorough knowledge of technical feasibility with a mystical
esthetic sense of what attracts users. Carroll and Rosson (1985) characterize
design in this way:
· Design is a process; it is not a state and it cannot be
adequately represented statically.
· The design process is nonhierarchical; it is neither strictly
bottom-up nor strictly top-down.
· The process is radically transformational; it involves the
development of partial and interim solutions that may ultimately play no
role in the final design.
· Design intrinsically involves the discovery of new goals.
These characterizations of design convey the dynamic nature of the process.
But in every creative domain, there can also be discipline, refined techniques,
wrong and right methods, and measures of success. Once the early data collection
and preliminary requirements are established, more detailed design and early
development can begin. This chapter covers strategies for managing early
stages of projects and offers design methodologies. Chapter 4 focuses on
evaluation methods.
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Last Updated:
11 December 2002
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