In Exam2 of this course HCI Design, as an individual task we need to review a set of papers for our two Literature seminars. The following is my short notes reflecting on six papers selected by teacher.
In general, the main subject addressed by this set of six papers is HCI and Usability:
In I:1 it starts to doubt the effectiveness of engineering approach to developing interactive systems; in I:2 it provides a theoretic classification of perspectives on usability as a central concept in HCI; I:3 explains the role of HCI in Computer Science and Software Engineering curricula, highlighting the concept of usability engineering; I:4 reflects on the concept of design representations in HCI; I:5 describes Contextual Design (CD) as a user-centered design process in HCI; I:6 I:6 presents an approach to generating visions for the future use of computers.
First of all, as a graduate of engineering school, I readily understand the concept of “engineering design” and “models” in I:1, and “usability engineering” as a perspective on usability in I:2. However, according to my practical experience in software development, I notice that the engineering perspective is not enough for the success of interactive systems, so it is interesting for me to elaborate further on the other perspectives of software development, such as “creative design” which is described in I:1 under a theoretical framework called “design methodology”.
According to I:1, design process (methodology) consists of three qualitative steps: conceptual step (which is guided by the designer’s vision which could be clarified compared to formats), constitutive step (in which the design concept is confronted with typical situations which yield requirements and constraints), and consolidatory step (refining the solution in terms of “simplicity and elegance” and “appropriateness of the long use”). In my opinion this design process should be iterative, not a waterfall process. Also, I wonder if the concept of “formats” is equal to “patterns” in software architecture. To sum up, the major implications of applying “design methodology” to “software development” would be emphasizing the role of designer, participatory approach, the implications of
After reading the five perspectives of usability in I:2, furthering more on the “usability engineering” happens in I:3. This paper believes that usability engineering would provide the necessary framework for the development of usable systems. Examining the role of HCI in the context of the Computer Science and Software Engineering curricula, I:3 suggests there needs to be much more integration between Computer Science and HCI. To do so, I:3 proposes adopting HCI as the underlying principle to the development of systems.
In I:4 with a thought-provoking introduction with a real example, the main question of the paper raises: “how do we say what we mean?”. This introduces a discussion of different design representations that designers usually use to communicate with other development team members and users of the system. I:4 tries to define the “design representations” via a rough categorization of representational “form” : conversations, proposals and plans, spaces and clusters, sketches, symbolic and schematic, scenarios and storyboards, and prototypes. Then other aspects of design representations are described: “content”, “role”, “scope”, “relationship”, “rhetorical intent”, “genres and interpretive communities”. This is a thoughtful paper.
I:5 describes Contextual Design (CD) as a user-centered design process developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblat. This approach is based on the designer’s understanding of how the customer works, focusing on designer’s detailed understanding of a customer’s need and the possibilities introduces by technology. “Ethnographic methods” is used for gathering data relevant to customer’s work, field studies, rationalizing workflows, system and designing human-computer interfaces. Contextual Design involves these parts: Contextual Inquiry, Work Modeling, Consolidation, Work Redesign, User Environment Design, Mockup and Test with Customers.
I:6 presents the concept of Future Workshops and metaphorical design as an approach to generating visions for the future use of computers. This approach tries to improve the user-designer cooperation with a focus on helping users about their work situations in the future. While reading this paper, I was thinking of the “Lundaland” case study we discussed in Strategic Management and IS course; how citizen groups with limited resources who wanted to participate in the decision making processes of public planning processes; how to generate visions about the future. A Future Workshop is divided into three phases: the Critique, the Fantasy, and the Implementation phase. Playing with metaphors in the Critique and the Fantasy phase makes it easy for the users to express their relevant likes and dislikes.
My favorite papers in this collection are I:2 and I:5;
- I:2 provides a comprehensive view on theoretical foundations of existing approaches to usability as an central part of HCI. I would like to elaborate more about relations of these five perspectives with philosophical foundations of research and study in information systems, like positivism, constructivism, critical theory, design science research, behavioral research etc
- I:5 offers a modern user-centric method to designing interactive systems and seeks to embed some interpretive techniques like ethnographic methods in Contextual Design, which allows designer get involved in participatory observation to understand the customer and his work. I would like to learn more about Contextual Design and to compare it with the other famous method called Soft Systems Methodology (SSM).
The selected papers referred in my essay are as follows:
I:1 Löwgren, J (1995): Applying Design Methodology to Software Development. Proceedings
of DISD ’95, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, pp 87-95
I:2 Löwgren, J (1995): Perspectives on Usability. IDA Technical Report 1995, LiTH-IDAR-
95-23, Department of Computer and Information Science, Linkoping University.
I:3 Faulkner, X & Culwin, F (2000): Enter the Usability Engineer: Integrating HCI and
Software Engineering. Proceedings of ITiCSE ’00, Vol 32, Issue 3, pp 61-64
I:4 Saddler, H.J (2001): Understanding Design Representations, AC Interactions,
July/August 2001, pp 17-24
I:5 Beyer, H & Holtzblatt, K (1999): Contextual Design, ACM Press, Interactions, January/
February 1999, pp 32-42
I:6 Kensing, F & Halskov Madsen, K (1991): “Generating vision: Future Workshops and
Metaphorical design”. Excerpt from Greenbaum & Kyng (1991): Design at work: cooperative
design of computer systems, Hillsdale, N.J, Chapter 8, pp 155-167
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