Key principles for user-centred systems design

The concept of user-centred systems design (UCSD) has no agreed upon definition. Consequently, there is a great variety in the ways it is applied, which may lead to poor quality and poor usability in the resulting systems, as well as misconceptions about the effectiveness of UCSD. The purpose of this paper is to propose a definition of UCSD. We have identified 12 key principles for the adoption of a user-centred development process, principles that are based on existing theory, as well as research in and experiences from a large number of software development projects. The initial set of principles were applied and evaluated in a case study and modified accordingly. These principles can be used to communicate the nature of UCSD, evaluate a development process or develop systems development processes that support a user-centred approach. We also suggest activity lists and some tools for applying UCSD.     

Development of a user-centred IT strategy: a case study

This case study documents a twelve month programme of work commissioned by a major British telecommunications and broadcasting company. The brief was to develop a corporate strategy for the effective exploitation of Information Technology (IT) which took due account of human and organizational requirements of IT. The paper explains how human factors principles were applied within this organizational context to develop a user-centred IT strategy. The approach involved the application of a simultaneous 'top down' and 'bottom up' approach. The 'top down' analyses established the corporate goals of the company to be supported by IT. The 'bottom up' data collection process revealed the realities and limitations of IT use in the company. The gap between the desired future requirements of IT in the company and the present experience of IT 'on the ground' was thus made explicit and clear. Specifying the required infrastructure, the policies, procedures, processes and mechanisms necessary to close this gap provided the agenda for the IT strategy development process. It was considered crucial that the eventual strategy should be 'owned' by key stakeholders (i.e. influential IT providers and senior managers of user departments) as well as by end-users. Involvement of end-users was promoted by assigning to them the task of collecting interview data on user experience of IT in the company. This user experience data informed (as one of several inputs) the deliberations of the key stakeholders given the task of agreeing the key components of a corporate IT strategy. In a workshop setting, the stakeholders discussed and eventually agreed a draft strategy document to recommend to the Board of Directors who had commissioned the exercise. In due course the IT strategy document was accepted by the Board and implementation set in motion. The IT strategy development process described in this paper indicates that the systematic application of HF principles to corporate strategy formulation can be viable and effective. However it is evident that such an exercise can only succeed where there is whole-hearted commitment to a user-centred process by key individuals in an organization.     

User-centred design does make a difference. The case of decision support systems in crop production

This paper lends weight to the argument that user-centred design is important in design and development of software systems by describing the case of decision support systems for crop production. Decision support systems (DSS) are increasingly being seen as useful mechanisms for the transfer of scientific knowledge and 'best practice'; particularly in the field of agriculture. Although many systems have been developed, few can be termed 'successful' (i.e. have a significant uptake by intended users, and used by them). This paper provides evidence to support the importance of a user-centred approach by showing that each issue considered to be relevant to the failure of DSS in crop production can be addressed by the appropriate inclusion of users in the design and development process. Positive evidence in the shape of successful systems that have employed UCD is also presented.     

User-centred design does make a difference. The case of decision support systems in crop production

This paper lends weight to the argument that user-centred design is important in design and development of software systems by describing the case of decision support systems for crop production. Decision support systems (DSS) are increasingly being seen as useful mechanisms for the transfer of scientific knowledge and 'best practice'; particularly in the field of agriculture. Although many systems have been developed, few can be termed 'successful' (i.e. have a significant uptake by intended users, and used by them). This paper provides evidence to support the importance of a user-centred approach by showing that each issue considered to be relevant to the failure of DSS in crop production can be addressed by the appropriate inclusion of users in the design and development process. Positive evidence in the shape of successful systems that have employed UCD is also presented.     

Adding intelligence to a learning environment: learner-centred design?

The development of a specific learning environment into an intelligent learning environment ( switchER II ) is used as the basis of a discussion about the nature of 'learner-centred design'— an approach which is contrasted with user-centred design, and is being advocated as an important move in the development of effective educational computing systems. An analysis of the notion of learner-centred design leads to the need to develop appropriate methodologies to support learner-centred design, to ensure that individual differences are respected, and that Artificial Intelligence techniques are applied appropriately.     

Interactive graphic systems design on the GKS-standard and unified language processor basis

This paper presents an implementation experience in interactive graphic systems on the Graphical Kernel System basis (GKS) in language processor for one class of dialogue graphic languages in graphic drivers and special spanned processor. These processors allow development of interactive graphic systems with an allocated structure. Application task is included in the system as a semantic definition processor for dialogue graphic language. For communication between separate processors, the graphic interfaces, arranged in two levels, as well as a language processor interface are applied.

Functions and principles of constructing a language interface with a GKS-Kernel for allocated systems as well as design methods for interactive programs based on two-language concept are made more precise.     

Holistic Sensing and Active Displays for Intelligent Driver Support Systems

A multidisciplinary research effort at UCSD focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of novel computational frameworks for vehicle-based safety systems. The dynamic active display presents visual alerts to the driver based on the surrounding environment, vehicle dynamics, and driver's state as well as a driver-intent analysis and situational awareness system.     

Designing evolvable systems in a framework of robust,resilient and sustainable engineering analysis

“Evolvability” is a concept normally associated with biology or ecology, but recent work on control of interdependent critical infrastructures reveals that network informatics systems can be designed to enable artificial, human systems to “evolve”. To explicate this finding, we draw on an analogy between disruptive behavior and stable variation in the history of science and the adaptive patterns of robustness and resilience in engineered systems. We present a definition of an evolvable system in the context of a model of robust, resilient and sustainable systems. Our review of this context and standard definitions indicates that many analysts in engineering (as well as in biology and ecology) do not differentiate Resilience from Robustness. Neither do they differentiate overall dependable system adaptability from a multi-phase process that includes graceful degradation and time-constrained recovery, restabilization, and prevention of catastrophic failure.We analyze how systemic Robustness, Resilience, and Sustainability are related to Evolvability. Our analysis emphasizes the importance of Resilience as an adaptive capability that integrates Sustainability and Robustness to achieve Evolvability.This conceptual framework is used to discuss nine engineering principles that should frame systems thinking about developing evolvable systems. These principles are derived from Kevin Kelly’s book: Out of Control, which describes living and artificial self-sustaining systems. Kelly’s last chapter, “The Nine Laws of God,” distills nine principles that govern all life-like systems. We discuss how these principles could be applied to engineering evolvability in artificial systems. This discussion is motivated by a wide range of practical problems in engineered artificial systems. Our goal is to analyze a few examples of system designs across engineering disciplines to explicate a common framework for designing and testing artificial systems. This framework highlights managing increasing complexity, intentional evolution, and resistance to disruptive events. From this perspective, we envision a more imaginative and time-sensitive appreciation of the evolution and operation of “reliable” artificial systems. We conclude with a short discussion of two hypothetical examples of engineering evolvable systems in network-centric communications using Error Resilient Data Fusion (ERDF) and cognitive radio.     

The past recaptured: in search of lost paradigms

In the mid 1980s, a cluster of HF professionals described a new paradigm in which technology would be designed for a better fit not just with individual users but also with organizational systems and dynamics. The term 'Macroergonomics' took hold to describe this broadening of perspective. This concept was a manifestation of the holistic design philosophy and values of the user-centred design (UCD) paradigm, but tended to place more emphasis on how technology fit into organizational systems than on either design or on individual use of technology. While the benefits in the quality of work life that were expected to result from paying more attention to how organizations managed technology and technological change were many, the track record has been disappointing. The promotion of a focus on the organizational context of technology did not lead directly to practical application or make companies more humane for either their workers or for external customers. Today, however, with the maturation and broadening application of user-centred design approaches, the time is ripe to apply them to the design of information systems within companies as vigorously as they are being applied to products and systems intended for consumers.     

Visual product evaluation: exploring users' emotional relationships with products

This paper discusses an industrial designer's approach to eliciting user perceptions and emotional responses to products through visual evaluation and stimuli. Whilst the authors accept that product functionality is crucial for product success, the appearance, use of materials, shape and form provide the most immediate product data for the user. Less tangible issues such as emotional bonding of users with products, cultural perceptions and social value systems, provide valuable insights for the product developer to help expand knowledge and understanding of the users' need beyond the functional. This paper presents product personality profiling as a new technique for design researchers/designers, and discusses it alongside other emerging approaches such as mood boards and visual product evaluation. The authors have used these techniques during focus group sessions with users to elicit individuals' needs and aspirations towards products. Such a user-centred approach is fundamental to applied ergonomics. Experiences, benefits, and limitations of these techniques are outlined as well as the opportunities for further development.     

The influence of a knowledge-based system on designers' cognitive activities: a study involving professional web designers

Over the last few decades, several usability knowledge-based systems have been developed to provide user interface designers with usability knowledge (e.g. heuristics, usability guidelines, standards). Such systems are intended to assist designers during the design process, and to improve the usability of the user interface being designed. However, the assumption that such systems actually improve the usability of the resulting user interface remains to be demonstrated: virtually no systems have been empirically tested by designers who create products. In order to confirm this assumption, we conducted an experimental study in which professional web designers had to create webpages, either using a knowledge-based system – MetroWeb – or without it. This study was intended to determine the influence of MetroWeb on the professional web designers' cognitive activity, and to find out whether MetroWeb actually assists them to develop a user-centred design. The results show that the web designers did not very often use MetroWeb while designing webpages; however, rather surprisingly, the designers who did use MetroWeb more often exhibited a user-centred activity than those working without MetroWeb. We conclude this paper by discussing these findings, and suggesting future possible ways of research intended to assist designers to adopt a user-centred approach to their activity.     

Expert or assistant: Supporting power engineers in the management of electricity distribution

A case study is presented of the development of computer-based support tools for power engineers in the electricity supply industry. The objective was to develop an expert system to support witching schedule production. A user-centred approach was followed which led the user community to conclude that a switching schedule production assistant (SSPA) was required which would leave control with the power engineer. Prototype systems were developed and evaluated in user trials which revealed that a significant and more general purpose tool would be a computer generated electricity network display that the engineers could manipulate. The paper concludes that the process of enabling users to evaluate alternative forms of technology can facilitate the development systems that are useful, acceptable and usable.     

Knowledge acquisition in ecological product design: The effects of computer-mediated communication and elicitation method

In the mid 1980s, a cluster of HF professionals described a new paradigm in which technology would be designed for a better fit not just with individual users but also with organizational systems and dynamics. The term 'Macroergonomics' took hold to describe this broadening of perspective. This concept was a manifestation of the holistic design philosophy and values of the user-centred design (UCD) paradigm, but tended to place more emphasis on how technology fit into organizational systems than on either design or on individual use of technology. While the benefits in the quality of work life that were expected to result from paying more attention to how organizations managed technology and technological change were many, the track record has been disappointing. The promotion of a focus on the organizational context of technology did not lead directly to practical application or make companies more humane for either their workers or for external customers. Today, however, with the maturation and broadening application of user-centred design approaches, the time is ripe to apply them to the design of information systems within companies as vigorously as they are being applied to products and systems intended for consumers.     

ARREST: From work practices to redesign for usability

In this paper we discuss the redesign of a support management system deployed in a small and medium sized enterprise (SME) in the UK. The original system was not fulfilling its needs as it had not captured work practices in a way that was recognizable to the users. The advantages of the redesign included: improved usefulness; improved efficiency and productivity; reduced learning time; improved usability; and increased acceptance among users. The system is used to support complex and distributed cooperative activities taking place in an SME. We evaluated the current system and analysed work practices using a user-centred design and evaluation philosophy. In this paper we discuss how user needs are incorporated into the enhanced design of the support management system. The user-centred design techniques used in this research include interviews, questionnaires, observations and user tests. We present comparative evaluation results that show significant improvement in performance of user tasks using the redesigned support management system. The contribution of this paper is the presentation of a case study to show how a user-centred design and evaluation philosophy can lead to better requirements capture resulting in systems that more accurately capture the users’ conceptual models.     

Bridging the gap between analysis and design: improving existing driver interfaces with tools from the framework of cognitive work analysis

Two studies of train driving are presented, both within the framework of cognitive work analysis. In the first study, the modelling tool abstraction–decomposition space is adapted to routine conditions, making the analysis more representative for normal procedures. A major contribution to these analyses was the use of the method for ‘collegial verbalisation’. One particular advantage with this method over other verbalisation methods is that it supplies the analysts with data that contain much more information, but not at the expense of being more subjective. On the contrary, this method produces think-aloud protocols from video-recordings that do not have to be interpreted by the researcher. From these analyses, it was possible to distinguish information that is an intrinsic part of the train driver task from information that is dependent on the configuration and design of the current support system. The analyses show that the driver works in three rather separate time intervals with a long-range, a short-term and an immediate sense of perspective. The driver switches between these while travelling between two stations. Based on these behaviour-shaping constraints, a prototype of a planning area of a driver interface was developed, making feed-forward planning possible for the driver. Four design iterations were completed, using a user-centred system design (UCSD) approach. Early tests show that the planning area of the interface supports the feed-forward decision strategy used by drivers who prefer an active driving style. However, the driver group also made substantial changes in the design, indicating that UCSD is an efficient tool in order to capture user competencies, and to bridge the gap between analysis and design.     

A decision support system for updating and incorporating climate change impacts into rainfall intensity-duration-frequency curves: Review of the stakeholder involvement process

Stakeholder involvement can serve to increase the quality of decision support systems (DSSs) and increase the perceived legitimacy of DSS outputs. Involving those who are ultimately affected by the outputs of DSSs in system design and development also reflects democratic principles. Importantly, stakeholder involvement can help ensure that the outputs of DSSs are used in decision-making processes. However, DSSs often fail due to poor engagement of stakeholder and end-user communities in the development and design of systems. The stakeholder engagement process applied in the development of the Computerized Tool for the Development of Intensity Duration Frequency Curves under Climate Change described here followed many of the tenants of best practices identified in the literature. While the engagement strategy was generally considered successful, over- and under-representation of some stakeholder groups and long term funding issues were weaknesses in the engagement process.     

Using an ethnographic process to conduct requirements analysis for agile systems development

Since the late 1990s, agile or lightweight software development methodologies have experienced a meteoric rise of interest among systems developers who consider traditional systems development methodologies (such as Structured Systems Development, Information Engineering, and Rational Unified Process) too inflexible for building systems having unpredictable and changing requirements. Agile methodologies try to adapt to rapid requirement changes by having short, iterative development cycles and by encouraging frequent, open communication with customers. However, agile methodologies are still in the process of devising systematic approaches on how to be adaptive to unpredictable and changing requirements and how to incorporate customers into the systems development process. In this study, we show how an ethnographic research process called Strip Resolution can be applied as a systematic complement to projects applying agile development principles. We illustrate, in detail, how the Strip Resolution Process (SRP) enabled us, in the role of systems developers, to adapt to changing and unpredictable user requirements and to incorporate customers into the systems development process.     

A socio-technical approach to improving the systems development process

Research on improving the systems development processes has primarily focused on mechanisms such as tools, software development methodologies, knowledge sharing and process capabilities. This research has yielded considerable insights into improving the systems development process, but the large majority of information systems development projects still continue to be over budget, late, and ineffective in meeting user needs. Together with the advent of software development moving offshore, or consisting of offshore team members, a more holistic approach is appropriate. Approached from a socio-technical perspective the software development process is viewed as a process embedded in a social and a technical subsystem. Drawing upon socio-technical work design principles, this paper suggests how capabilities of the development process can be improved. Data collected from a survey of software development practices in organizations indicates that organizations at different levels of process capabilities differ in work system characteristics as well as process performance. For example, the use of multi-skilled teams was found to be significantly related to the systems development process maturity level as well as significantly related to all the performance measures studied. This paper provides empirical support for the socio-technical approach and provides a theoretical foundation for designing software process initiatives in organizations.     

融合门控自注意力机制的生成对抗网络视频异常检测

目的 视频异常行为检测是当前智能监控技术的研究热点之一,在社会安防领域具有重要应用。如何通过有效地对视频空间维度信息和时间维度信息建模来提高异常检测的精度仍是目前研究的难点。由于结构优势,生成对抗网络目前广泛应用于视频异常检测任务。针对传统生成对抗网络时空特征利用率低和检测效果差等问题,本文提出一种融合门控自注意力机制的生成对抗网络进行视频异常行为检测。方法 在生成对抗网络的生成网络U-net部分引入门控自注意力机制,逐层对采样过程中的特征图进行权重分配,融合U-net网络和门控自注意力机制的性能优势,抑制输入视频帧中与异常检测任务不相关背景区域的特征表达,突出任务中不同目标对象的相关特征表达,更有效地针对时空维度信息进行建模。采用LiteFlownet网络对视频流中的运动信息进行提取,以保证视频序列之间的连续性。同时,加入强度损失函数、梯度损失函数和运动损失函数加强模型检测的稳定性,以实现对视频异常行为的检测。结果 在CUHK （Chinese University of Hong Kong） Avenue、UCSD （University of California,San Diego） Ped1和UCSD Ped2等视频异常事件数据集上进行实验。在CUHK Avenue数据集中,本文方法的AUC （area under curve）为87.2%,比同类方法高2.3%;在UCSD Ped1和UCSD Ped2数据集中,本文方法的AUC值均高于同类其他方法。同时,设计了4个消融实验并对实验结果进行对比分析,本文方法具有更高的AUC值。结论 实验结果表明,本文方法更适合视频异常检测任务,有效提高了异常行为检测任务模型的稳定性和准确率,且采用视频序列帧间运动信息能够显著提升异常行为检测性能。