This paper reports on an evaluation of the usability designer role as applied in two Swedish systems development organisations. The role was initially defined by us, but evolved in these two organisations. We conducted interviews with usability designers, project managers and a user representative. Our main research question was whether or not the introduction of a usability designer has been successful in terms of changes in the systems development process and the impact the role has had on products, projects and organisations. To some extent, the role has met our expectations and intentions for instance, in helping the usability designers shift their focus towards design, and assume some kind of "users' advocate" role. But in other ways, the role "failed". The usability designers in our study are still facing the kind of problems and obstacles that usability professionals have always had to deal with.
As the complexity of IT systems increases, the demand for methods taking the whole work situation into account grows. The Vision Seminar (VS) process addresses the future usage of technologies in complex digital work environments. This paper describes the experiences of conducting the VS process in the context of a large IT project to improve study-administrative work. The participants and stakeholders' experiences of participating in VS workshops were studied as the effect the participants and stakeholders believed the vision might have. Data were gathered through interviews and a survey. The participants were confident that the time spent on workshops was worthwhile and that achieving the future described in the resulting vision was feasible. The stakeholders perceived the VS process as rigorous. They were happily surprised by the positive spirit and engagement displayed by the participants. The utility of the resulting vision not being obvious was the most notable weakness mentioned.
The usability concept has now received such a wide recognition in information technology (IT) development that working with usability can be regarded as a profession in its own right. In recent research projects, we have surveyed and studied usability work on an individual level in a number of Swedish development organisations, including success factors and obstacles. What we have seen relates to the individual usability professional and her background and experiences, the organisation in which she operates, the development process, communication and communication means, and finally the attitudes and basic values held by the people involved.
In this paper, we compile and reflect on selected findings from different studies on usability work in practical systems1 development in a number of Swedish organisations. We discuss our findings from a practical point of view and relate them to the research of others within the international HCI community. Finally, we discuss some issues we consider important for the future development of the practice of usability that we believe is of interest to the international community of usability professionals.
A participatory design process involving train drivers is analyzed and described in this paper. A group of six drivers were involved in the design process, and within a short period, four design iterations were completed. The present case study was the final part of a larger research project (TRAIN) investigating the train driving task including the drivers' information environment, number and nature of hours worked, work situation and work environment, and their effect on the drivers' behaviour and the train driver system safety. Although usability activities are widely used in IT development today, the users are not involved to the desired extent. This paper argues that to produce usable systems, quality time has to be spent initially to acquire knowledge of a work domain and establishing a common ground in terms of shared knowledge and a better understanding of the work context between the parties involved in system development. Our suggestions on participatory analysis and design that conclude the paper are based on the present case study including train drivers, as well as our experience from previous case studies.
Can readability on small screens be improved by using adaptive Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) that adapts the presentation speed to the characteristics of the text instead of keeping it fixed? In this paper we introduce Adaptive RSVP, describe the design of a prototype on a mobile device, and report findings from a usability evaluation where the ability to read long and short texts was assessed. In a latin-square balanced repeated-measurement experiment, employing 16 subjects, two variants of Adaptive RSVP were benchmarked against Fixed RSVP and traditional text presentation. For short texts, all RSVP formats increased reading speed by 33% with no significant differences in comprehension or task load. For long texts, no differences were found in reading speed or comprehension, but all RSVP formats increased task load significantly. Nevertheless, Adaptive RSVP decreased task load ratings for most factors compared to Fixed RSVP. Causes, implications, and effects of these findings are discussed.