Do you want to support a User Centered Design?
If that's the case, let's see in this post how the tool Usability Planner can help you plan which usability methods to apply in your user-centered approach.
First we are going to start with an introduction to this challenge, integrate usability practices into the development process of an organization is difficult, the software engineering is prevalent in many organizations even knowing that usability is a critical software attribute.
Since the late 90s in the HCI community there has been a "war" between the relationship of the disciplines of software engineering and HCI, and how to integrate the two. Each discipline has different approaches and success criteria, on the one hand, software engineering is systematic, disciplined... with a target focused in the process (following a plan) and with the success criteria of finishing the product on time and on budget, on the other hand, HCI is more ready to change, less controlled... with a target focused in usability and with the success criteria of meeting the user needs with the product.
After reading a paper [1], I want to add the figure below in which we can see a summary of the activities of both.
In 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development appears and the practice of UCD changed in the sense that the iterative usability evaluations within an agile context should be rapid and efficient. Software engineers rapidly adopted the agile approach, and embedding usability evaluations in an agile software development process provides timely feedback from users and results in intensive collaboration between usability experts and software developers.
The HCI and software engineering processes closely cooperate during the design and implementation of interactive systems and products.
In an interesting study about a health-management system conducted in three stages to understand the role of iterative usability evaluation during agile development [2], they got the following diagram in where we can see that the usability experts play a significant role in the software development process. This role is to be the communication bridge among developers and users
throughout the three iterations of this process.
Having seen the origin of this challenge, let's talk about the Usability Planner tool. The purpose of the tool is, once identified the necessary UCD activities in the phase (Analysis, Design or Evaluation, usual stages of a software project) where the user wants , then select the most appropriate methods based on the design and organizational context (constraints related to the software engineering approach affecting its final objective[time, budget]) and finally, you get the plan with the suggested methods, classified within a range, which can be personalized by yourself.
This tool is based on success factors for selecting the methods, instead of looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each method along with its cost.
1)
2)
3)
I think the tool works really well for what it was created. And as it is said feedback is welcome, I wanted to point:
Navigation: Only when you have started the tool, you can go to the other screens(Home, About, Feedback), but if you are in About or Feedback screen it is not possible to go to Home screen
Consistency: Another thing also is that in the home screen appears the names of the three creators of the tool, but in About and Feedback screen only two of them.
These are not important points, just little things to change :)
[1] Buie, E., A., & Vallone, A. (1997). Integrating HCI engineering with software engineering: A call to a larger vision
[2] Yanfei Ma, Yunhui Lu, and Dinara Saparova, The Role of Iterative Usability Evaluation in Agile Development: A Case Study.
Since the late 90s in the HCI community there has been a "war" between the relationship of the disciplines of software engineering and HCI, and how to integrate the two. Each discipline has different approaches and success criteria, on the one hand, software engineering is systematic, disciplined... with a target focused in the process (following a plan) and with the success criteria of finishing the product on time and on budget, on the other hand, HCI is more ready to change, less controlled... with a target focused in usability and with the success criteria of meeting the user needs with the product.
After reading a paper [1], I want to add the figure below in which we can see a summary of the activities of both.
In 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development appears and the practice of UCD changed in the sense that the iterative usability evaluations within an agile context should be rapid and efficient. Software engineers rapidly adopted the agile approach, and embedding usability evaluations in an agile software development process provides timely feedback from users and results in intensive collaboration between usability experts and software developers.
The HCI and software engineering processes closely cooperate during the design and implementation of interactive systems and products.
 |
| Interactions and information exchanges between the processes |
the usability experts played significant roles
To
better understand the role of iterative usability evaluation during
agile development, we recently conducted a study - See more at:
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/08/the-role-of-iterative-usability-evaluation-in-agile-development-a-case-study.php#sthash.uz2joL1V.dpuf
iterative
usability evaluations within an agile context should be rapid and
efficient - See more at:
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/08/the-role-of-iterative-usability-evaluation-in-agile-development-a-case-study.php#sthash.uhnQiE9z.dpuf
iterative
usability evaluations within an agile context should be rapid and
efficient - See more at:
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/08/the-role-of-iterative-usability-evaluation-in-agile-development-a-case-study.php#sthash.uhnQiE9z.dpuf
Having seen the origin of this challenge, let's talk about the Usability Planner tool. The purpose of the tool is, once identified the necessary UCD activities in the phase (Analysis, Design or Evaluation, usual stages of a software project) where the user wants , then select the most appropriate methods based on the design and organizational context (constraints related to the software engineering approach affecting its final objective[time, budget]) and finally, you get the plan with the suggested methods, classified within a range, which can be personalized by yourself.
This tool is based on success factors for selecting the methods, instead of looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each method along with its cost.
1)
 |
| Select the phase and related activities |
 |
| Select the constraints |
 |
| Method range |
--------------------------------------------------------
Navigation: Only when you have started the tool, you can go to the other screens(Home, About, Feedback), but if you are in About or Feedback screen it is not possible to go to Home screen
 |
| Tool has started |
 |
| About screen |
Consistency: Another thing also is that in the home screen appears the names of the three creators of the tool, but in About and Feedback screen only two of them.
 |
| Home screen |
 |
| About screen |
These are not important points, just little things to change :)
[1] Buie, E., A., & Vallone, A. (1997). Integrating HCI engineering with software engineering: A call to a larger vision
[2] Yanfei Ma, Yunhui Lu, and Dinara Saparova, The Role of Iterative Usability Evaluation in Agile Development: A Case Study.
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