The improvement of human-centred processes—facing the challenge and reaping the benefit of ISO 13407

Abstract

Human-centred design processes for interactive systems are defined in ISO 13407 and the associated ISO TR 18529. The publication of these standards represents a maturing of the discipline of user-centred design. The systems development community see that (at last) Human Factors has processes which can be managed and integrated with existing project processes. This internationally agreed set of human-centred design processes provides a definition of the capability that an organization must possess in order to implement user-centred design effectively. It can also be used to assess the extent to which a particular development project employs user-centred design. As such, it presents a challenge to the Human Factors community, and indeed a definition of good practice may even be regarded by some as an unwelcome constraint. This paper presents the background to the process-level definition of user-centred design and describes how it relates to current practice. The challenges, benefits and use of a defined human-centred design process are presented. The implications for Human Factors and other disciplines are discussed. In Appendices A–D, the process terminology and the contents of ISO 13407 and ISO TR 18529 are described in more detail, and three examples are given (in Appendix D) of using this process improvement approach to improve the actual design methods in three organizations.