The incorporation of user needs in telecom product design

Abstract

This chapter focuses on users and how their needs may be incorporated in the design of high-tech products. After discussing demand, markets, and user needs and surveying the evolution of user orientation, user-friendliness, user-centred design, and human-machine interaction in the information and communication technology industry, the chapter reports an ethnographic study of telecommunications equipment design. It shows that the job of the design team in a high-tech industry where firms collaborate was just as likely to be the design of the organisational arrangements for the development and delivery of new products and services as the design of the products and services themselves. Design as an activity links many of the functions in the business enterprise and its environment; building such links is an essential part of the design and innovation process. The chapter also demonstrates that usability testing took a very particular form in which to pay attention to users needs. Some unexpected findings were made that had to be incorporated into a future product design.