End-user Participation Research Articles

Experiences of multidisciplinary development team members during user-centered design of telecare products and services: a qualitative study.

BackgroundUser-centered design (UCD) methodologies can help take the needs and requirements of potential end-users into account during the development of innovative telecare products and services. Understanding how members of multidisciplinary development teams experience the UCD process might help to gain insight into factors that members with different backgrounds consider critical during the development of telecare products and services.ObjectiveThe primary objective of this study was to explore how members of multidisciplinary development teams experienced the UCD process of telecare products and services. The secondary objective was to identify differences and similarities in the barriers and facilitators they experienced.MethodsTwenty-five members of multidisciplinary development teams of four Research and Development (R&D) projects participated in this study. The R&D projects aimed to develop telecare products and services that can support self-management in elderly people or patients with chronic conditions. Seven participants were representatives of end-users (elderly persons or patients with chronic conditions), three were professional end-users (geriatrician and nurses), five were engineers, four were managers (of R&D companies or engineering teams), and six were researchers. All participants were interviewed by a researcher who was not part of their own development team. The following topics were discussed during the interviews: (1) aim of the project, (2) role of the participant, (3) experiences during the development process, (4) points of improvement, and (5) what the project meant to the participant.ResultsExperiences of participants related to the following themes: (1) creating a development team, (2) expectations regarding responsibilities and roles, (3) translating user requirements into technical requirements, (4) technical challenges, (5) evaluation of developed products and services, and (6) valorization. Multidisciplinary team members from different backgrounds often reported similar experienced barriers (eg, different members of the development team speak a “different language”) and facilitators (eg, team members should voice expectations at the start of the project to prevent miscommunication at a later stage). However, some experienced barriers and facilitators were reported only by certain groups of participants. For example, only managers reported the experience that having different ideas about what a good business case is within one development team was a barrier, whereas only end-users emphasized the facilitating role of project management in end-user participation and the importance of continuous feedback from researchers on input of end-users.ConclusionsMany similarities seem to exist between the experienced barriers and facilitators of members of multidisciplinary development teams during UCD of telecare products and services. However, differences in experiences between team members from various backgrounds exist as well. Insights into these similarities and differences can improve understanding between team members from different backgrounds, which can optimize collaboration during the development of telecare products and services.

Critical Success Factors for Value Management Workshops in Malaysia

AbstractThe application of value management (VM) in Malaysia increased dramatically after it was made a mandatory requirement for public projects exceeding 50 million Renminbi. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study to determine the critical success factors (CSFs) for VM workshops in the Malaysian construction industry. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey of public-and private-sector players in the industry, and analyzed using descriptive analysis, the Mann-Whitney U test, and scale ranking. The results reveal that clear objectives, client participation and support, discipline and attitude, team mix, and decision-making authority are critical components for successful VM workshops. Other factors include the participation of end users during the workshop, background information, input from relevant governmental departments, and the facilitator’s VM-workshop experience. The CSFs determined by this study provide a framework for successful VM workshops in the Malaysian construction...

Participation of end users in the design of assistive technology for people with mild to severe cognitive problems; the European Rosetta project

In the European Rosetta project three separate, previously developed, ICT systems were improved and integrated to create one modular system that helps community-dwelling people with mild cognitive impairment and dementia in different stages of the disease. The system aims to support them in daily functioning, monitor (deviations from) patterns in daily behaviour and to automatically detect emergency situations. The study aimed to inventory the end users' needs and wishes regarding the development and design of the new integrated Rosetta system, and to describe the to be developed Rosetta system. Qualitative user-participatory design with in total 50 persons: 14 people with dementia, 13 informal carers, 6 professional carers, 9 dementia experts, 7 care partners within the project, and 1 volunteer. In the Netherlands user focus group sessions were performed and in Germany individual interviews. Dementia experts were consulted by means of a questionnaire, an expert meeting session, and interviews. Persons with dementia and informal carers appreciated the following functionalities most: help in cases of emergencies, navigation support and the calendar function. Dementia experts rated various behaviours relevant to monitor in order to detect timely changes in functioning, e.g. eating, drinking, going to the toilet, taking medicine adequately, performance of activities and sleep patterns. No ethical issues regarding the use of sensors and cameras were mentioned. The user participatory design resulted in valuable input from persons with dementia, informal carers and professional carers/dementia experts, based on which a first prototype Rosetta system was built.

Transformability as a Factor of Sustainability in Post-earthquake Houses in Iran: The Case Study of Lar City

Housing design and construction for post-earthquake victims need consideration of the victims’ socio-cultural needs. Due to the particular economic conditions in Iran, hurriedly made post-earthquake emergency shelters often fail in complying with the minimum needs of the occupants. Consequently, such shelters are often either abandoned or transformed substantially, resulting in an overwhelming waste of resources. This paper aims to investigate the transformation process of post-earthquake houses, with attention to the architectural characteristics of the transformations and people's motivational factors for these transformations. The methods used include systematic observations and map analysis of the transformations of post-earthquake houses over a 37 years period (1970-2007) and interviews with the households. Relying upon analysis of the problems of the current post-earthquake houses in Iran, the results recommended that the design for these houses should address: transformability into pre-earthquake patterns and lifestyles, adaptability to new parts/construction besides original dwelling, and capability to reflect different requirement for indoor spatial circulations. The findings therefore proposed the use of mixed ‘Temporary-Permanent’ housing reconstruction models which involve participation of stakeholders and end users from very early stages of design and developments in order to predict and address the latter transformations issues. This study contributes to both research and practice by proposing new design approaches and guidelines regarding post-earthquake housing reconstruction in Iran.

User participation in healthcare IT development: A developers’ viewpoint in Finland

Background and purposeRecent research showed that physicians in Finland were highly critical of their information technology (IT) systems. They were also critical of the methods of collaboration with the developers of the health IT systems (HITS) in use at the time of the questionnaire. This study turned the set-up around and asked systems developers the same questions about collaboration. What is developers’ view on end user participation in HITS development at the moment? How would developers wish end users to participate in systems development? Do the developers’ views differ from the physicians’ (end users’) views of the current state of collaboration in developing IT systems? MethodsA web-based questionnaire study was conducted in one of the major HITS provider companies in Finland among all developers, including software developers and customer support and sales personnel. Both quantitative and free-text questions of a previous study were adapted for the purpose. The responses were analyzed with qualitative and basic quantitative methods. ResultsThe response rate of the questionnaire was 37% and 136 responses were received. The developers who responded were experienced workers; 81% of the respondents had 6 years or more of work experience in IT systems development and 35% of them had 6 years or more of work experience in the healthcare domain. Almost three-quarters (72%) of the respondents agreed with the statement ‘I work with users’. Almost all the developers (90%) thought that they are interested in user feedback and also 81% thought that they take the end users’ opinions and experiences into account when developing software. A majority of the developers (57%) considered that corrections and modifications are currently not implemented quickly enough. The most popular means of user participation were that ‘users would present their work and needs related to it in their workplace’ (76%), followed by user groups (75%). The developers suggested many traditional user-centered and usability design methods, too.The developers’ views were compared to the views of the physicians who primarily used the case company's products. The views were in direct opposition on whether developers are interested in end users’ views (90% of the developers agreed, vs. 60% of the physicians disagreed) and take them into account (81% of the developers agreed, vs. 63% of the physicians disagreed), as well as on user groups (favored by 75% of the developers vs. 14% of the physicians). The majority of the respondents, both developers (57%) and physicians (74%), were dissatisfied with the pace of implementation of corrections and modifications. ConclusionsBoth physicians and developers seem to be “willing but not able” to collaborate with each other. Possible reasons for the differences in views include the fact that there is no return channel of communication on what happened to the end users’ feedback, and that developers collaborate with customer representatives who are not end users. It is obvious that there are one or more spots along the route between the “end developers” and end users where there is a breakdown of the information flow.

Carbon Flow Tracing Method for Assessment of Demand Side Carbon Emissions Obligation

As increasing number of nations, industries, and individuals are involved in the carbon mitigation initiative, it becomes significant to answer what amount of carbon emissions social entities are responsible for, especially from electricity service. In this paper, a carbon flow tracing method is presented to determine carbon emissions obligation from electricity consumption. The method traces energy sources of electricity consumption across the electricity network to determine the indirect carbon emissions caused. From a “generation-to-consumption” perspective, the transmission characteristic of electricity supply and locational energy mix are reflected. The method is employed to address two important issues uniformly, i.e., carbon accounting at the regional level and locational carbon intensity assessment at the user level, respectively. Test results from two examples show that the method is a preferable choice to solve the two problems. Additionally, the method may contribute to carbon reduction cooperation and end user participation in carbon mitigation.

A language for end-user web augmentation

Web augmentation is to the Web what augmented reality is to the physical world: layering relevant content/layout/navigation over the existing Web to customize the user experience. This is achieved through JavaScript (JS) using browser weavers (e.g., Greasemonkey). To date, over 43 million of downloads of Greasemonkey scripts ground the vitality of this movement. However, Web augmentation is hindered by being programming intensive and prone to malware. This prevents end-users from participating as both producers and consumers of scripts: producers need to know JS, consumers need to trust JS. This article aims at promoting end-user participation in both roles. The vision is for end-users to prosume (the act of simultaneously caring for producing and consuming) scripts as easily as they currently prosume their pictures or videos. Encouraging production requires more “natural” and abstract constructs. Promoting consumption calls for augmentation scripts to be easier to understand, share, and trust upon. To this end, we explore the use of Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) by introducing Sticklet . Sticklet is an internal DSL on JS, where JS generality is reduced for the sake of learnability and reliability. Specifically, Web augmentation is conceived as fixing in existing web sites (i.e., the wall ) HTML fragments extracted from either other sites or Web services (i.e., the stickers ). Sticklet targets hobby programmers as producers, and computer literates as consumers. From a producer perspective, benefits are threefold. As a restricted grammar on top of JS, Sticklet expressions are domain oriented and more declarative than their JS counterparts, hence speeding up development. As syntactically correct JS expressions, Sticklet scripts can be installed as traditional scripts and hence, programmers can continue using existing JS tools. As declarative expressions, they are easier to maintain, and amenable for optimization. From a consumer perspective, domain specificity brings understandability (due to declarativeness), reliability (due to built-in security), and “consumability” (i.e., installation/enactment/sharing of Sticklet expressions are tuned to the shortage of time and skills of the target audience). Preliminary evaluations indicate that 77% of the subjects were able to develop new Sticklet scripts in less than thirty minutes while 84% were able to consume these scripts in less than ten minutes. Sticklet is available to download as a Mozilla add-on.

Viewpoint–participation–technique: A model of participative requirements elicitation

Requirements elicitation is an early phase process in systems development that captures user needs and represents them as a set of requirements. In view of increasing demand for products and services that target mass markets, requirements analysts have begun emphasising the need for participation of end users and customers during elicitation. This article proposes the viewpoint–participation–technique model of requirements elicitation that integrates functions for strategizing elicitation participation and selecting elicitation techniques. A step-by-step approach to using the viewpoint–participation–technique model is then presented, and the model is illustrated through a case study of the elicitation process for an interlibrary loan service. The article also discusses some applications and limitations of the viewpoint–participation–technique model and concludes by identifying possible future research directions.

Strategic foresight using a modified Delphi with end-user participation: A case study of the iPad's impact on Taiwan's PC ecosystem

Taiwan is a personal computer (PC) manufacturing powerhouse, producing desktop (DT) computers, notebooks (NB), and netbooks (NetB). However, the emergence of tablets such as Apple's iPad, has threatened the PC market's prospects and significantly affected Taiwan's PC ecosystem. This study proposes a modified Delphi with end-user participation to provide strategic foresight for firms in Taiwan's PC ecosystem. The results show that these firms can adopt the following three strategies in response to the impact of tablets: (1) brand and service innovation, (2) focus on cloud technology and marketing products to China, and (3) cooperating with digital leisure and entertainment industry. We believe that this modified Delphi with end-user-participation model is a valuable foresight tool for products with a short life cycle, such as consumer electronics and fashion products.

Users’ perspectives of key factors to implementing electronic health records in Canada: a Delphi study

BackgroundInteroperable electronic health record (EHR) solutions are currently being implemented in Canada, as in many other countries. Understanding EHR users’ perspectives is key to the success of EHR implementation projects. This Delphi study aimed to assess in the Canadian context the applicability, the importance, and the priority of pre-identified factors from a previous mixed-methods systematic review of international literature.MethodsA three-round Delphi study was held with representatives of 4 Canadian EHR user groups defined as partners of the implementation process who use or are expected to use EHR in their everyday activity. These groups are: non-physician healthcare professionals, health information professionals, managers, and physicians. Four bilingual online questionnaire versions were developed from factors identified by the systematic review. Participants were asked to rate the applicability and the importance of each factor. The main outcome measures were consensus and priority. Consensus was defined a priori as strong (≥ 75%) or moderate (≥ 60-74%) according to user groups’ level of agreement on applicability and importance, partial (≥ 60%) when participants agreed only on applicability or importance, or as no consensus (< 60%). Priority for decision-making was defined as factors with strong consensus with scores of 4 or 5 on a five-point Likert scale for applicability and importance.ResultsThree Delphi rounds were completed by 64 participants. Levels of consensus of 100%, 64%, 64%, and 44% were attained on factors submitted to non-physician healthcare professionals, health information professionals, managers, and physicians, respectively. While agreement between and within user groups varied, key factors were prioritized if they were classified as strong (≥ 75% from questionnaire answers of user groups), for decision-making concerning EHR implementation. The10 factors that were prioritized are perceived usefulness, productivity, motivation, participation of end-users in the implementation strategy, patient and health professional interaction, lack of time and workload, resources availability, management, outcome expectancy, and interoperability.ConclusionsAmongst all factors influencing EHR implementation identified in a previous systematic review, ten were prioritized through this Delphi study. The varying levels of agreement between and within user groups could mean that users’ perspectives of each factor are complex and that each user group has unique professional priorities and roles in the EHR implementation process. As more EHR implementations in Canada are completed it will be possible to corroborate this preliminary result with a larger population of EHR users.

Recommendations for the user-specific enhancement of flood maps

Abstract. The European Union Floods Directive requires the establishment of flood maps for high risk areas in all European member states by 2013. However, the current practice of flood mapping in Europe still shows some deficits. Firstly, flood maps are frequently seen as an information tool rather than a communication tool. This means that, for example, local stocks of knowledge are not incorporated. Secondly, the contents of flood maps often do not match the requirements of the end-users. Finally, flood maps are often designed and visualised in a way that cannot be easily understood by residents at risk and/or that is not suitable for the respective needs of public authorities in risk and event management. The RISK MAP project examined how end-user participation in the mapping process may be used to overcome these barriers and enhance the communicative power of flood maps, fundamentally increasing their effectiveness. Based on empirical findings from a participatory approach that incorporated interviews, workshops and eye-tracking tests, conducted in five European case studies, this paper outlines recommendations for user-specific enhancements of flood maps. More specific, recommendations are given with regard to (1) appropriate stakeholder participation processes, which allow incorporating local knowledge and preferences, (2) the improvement of the contents of flood maps by considering user-specific needs and (3) the improvement of the visualisation of risk maps in order to produce user-friendly and understandable risk maps for the user groups concerned. Furthermore, "idealised" maps for different user groups are presented: for strategic planning, emergency management and the public.

Getting the message across: Principles for developing brief-Knowledge Transfer (b-KT) communiqués

This feature article on knowledge transfer presents principles and strategies to support the development of short communiqués to end-users. Formal and informal knowledge brokers are the targeted users of the strategies. Research studies and conceptual literature in knowledge transfer informed the development of brief-Knowledge Transfer (b-KT) principles. Principles are explained and a sample of how they informed the development of KIT-Tip Sheets is offered to promote ways to use principles in knowledge dissemination. b-KT principles can be used as a framework to guide the development of short communiqués by knowledge brokers in work practice but also in the health, social and rehabilitation domains. In addition, these principles promote the participation of end-users in the development of knowledge transfer. Formal evaluation is needed on the use of these principles in achieving the uptake and use of knowledge by end-users.

Decision aid for women considering breast cancer screening

The aim of this study was to describe the process and challenges of developing a decision aid for the national public breast cancer screening program in Finland. An expert team with stakeholder representation used European guidelines and other literature as basis for selecting relevant content and format for the decision aid for breast cancer screening. Feedback from women was sought for the draft documents. A decision aid attached to the invitation letter for screening was considered the best way to ensure access to information. In addition, tailored letter templates for all phases of the screening program, a poster, and a public website were developed. Initial feedback from users (women, professionals, and service providers), was mainly positive. Six months after publishing, the implementation of the decision aid was still incomplete. Providing balanced information for women invited to breast cancer screening is demanding and requires careful planning. Professionals and service providers need to be engaged in the HTA process to ensure proper dissemination and implementation of the information. End user participation is essential in the formulation of information. There is a need to follow up the implementation of the decision aid.

Asynchronous P300-Based Brain-Computer Interface to Control a Virtual Environment: Initial Tests on End Users

Motor disability and/or ageing can prevent individuals from fully enjoying home facilities, thus worsening their quality of life. Advances in the field of accessible user interfaces for domotic appliances can represent a valuable way to improve the independence of these persons. An asynchronous P300-based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system was recently validated with the participation of healthy young volunteers for environmental control. In this study, the asynchronous P300-based BCI for the interaction with a virtual home environment was tested with the participation of potential end-users (clients of a Frisian home care organization) with limited autonomy due to ageing and/or motor disabilities. System testing revealed that the minimum number of stimulation sequences needed to achieve correct classification had a higher intra-subject variability in potential end-users with respect to what was previously observed in young controls. Here we show that the asynchronous modality performed significantly better as compared to the synchronous mode in continuously adapting its speed to the users' state. Furthermore, the asynchronous system modality confirmed its reliability in avoiding misclassifications and false positives, as previously shown in young healthy subjects. The asynchronous modality may contribute to filling the usability gap between BCI systems and traditional input devices, representing an important step towards their use in the activities of daily living.

Methods to identify, study and understand End-user participation in HIT development

BackgroundExperience has shown that for new health-information-technology (HIT) to be suc-cessful clinicians must obtain positive clinical benefits as a result of its implementation and joint-ownership of the decisions made during the development process. A prerequisite for achieving both success criteria is real end-user-participation. Experience has also shown that further research into developing improved methods to collect more detailed information on social groups participating in HIT development is needed in order to support, facilitate and improve real end-user participation.MethodsA case study of an EHR planning-process in a Danish county from October 2003 until April 2006 was conducted using process-analysis. Three social groups (physicians, IT-professionals and administrators) were identified and studied in the local, present perspective. In order to understand the interactions between the three groups, the national, historic perspective was included through a literature-study. Data were collected through observations, interviews, insight gathered from documents and relevant literature.ResultsIn the local, present perspective, the administrator's strategy for the EHR planning process meant that there was no clinical workload-reduction. This was seen as one of the main barriers to the physicians to achieving real influence. In the national, historic perspective, physicians and administrators have had/have different perceptions of the purpose of the patient record and they have both struggled to influence this definition. To date, the administrators have won the battle. This explains the conditions made available for the physicians' participation in this case, which led to their role being reduced to that of clinical consultants - rather than real participants.ConclusionIn HIT-development the interests of and the balance of power between the different social groups involved are decisive in determining whether or not the end-users become real participants in the development process. Real end-user-participation is essential for the successful outcome of the process. By combining and developing existing theories and methods, this paper presents an improved method to collect more detailed information on social groups participating in HIT-development and their interaction during the development. This allows HIT management to explore new avenues during the HIT development process in order to support, facilitate and improve real end-user participation.

The DiSCmap project

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the outcomes of digitisation of special collections: mapping, assessment, prioritisation (DiSCmap), a JISC and RIN‐funded project which studied users' priorities for the digitisation of special collections within the context of UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).Design/methodology/approachThe project produced a list of 945 collections nominated for digitisation by intermediaries and end users and a user‐driven prioritisation framework. Data were gathered via web questionnaires. Focus groups and telephone interviews with end users provided additional insights on the views of those working within particular domains or disciplines. Over 1,000 intermediaries and end users contributed by nominating collections for the “long list” and providing opinions about digitisation priorities.FindingsThe long list of collections nominated for digitisation provides evidence of identified user interest and is not merely a “snapshot” but a significant outcome. A user‐driven framework for prioritising digitisation was also produced. The project suggests a flexible approach for prioritising collections for digitisation based on the use of the framework in combination with the long list of collections.Research limitations/implicationsThe project did not undertake a representative study; the participation of intermediaries and end users was a matter of goodwill. Yet 44 per cent of HEIs in the UK nominated special collections to the long list.Originality/valueThe paper provides new insights and evidence on user priorities for the digitisation of special collections. It also suggests a user‐driven digitisation prioritisation framework of benefit in future decision making, both locally and nationally.

Between organisation and architecture: end-user participation in design

This paper contributes to our sparse knowledge on the relationship between organisational and architectural design. It is based on an ethnographic study of the process of designing a municipality town hall, in which end-user participation constituted an integrated part of the design process. In this process, the open-office layout was introduced as a premediated design condition, a format that the users initially resisted. The paper discusses how end-user participation as a method and spatial design as a perspective may inform change in organisations. Although the users' resistance toward the open layout remained, their perception of this solution concurrently modified.

Utilization of user feedback in indoor positioning system

We propose an interpolation-based fingerprinting technique utilizing user feedback which does not require an exhaustive training phase typically seen in the indoor localization solutions. We argue that the contribution of users’ feedback to any positioning system is two-fold. Firstly, users’ feedback greatly help in fine-tuning an under-trained positioning system with proper filtering. Secondly, if users are well-behaved, our experimental results show that the participation of end-users can actually assist in the construction of a positioning system incrementally from scratch. We also show that user feedback-based positioning system adapts quite well when surroundings change. Our present system is built upon Bluetooth.

Card Sorting: noções sobre a técnica para teste e desenvolvimento de categorizações e vocabulários

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar o Card Sorting, técnica de análise e organização de vocabulários controlados, e tem por finalidade explorar a relação dos usuários com o desenvolvimento de serviços de informação. A chave da utilização é a participação de usuários finais no processo, permitindo entender como eles categorizam as informações disponíveis num processo de busca, identificando qual terminologia é a mais usual, qual pode gerar confusões e que termos são mais difíceis de categorizar. Esta técnica pode ser utilizada em arquitetura da informação na definição de estruturas de web sites ou a criação de taxonomias e tesauros. É um método extremamente simples e barato, de grande flexibilidade, que permite uma grande interação entre bibliotecários e seu público. Existem duas formas básicas de Card Sorting a ‘aberta’ onde o usuário participa ativamente na sugestão do vocabulário e a ‘fechada’ onde é definida uma estrutura hierárquica lógica utilizando termos pré-definidos.Palavras-Chave: Card Sorting; Vocabulário controlado; Arquitetura da informação; Taxonomia; Classificação AbstractThis article presents Card Sorting technique, a method to perform analysis and organization of controlled vocabularies, in order to explore the relationship between the users and information services development. The key to apply this method is the participation of end-users in the process, allowing us to understand how they group available information in a search process by identifying which terminology is more usual, which may be confuse and which terms are more difficult to categorize. This technique can be used in information architecture when defining web sites structures or creating taxonomies and thesaurus. It is an extremely simple and unexpensive method, allowing great flexibility and a perfect interaction between the librarian and his user. There are two basic methods for performing this technique: the open card sorting, when user really participates by suggesting the vocabulary; and the closed card sorting, where a logical hierarchical structure is defined by using pre-established terms.Keyword: Card sorting; Controlled vocabulary; Information architecture; Taxonomy; Classification scheme

WEB2.0 기반 디자인 아이디어 발상 시스템의 사용자 인터페이스 개선

정보의 디지털화라는 특성을 통한 컨텐츠의 무한한 공유라는 전에 없었던 경험을 인류에게 제공 한 WEB은 비합리적인 정보의 과잉이라는 경험적인 문제와 2001년 닷컴 버블의 붕괴라는 현실적인 문제에 직면하게 되었고, 사용자와 컨텐츠라는 주체에 대한 새로운 접근방법인 WEB 2.0혹은 시맨틱웹 이라는 개념을 구체화하기에 이른다. 개방성과 협업 이라는 특성으로 하나의 플랫폼을 형성하는 WEB 2.0에 대한 개념은 2003년 개발한 WEB 기반의 컴퓨터 지원 발상시스템인 CGTS(Creative Group Thinking System)가 지니고 있었던 비합리적인 데이터 관리와 인터페이스를 효과적으로 해결 및 관리 할 수 있는 기술적 배경을 제공하게 되었다. 본 연구에서는 아이디어 발상 시스템으로써 CGTS가 지녔던 복잡한 화면 구조 및 효율적이지 못한 데이터 처리방식 등으로 인한 사용성의 저하 및 데이터 관리의 어려움을 WEB2.0 기반기술인 AJAX와 DOM을 이용하여 데이터 구조를 단순화/간결화 하고 WEB 플랫폼의 인터페이스 구성을 사용자 중심으로 통합함으로써 사용성의 증대를 통한 사용자 참여의 현실화를 목적으로 기존 CGTS의 인터페이스를 개선하고자 한다. WEB or Internet has given mankind an unprecedented experience in indefinite sharing of online content by original means of digitalized information, but it comes to face an empirical issue of unreasonable informational superfluity as well as a practical issue of collapsed dot.com bubble economy in 2001. Instead, a latest networking concept called 'WEB 2.0' or 'Semantic WEB' becomes embodied as a new approach to entities such as end users and content. The concept of WEB 2.0 for creating a platform on the basis of openness and collaboration has made such a technological setting that we can effectively resolve and manage unreasonable data maintenance and interface inherent in Creative Group Thinking System (CGTS), a WEB-based computer-aided idea generation system developed in 2003. Concerning decreased usability and difficulties with data maintenance due to certain issues of CGTS as a part of WEB R&D platform, such as complex display composition and inefficient data processing system, this study seeks to simplify and streamline data structure by means of AJAX and DOM as WEB2.0-based technologies, and integrate interface structure of WEB platform to focus on end users, so that it can improve interface of conventional CGTS for the purpose of realizing end user's participation through improving usability.