User-centered Design Practices Research Articles

Exploration of UCD Practice Limitations

Abstract The integration of user-centred design (UCD) practices in software development is fundamental for enhancing the overall experiences of software users. In this paper, we summarize the results of various research studies on what the stated limitations of UCD practices are. A process called the UCD Sprint was introduced recently with the goal of addressing some of the existing UCD practice limitations for integrating UCD practices in software development. The guided usage of the step-by-step process has been studied with students and UCD practitioners in courses showing positive results, where participants describe benefits while using the process, such as the speed of the process, its clear structure, guidance. In this paper, we describe results from a synthesis study summarizing results on how guided usage of the UCD Sprint can address UCD practice limitations. Furthermore, we describe results from a series of interviews with UCD practitioners on how they currently practice UCD, the challenges and limitations they experience and their views on how unguided usage of the UCD Sprint would potentially fit their UCD practices. While the interviewees recognize the importance of user involvement, they highlight challenges in aligning user interests with other stakeholders' interests. All participants had used processes like design sprints for structuring their UCD practices. Interviewees have generally tailored the traditional approach of design sprints, showcasing a nuanced understanding of UCD practices. The results show that the UCD Sprint process is considered by UCD practitioners as a promising approach for practicing UCD. The process is viewed with enthusiasm, but the need for clear objectives and adaptability to the work contexts of the UCD practitioners remains essential. UCD practitioners’ adaptive strategies of their UCD practices emphasize the need for flexibility and adaptation of UCD practices and processes.

User-centered Social Interaction Design in Intelligent Personal Assistants and Social Robots

User-centered design practices are used to develop the social interaction characteristics of intelligent personal assistants and social robots. In this approach, developers establish characteristics favored by the majority of users. However, catering to target users may negate the benefits in user experience and use intention achieved from matching a product’s characteristics to the preferences of individual users. The present study examines differences between target versus individual user based approaches to user-centered design. Specifically, a framework is presented on how to develop a product to meet individual user preferences. Results show that individual user preferences, while similar to the target user preferences, can vary significantly from the baseline. Machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches should be employed to help adjust social interaction approaches from a baseline to individual user preferences.

BEYOND LEGAL FRAMEWORKS AND SECURITY CONTROLS FOR ACCESSING CONFIDENTIAL SURVEY DATA IN THE UNITED STATES: ENGAGING DATA USERS IN DATA PROTECTION.

With growing demand for data reuse and open data within the scientific ecosystem, protecting the confidentialy of survey data and privacy of data subjects is increasingly important. Doing so requires more than legal procedures and technological controls; it requires social and behavioral intervention. In this research note, we delineate the disclosure risks of various types of survey data (e.g., longitudinal data, social network data, sensitive information, biomarkers, and geographic data), the current motivation for data reuse, and challenges to data protection. Despite rigorous efforts to protect data, there are still threats to protection of confidentiality in microdata. Unintentional data breaches, protocol violations, and data misuse are observed even in well-established restricted data access systems, indicating that the systems may all rely heavily on trust. Creating and maintaining that trust is critical to secure data access. We suggest four ways of building trust; User-Centered Design Practices; Promoting Trust for Protecting Confidential Data; General Training in Research Ethics; and Specific Training in Data Security Protocols, with an example of a new project 'Researcher Passport' by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Continuous user-focused improvements in restricted data access systems are necessary so that we promote a culture of trust among the research and data user community, train both in the general topic of responsible research and in the specific requirements of these systems, and offer systematic and holistic solutions.

Achieving Usability: Looking for Connections between User-Centred Design Practices and Resultant Usability Metrics in Agile Software Development

This article searches for correlations between the practices of usability professionals from software development teams and the resulting usability of the system they are working on. After reviewing the literature of the past decade, we can conclude that most researchers try to achieve better usability with process proposals, but measurements focus on perceived usability. The level of involvement of users in the requirements capture phase is unclear. There is a trend to reduce costs of usability engineering, either by choosing more lightweight and informal methods or by trying to substitute user involvement. Looking at decade's worth of 452 articles about "agile AND usability" in Scopus, we selected 133 which deal with the integration of usability, UX and User Centred Design practices and Agile development.

Landscape of User-Centered Design Practices for Fostering Trustworthy Human-AI Interactions

In the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, leaders in the commercial artificial intelligence (AI) market have shaped parameters of trustworthy AI design. Resulting directives, however, typically approach this issue from a technical perspective, while largely ignoring its human factors counterpart. As such, we conducted an information synthesis to capture the current landscape of user-centered design for developing trustworthy human-AI interactions. As part of our review, we analyzed resources from 50+ publications and summarized their respective protocols into three major categories: (1) design standards and guidelines based on ethical principles, 2) best practices for designing the nature of human-AI relationships across the user experience, and 3) best practices for designing redress mechanisms when trust is at risk, low, or broken. Part and parcel to this review, we provide concrete prescriptions for designing trustworthy human-AI interactions, identify limitations of existing protocols, and suggest areas requiring further exploration.

Personas for Better Targeted eHealth Technologies: User-Centered Design Approach.

BackgroundThe full potential of eHealth technologies to support self-management and disease management for patients with chronic diseases is not being reached. A possible explanation for these lacking results is that during the development process, insufficient attention is paid to the needs, wishes, and context of the prospective end users. To overcome such issues, the user-centered design practice of creating personas is widely accepted to ensure the fit between a technology and the target group or end users throughout all phases of development.ObjectiveIn this study, we integrate several approaches to persona development into the Persona Approach Twente to attain a more holistic and structured approach that aligns with the iterative process of eHealth development.MethodsIn 3 steps, a secondary analysis was carried out on different parts of the data set using the Partitioning Around Medoids clustering method. First, we used health-related electronic patient record data only. Second, we added person-related data that were gathered through interviews and questionnaires. Third, we added log data.ResultsIn the first step, 2 clusters were found, with average silhouette widths of 0.12 and 0.27. In the second step, again 2 clusters were found, with average silhouette widths of 0.08 and 0.12. In the third step, 3 clusters were identified, with average silhouette widths of 0.09, 0.12, and 0.04.ConclusionsThe Persona Approach Twente is applicable for mixed types of data and allows alignment of this user-centered design method to the iterative approach of eHealth development. A variety of characteristics can be used that stretches beyond (standardized) medical and demographic measurements. Challenges lie in data quality and fitness for (quantitative) clustering.

Evaluating dynamic visual experience of designed environments: A real-time 3D simulation method utilizing game technologies

Dynamic vision refers to a person’s visual perception of the environment when the person is in motion. Pedestrians naturally have dynamic visual experiences, the aesthetic qualities of which may modify their walking and seeing behaviors. Despite the subject’s significant design relevance, dynamic visual research has shown limited theoretical and methodological progress since the 1960s. Inspired by recent development in 3D visibility research, this paper proposes a Real-Time Dynamic Visual Evaluation (RtDVE) protocol that simulates and evaluates pedestrians’ dynamic visual experiences in designed environments. The protocol utilizes Downtown Explorer, a 3D game developed to allow research participants to simulate free-roaming walks by controlling a pedestrian avatar. The game synchronously collects graphic and numerical data about the avatar’s first-person sequential views. The RtDVE protocol prescribes computational procedures to convert collected data into diagrammatic charts illustrating view-to-view transitions within the avatar’s Field of View. The protocol also introduces Dynamic Visual Variance Index, a composite quantitative index synthesizing multiple numerical data to facilitate comparisons of dynamic visual experiences across various simulated walks. Through a two-stage empirical study, the paper reveals the RtDVE protocol’s conception and demonstrates its effectiveness. The study applied the RtDVE protocol to investigate simulated dynamic visual experiences about different architectural massing schemes. The descriptive analysis outcomes facilitated the exploratory evaluation of these design schemes’ implications on pedestrians’ dynamic vision. Given its strengths in operability and research quality, the RtDVE protocol can promote evidence-based, user-centered design practices incorporating dynamic visual evaluation. Future RtDVE studies may adopt evolved real-time 3D simulation technologies and more sophisticated research designs to examine the complex ecological interplay between the objective and subjective factors in dynamic vision.

Monitoring sound levels in the intensive care unit: A mixed-methods system development project to optimize design features for a new electronic interface in the healthcare environment

BackgroundIntensive care units (ICU) are busy round the clock and it is difficult to maintain low sound levels that support patient rest. To help ICU staff manage activities we developed a visual display that monitors and reports sound levels in real-time. This facilitates immediate feedback, encouraging proactive behavior change to limit disturbances. MethodsFollowing the principles of user-centered design practices we created our ‘user persona’ to understand the needs and goals of potential users of the system. We then conducted iterative user testing with current members of the ICU team, primarily using the ‘think aloud’ method to refine the design and functionality of our novel system. Ethnography evaluated team use of the display. ResultsThe final design was simple, clear, and efficient, and both functional and aesthetically pleasing for the key user demographic. We identified challenges in the implementation and adoption process that were separate from the ‘usability’ of the system itself. ConclusionsEmbedding the design process within the core user demographic ensured the final product delivered relevant information for key users, and that this information was intuitive to interpret. Initiating sustainable change is not straightforward. It requires recognition of cultural practices within teams, departments, professions, organizations, and strategies to maximize engagement.

Beading as a therapeutic activity in Ghana

ABSTRACT Africa’s fascinating bead history pre-dates the African Trade Bead era by over 82,000 years. Beads, thought to be over 12,000 years old have been found within Libya, Sudan and Kenya where the Turkana people once recognised beads for their value as currency. Cowrie shell beads and bone beads are thought to be among the first types of beads until glass beads were introduced from Western Europe. The Krobo land is among notable bead manufacturing and beading areas in Ghana today. The article discusses the cultural importance of beading in Ghana and how the occupation is used therapeutically in a regional mental health hospital, based on the argument that activities of making intrinsic to traditional, user-centred design practices might impact well-being. In addition to well-being and their connection to making, the concepts of recycling and income generation are explored in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Las emociones y el diseñador de servicios: una relación al descubierto

Emotions are present throughout the service design process for each participant, yet the own emotional experience of designers has rarely been addressed in design research. This paper is focused on the role and meaning of the emotions identified by service designers in their own experiences conducting or participating in projects, and as workshop facilitators. It builds empirically on a qualitative questionnaire examining their experiences of ‒ and reflections on ‒ the emotions they identified throughout their practices. The findings indicate a significant variety of emotions and confusion in determining their connection to the overall process. A clear understanding of the emotions associated with this process could strengthen service designers’ specific skills, enhancing confidence in decision-making, and adding value to their work. This, in turn, could help service designers to improve their professional performance in order to create a more inclusive and user-centered design practice in the context of changing scenarios, variable environments, and human interactions.

Beyond Maslow’s Pyramid: Introducing a Typology of Thirteen Fundamental Needs for Human-Centered Design

This paper introduces a design-focused typology of psychological human needs that includes 13 fundamental needs and 52 sub-needs (four for each fundamental need). The typology was developed to provide a practical understanding of psychological needs as a resource for user-centered design practice and research with a focus on user experience and well-being. The first part of the manuscript briefly reviews Abraham Maslow’s pioneering work on human needs, and the underlying propositions, main contributions and limitations of his motivational theory. The review results in a set of requirements for a design-focused typology of psychological needs. The second part reports on the development of the new typology. The thirteen needs were selected from six existing typologies with the use of five criteria that distinguish fundamental from non-fundamental needs. The resulting typology builds on the strengths of Maslow’s need hierarchy but rejects the hierarchical structure and adds granularity to the need categories. The third part of the paper describes three examples of how the need typology can inform design practice, illustrated with student design cases. It also presents three means for communicating the need typology. The general discussion section reflects on implications and limitations and proposes ideas for future research.

Exploring How Professionals Within Agile Health Care Informatics Perceive Visualizations of Log File Analyses: Observational Study Followed by a Focus Group Interview.

BackgroundAn increasing number of software companies work according to the agile software development method, which is difficult to integrate with user-centered design (UCD) practices. Log file analysis may provide opportunities for integrating UCD practices in the agile process. However, research within health care information technology mostly has a theoretical approach and is often focused on the researcher’s interpretation of log file analyses.ObjectiveWe aimed to propose a systematic approach to log file analysis in this study and present this to developers to explore how they react and interpret this approach in the context of a real-world health care information system, in an attempt to answer the following question: How may log file analyses contribute to increasing the match between the health care system and its users, within the agile development method, according to agile team members?MethodsThis study comprised 2 phases to answer the research question. In the first phase, log files were collected from a health care information system and subsequently analyzed (summarizing sequential patterns, heat mapping, and clustering). In the second phase, the results of these analyses are presented to agile professionals during a focus group interview. The interpretations of the agile professionals are analyzed by open axial coding.ResultsLog file data of 17,924 user sessions and, in total, 176,678 activities were collected. We found that the Patient Timeline is mainly visited, with 23,707 (23,707/176,678; 13.42%) visits in total. The main unique user session occurred in 5.99% (1074/17,924) of all user sessions, and this comprised Insert Measurement Values for Patient and Patient Timeline, followed by the page Patient Settings and, finally, Patient Treatment Plan. In the heat map, we found that users often navigated to the pages Insert Measurement Values and Load Messages Collaborate. Finally, in the cluster analysis, we found 5 clusters, namely, the Information-seeking cluster, the Collaborative cluster, the Mixed cluster, the Administrative cluster, and the Patient-oriented cluster. We found that the interpretations of these results by agile professionals are related to stating hypotheses (n=34), comparing paths (n=31), benchmarking (n=22), and prioritizing (n=17).ConclusionsWe found that analyzing log files provides agile professionals valuable insights into users’ behavior. Therefore, we argue that log file analyses should be used within agile development to inform professionals about users’ behavior. In this way, further UCD research can be informed by these results, making the methods less labor intensive. Moreover, we argue that these translations to an approach for further UCD research will be carried out by UCD specialists, as they are able to infer which goals the user had when going through these paths when looking at the log data.

Guide to build YOLO, a creativity-stimulating robot for children

Abstract YOLO is a non-anthropomorphic social robot designed to stimulate creativity in children. This robot was envisioned to be used by children during free-play where they use the robot as a character for the stories they create. During play, YOLO makes use of creativity techniques that promote the creation of new story-lines. Therefore, the robot serves as a tool that has the potential to stimulate creativity in children during the interaction. Particularly, YOLO can stimulate divergent and convergent thinking for story creations. Additionally, YOLO can have different personalities, providing it with socially intelligent and engaging behaviors. This work provides open-source and open-access of YOLO’s hardware. The design of the robot was guided by psychological theories and models on creativity, design research including user-centered design practices with children, and informed by expert working in the field of creativity. Specifically, we relied on established theories of personality to inform the social behavior of the robot, and on theories of creativity to design creativity stimulating behaviors. Our design decisions were then based on design fieldwork with children. The end product is a robot that communicates using non-verbal expressive modalities (lights and movements) equipped with sensors that detect the playful behaviors of children. YOLO has the potential to be used as a research tool for academic studies, and as a toy for the community to engage in personal fabrication. The overall benefit of this proposed hardware is that it is open-source, less expensive than existing ones, and one that children can build by themselves under expert supervision.

User-centred design for developing e-Health system for renal patients at home (AppNephro)

BackgroundDespite the promising benefits of the e-Health approaches (including provide technology-based healthcare services to anyone, anytime, and anywhere), few solutions are adopted in daily practice. User acceptance is one of the major obstacles that hinder the success of technology approaches. End-users often stress misalignments among their problems and the solutions that technology systems aim to solve. In other cases, systems developed are unfriendly or unadjusted to the daily practice of clinicians or patient’s life. To maximize user acceptance, the relevance of adopting user-centred design and development techniques is well-known. However, users are often assumed to be a homogeneous group with the same set of requirements, what leads to an ineffective identification and addressment of user requirements. Furthermore, usability and accessibility issues must be carefully addressed to guarantee also the right alignment of solutions with user needs. Objectiveto develop an e-Health system for renal patients at home by adopting user-centred design practices, usability and accessibility standards. Material and methodsusers were categorized in four different groups (i.e., digital patients/caregivers, non-digital patients/caregivers, clinicians and nurses) and a sample was included in the design and development team. Questionnaires and interviews were used to identify user requirements and assess prototypes. ResultsRequirements were considered for every kind of user, what resulted on a multi-faceted e-Health system implying different technologies and functionalities regarding to each target user. ConclusionIdentification and continuous involvement of all kind of users allow their needs to be properly understood and addressed by technology, raising user acceptance of the final product.

How to be open

This study builds a model of open video game development, an emerging user-centered design practice where a developer publicly releases an incomplete game and iterate on it while gathering feedback from the player community. It argues that open development is fundamentally a communication and user experience practice characterized by a commitment to access, transparency, and feedback. Ultimately, it shows open development as a practice where game developers are consciously designing a compelling experience of participation in user research.

Teaching a Critical Digital Literacy of Wearables: A Feminist Surveillance as Care Pedagogy

Abstract This article critically responds to the collection of data drawn from the body and the surveillance of everyday experiences via the use of wearable technologies. Bringing together feminist methodologies in rhetoric and writing with feminist conversations in surveillance studies, Hutchinson and Novotny argue that a feminist surveillance as care pedagogy teaches professional writing students a user-centered design practice that supports consent and user agency, and resists ubiquitous, non-consensual surveillance of user’s bodies. Their pedagogy centers on acquisition of critical digital literacies as necessary for teaching students to engage with emerging technological issues, specifically ones raised when considering the ethical implications with surveillance and privacy. The two courses outlined in this article approach wearable technologies through the lens of rhetorics of health and medicine, enabling the kind of critical digital literacies needed to interrogate privacy and surveillance concerns that impact students—a demographic most often targeted as users of these technologies.

User-Centered Design In and Beyond the Classroom: Toward an Accountable Practice

Abstract The authors, an instructor and students, describe our practice of user-centered design on three levels: in the design and structure of an advanced undergraduate course in which we all participated, in student projects designed during the course, and in our reflections on the course presented here. We argue that principles of user-centered design can and should be more than course concepts and assignments; they can be core practices of the course that hold both students and teachers accountable for the impacts of their rhetorical choices. We offer a model for other teacher-scholars looking to involve students in the design of their courses and in writing together about their work.

Tenets for Social Accessibility

Despite years of addressing disability in technology design and advocating user-centered design practices, popular mainstream technologies remain largely inaccessible for people with disabilities. We conducted a design course study investigating how student designers regard disability and explored how designing for multiple disabled and nondisabled users encouraged students to think about accessibility in the design process. Across two university course offerings one year apart, we examined how students focused on a design project while learning user-centered design concepts and techniques, working with people with and without disabilities throughout the project. In addition, we compared how students incorporated disability-focused design approaches within a classroom setting. We found that designing for multiple stakeholders with and without disabilities expanded student understanding of accessible design by demonstrating that people with the same disability could have diverse needs and by aligning such needs with those of nondisabled users. We also found that using approaches targeted toward designing for people with disabilities complemented interactions with users, particularly with regard to managing varying abilities across users, or incorporating social aspects. Our findings contribute to an understanding about how we might incur change in design practice by working with multiple stakeholders with and without disabilities whenever possible. We refined Design for Social Accessibility by incorporating these findings into three tenets emphasizing: (1) design for disability ought to incorporate users with and without disabilities, (2) design should address functional and social factors simultaneously, and (3) design should include tools to spur consideration of social factors in accessible design.

User Involvement and Usability Evaluation in Ethiopian Software Organizations

AbstractUsability is central especially in contexts with highly heterogeneous user groups as it is the case in developing countries. User involvement and participation has positive impacts towards developing usable software and system success and it is one of the core principles in user centered design (UCD). But how does the industry in developing countries work with UCD and usability evaluation? The article reports from a survey on usability evaluation and UCD practices in Ethiopian software organizations. It aims at exploring the practice of usability evaluation, user involvement and participation in the software organizations in Ethiopia. Some part of the survey question is adapted from a previously conducted survey in Italy and Denmark and further expanded with a set of questions referring to user involvement and participation. The survey was triangulated with interviews with a subset of the respondents. The results show that the percentage of organizations performing some form of usability evaluation is low in Ethiopia. The challenges of usability evaluation observed in the study was analyzed with respect to the challenges of ‘digital divide’ against the publicly available methods and practices and among developed and developing nations using real access/real impact criteria. The result shows that there are some unique challenges of usability not discussed in the literature reviewed in any detail such as less IT skills, lack of trained professionals, and lack of awareness. The result for user involvement shows also some unique challenges: lack of user motivation, acceptance of change and cultural influence. However, more than 80% of the surveyed organizations claim involving users in some kind in product development. The implications of these findings with respect to the need to contextualize UCD and usability methods are discussed.

Designers’ articulation and activation of instrumental design judgements in cross-cultural user research

Cross-cultural design practices have begun to rise in prominence, but these practices have infrequently intersected with common user-centred design practices that value the participation and lived experience of users. In this paper, we analyse a shared data-set that documented the efforts of a Scandinavian design team as they designed a co-creation workshop with Chinese consumers. We identified how the design team referred to workshop participants, focusing on how these references implicated the design team’s understanding of Chinese culture. We identified referents to the participants to locate projection of and reflection on participant interaction, and performed a thematic analysis of design and debrief activities to document the team’s articulation and activation of instrumental judgements relating to culture. The team’s instrumental judgements shifted over time, moving from totalising cultural references in the design phase to frequent translator-mediated interactions in the debrief phase. Translators ‘nuanced’ the cultural meanings being explored by the design team, while team members attempted to engage with cultural concerns by ‘making familiar’ these concerns within the context of their own culture. Implications for considering culture as a part of standard user research methods and paradigms are considered, along with practical considerations for foregrounding cultural assumptions in design activity.