User Involvement In Design Research Articles

How are Autistic People Involved in the Design of Extended Reality Technologies? A Systematic Literature Review.

The primary aim of this systematic review is to investigate the inclusion of autistic individuals in the design process of immersive technologies.This study follows the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses standards for systematic literature reviews. To ensure the research questions and subsequent stages of the review incorporate pertinent parameters, the problem, interest, context framework has also been employed.Findings highlight that, while early proponents of immersive technology emphasized the importance of user involvement in design of new technology, immaturity of the technology often limited the implementation of direct user input to the design process. Nonetheless, analysis of the literature published between 2002-2022 identified 20 studies in which substantial influence of autistic individuals and stakeholders was found in the design process of immersive technologies. The roles of autistic individuals varied from active co-designers and co-creators to essential contributors in refining prototypes and providing critical feedback, ensuring the final products align with their needs and preferences.Results underscore the need to align research and design of immersive technologies more closely with the priorities and preferences of autistic individuals. Further is needed regarding actively involving autistic individuals in the design and implementation of immersive technology applications. On this basis, we maintain that more inclusive and effective deployment of immersive technologies is needed in order to ensure that resultant technologies are fit for purpose and address the actual needs of the autistic community.

Architectural Practice Supporting Sustainability Transitions in the Built Environment

Transitions towards sustainability are urgently needed to address the environmental and societal challenges on a global scale. This article applies concepts used in sustainability transition studies – niches and transition experiments – to architectural practice. A tentative evaluative scheme developed by Luederitz et al [1] is used in this article to analyse how transition experiments in architectural practice can be designed and performed to support sustainability transitions in the built environment. Three practice-led transition experiments addressing resource efficiency and frugality, reuse of materials, user involvement in design, self-building, etc. are analysed. The article concludes by discussing implications of using a transition experiment approach in architectural practice.

User involvement in design of a safety-critical operating panel system

The design of complex systems requires expertise of various kinds. In particular, expert users with operative experience can have much to say, even though their voices are always not been heard during design. In this paper, we provide an analysis of a real-life example, that is, the involvement of end-users in the design of a human-system interface for safety-critical operations of a nuclear power plant during a period extending over three decades. During this period, growing safety regulations and technological advances have been key motivators to design changes. At the same time, increasing expertise of operators makes them more proficient to comment those changes and engage in their implementation. In presenting empirical insights from several phases of the control room life cycle, we discuss the benefits, as well as the challenges, of user involvement in the design of complex systems and reflect on those in the light of our example case. Generally, we found that the user-designer interaction is most often built around concrete design artifacts such as mock-ups and prototypes and takes place later phases of design. Furthermore, user involvement often lacks rigor and depth that would help to comprehend the work activity and enable critical reflection of this generic understanding to foresee the overall vision for future work. A close look at historical turns of user involvement in one particular example provides insights that enable us to develop a general account of human-centered design in safety-critical domain.

Advances in digital CBT: where are we now, and where next?

Digital CBT refers to the use of digital tools, platforms or devices to deliver or enhance cognitive behavioural therapy assessment, formulation, treatment, training and supervision. The 'Advances in Digital CBT' special issue aimed to document examples of innovative digital CBT practice in this rapidly developing field. In this paper, we have briefly summarised and synthesised the advances demonstrated in this group of articles. These include developments in our understanding of mental health apps, the use of digital tools as an adjunct to therapy, the effectiveness of remotely delivered CBT in routine clinical practice, our understanding of user experiences and involvement, and in digital CBT research methods. We consider the extent of current knowledge in these areas and identify where gaps in evidence lie and how the field could be taken forward to address these. Lastly, we reflect on the broader digital CBT picture and offer our suggestions of six key directions for future research: using robust study designs to evaluate and optimise digital tools; translating and culturally adapting digital tools and practices; understanding and addressing digital exclusion; exploring, reporting and addressing possible negative effects; improving user involvement in design and evaluation; and addressing the implementation gap for digital tools. We suggest that further advances in these areas would be of particular benefit to the digital CBT field.

The Extent of User Involvement in the Design of Self-tracking Technology for Bipolar Disorder: Literature Review.

BackgroundThe number of self-monitoring apps for bipolar disorder (BD) is increasing. The involvement of users in human-computer interaction (HCI) research has a long history and is becoming a core concern for designers working in this space. The application of models of involvement, such as user-centered design, is becoming standardized to optimize the reach, adoption, and sustained use of this type of technology.ObjectiveThis paper aims to examine the current ways in which users are involved in the design and evaluation of self-monitoring apps for BD by investigating 3 specific questions: are users involved in the design and evaluation of technology? If so, how does this happen? And what are the best practice ingredients regarding the design of mental health technology?MethodsWe reviewed the available literature on self-tracking technology for BD and make an overall assessment of the level of user involvement in design. The findings were reviewed by an expert panel, including an individual with lived experience of BD, to form best practice ingredients for the design of mental health technology. This combines the existing practices of patient and public involvement and HCI to evolve from the generic guidelines of user-centered design and to those that are tailored toward mental health technology.ResultsFor the first question, it was found that out of the 11 novel smartphone apps included in this review, 4 (36%) self-monitoring apps were classified as having no mention of user involvement in design, 1 (9%) self-monitoring app was classified as having low user involvement, 4 (36%) self-monitoring apps were classified as having medium user involvement, and 2 (18%) self-monitoring apps were classified as having high user involvement. For the second question, it was found that despite the presence of extant approaches for the involvement of the user in the process of design and evaluation, there is large variability in whether the user is involved, how they are involved, and to what extent there is a reported emphasis on the voice of the user, which is the ultimate aim of such design approaches. For the third question, it is recommended that users are involved in all stages of design with the ultimate goal of empowering and creating empathy for the user.ConclusionsUsers should be involved early in the design process, and this should not just be limited to the design itself, but also to associated research ensuring end-to-end involvement. Communities in health care–based design and HCI design need to work together to increase awareness of the different methods available and to encourage the use and mixing of the methods as well as establish better mechanisms to reach the target user group. Future research using systematic literature search methods should explore this further.

Participatory Design, User Involvement and Health IT Evaluation.

End user involvement and input into the design and evaluation of information systems has been recognized as being a critical success factor in the adoption of information systems. Nowhere is this need more critical than in the design of health information systems. Consistent with evidence from the general software engineering literature, the degree of user input into design of complex systems has been identified as one of the most important factors in the success or failure of complex information systems. The participatory approach goes beyond user-centered design and co-operative design approaches to include end users as more active participants in design ideas and decision making. Proponents of participatory approaches argue for greater end user participation in both design and evaluative processes. Evidence regarding the effectiveness of increased user involvement in design is explored in this contribution in the context of health IT. The contribution will discuss several approaches to including users in design and evaluation. Challenges in IT evaluation during participatory design will be described and explored along with several case studies.

WHY DO THE ORDERS GO WRONG ALL THE TIME?

In this paper we discuss sustainability, particularly social and cultural sustainability, in relation to an e-commerce application used in the kitchen of a Swedish public school. The notion of sustainability got its public definition through the Brundtland Commission and the report Our Common Future in which ecological as well as economic and social dimensions were underlined. An additional dimension, culture, has recently unfolded. The data reported in this paper were collected in public school and pre-school meal production. This is a large, institutional, tax-funded activity in Sweden as all pre-schools, compulsory schools and most upper secondary schools serve free lunch to the children and students. We discuss how an e-commerce application complicated the daily routines in the school kitchen rather than making the ordering of food stuff easier or more flexible and how small things that mattered in the staff's day-to-day activities shed light on the application's problems and weaknesses. Following Agenda 21, we relate these shortcomings to sustainability and also to participation. The discussion builds on social and cultural sustainability and participatory design with a focus on the involvement of users in design and implementation of IT systems and services.

Innovating for Sustainability: Involving Users, Politics and Technology

Morality is as much in the things we use as in the minds of people. Therefore, this paper argues that we can only establish a sustainable society if we redesign the material landscape we live in. Our daily practices, and the technology on which they rest, should be revised such that environmentally friendly behaviour becomes the rule instead of the exception that costs extra effort. For such redesign to be achieved we need alternative design approaches that are able to accommodate the needs of consumers, producers and the environment as represented by politics. This implies that we have to rethink the role of users in relation to the current debate on user involvement in design. This rethinking is carried out within the framework of developing an experimental approach for design of 'moralizing' technology that stimulates users towards eco-friendly behaviour.

Effective Communication in Requirements Elicitation: A Comparison of Methodologies

The elicitation or communication of user requirements comprises an early and critical but highly error-prone stage in system development. Socially oriented methodologies provide more support for user involvement in design than the rigidity of more traditional methods, facilitating the degree of user---designer communication and the `capture' of requirements. A more emergent and collaborative view of requirements elicitation and communication is required to encompass the user, contextual and organisational factors. From this accompanying literature in communication issues in requirements elicitation, a four-dimensional framework is outlined and used to appraise comparatively four different methodologies seeking to promote a closer working relationship between users and designers. The facilitation of communication between users and designers is subject to discussion of the ways in which communicative activities can be `optimised' for successful requirements gathering, by making recommendations based on the four dimensions to provide fruitful considerations for system designers.

INFORM: European survey of computers in intensive care units.

The aims of this study were (a) to survey and evaluate the impact of information technology applications in High Dependency Environments (HDEs) on organizational, psychological and cost-effectiveness factors, (b) to contribute information and design requirements to the other workpackages in the INFORM Project, and (c) to develop useful evaluation methodologies. The evaluation methodologies used were: questionnaires, case studies, objective findings (keystroke) and literature search and review. Six questionnaires were devised covering organizational impact, cost-benefit impact and perceived advantages and disadvantages of computerized systems in HDE (psychological impact). The general conclusion was that while existing systems have been generally well received, they are not yet designed in such a developed and integrated way as to yield their full potential. Greater user involvement in design and implementation and more emphasis on training emerged as strong requirements. Lack of reliability leading to parallel charting was a major problem with the existing systems. It proved difficult to assess cost effectiveness due to a lack of detailed accounting costs; however, it appeared that in the short term, computerisation in HDEs tended to increase costs. It is felt that through a better stock control and better decision making, costs may be reduced in the longer run and effectiveness increased; more detailed longitudinal studies appear to be needed on this subject.

A USER INTERFACE DESIGN TOOL

This paper discusses a user interface design tool for use in the Alvey ECLIPSE project. ECLIPSE is a second-generation integrated project support environment for medium to large software projects. Currently tool user interfaces in ECLIPSE are written in the Format Description Language (FDL) which defines the objects the user sees on the screen and how he/she interacts with them. FDL is interpreted at run time by a user interface management system. However, a language-based approach makes it difficult to visualise the user interface. A more direct approach is required (especially for the graphical interfaces used in Eclipse) to assist rapid prototyping and permit more user involvement in design. This paper looks at a tool for the "Direct Manipulation" [1] of interface objects and the methodology surrounding the tool. The tool is the centre of a design-prototype-evaluate iterative loop.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT, USER INVOLVEMENT, AND THE USEFULNESS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS*

ABSTRACTThis study investigates organizational factors related to user involvement in information system development and perceived system usefulness. Using a sample of 118 usermanagers in 34 companies, the results show that user involvement in design and implementation is related positively to users' perceptions of system usefulness. However, organizational factors were not found to be related significantly to user involvement, as had been originally hypothesized. Rather, organizational factors either had a direct relationship with perceived usefulness or moderated the relationship between involvement and usefulness. Two factors reflecting an MIS department's maturity (size and age) were found to reduce users' perceptions of system usefulness. Also, users at higher levels and those making more structured decisions found their systems more useful, although the user's level was found to moderate perceptions of system usefulness during the design stage. Three other organizational factors (level of MIS manager, MIS department scope, and decentralization of authority) also were found to have moderating effects.

The Design and Selection of Evaluation Studies

User involvement in the design and selection of evaluation studies is a widely advocated strategy for increasing their use. In this paper a particular structure (the "user-oriented framework") for guiding such involvement is described . In addition, some tentative propositions are offered concerning the viability of this framework (and, more generally, user involvement in study design and selection). Finally, other strategies are identified that might be employed in conjunction with the user-oriented framework in order to increase its viability in certain contexts

Power and the design and implementation of accounting and control systems

Although accounting and control systems have increased in both their sophistication and importance as resource allocation decisions have moved more within organizations, resistance and system failure are both common, and there is little evidence that system sophistication is associated with effective performance. Three consonance hypotheses are advanced to explain resistance and system difficulty: accounting and control systems will be implemented easily to the extent that they are (a) consistent with other sources of power in their implications for the distribution of power; (b) consistent with the dominant organizational culture and paradigm in their implications for values and beliefs; and (c) consistent with shared judgments about technical certainty and goal congruence in their assumptions about the degree of certainty about the organization's goals and technology. These sources of resistance are fundamentally structural, and process-based strategies (such as user involvement in design) are largely ineffective in overcoming these problems. This result suggests that power structures and organizational paradigms must be considered in both research and practice dealing with accounting and control systems.