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Beyond User-Centered Design and User Experience : Designing for User Performance
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Constantine, Larry L. |
| Copyright Year | 2006 |
| Abstract | prototyping to defer introduction of realistic details. Usability inspections to multiply the effectiveness of user testing. Elevating user performance over user experience. Model-driven exploration. Exploratory modeling (Windl, 2002a) is a technique for speeding up and simplifying the process of user study and requirements definition. Where common ethnographic approaches to user study begin with observation and data gathering followed by building models based on the data, exploratory modeling reverses the order, beginning with preliminary modeling on which to base subsequent user study. Provisional models of users and user tasks are first constructed in order to help identify holes in understanding, formulate questions, and to highlight areas of ambiguity and uncertainty or outright confusion. These admittedly incomplete models are used to clarify priorities and guide the investigation and observation by sharpening the focus onto key areas. Provisional models are then refined based on findings from a more rapid and pointed data gathering process. As originally proposed and most commonly practiced, exploratory modeling constructs condensed and simplified inventories of essential needs: the roles that users will play in relation to the planned system and the tasks that must be supported in order for users to successfully perform those roles. Instead of a protracted investigation producing a potentially overwhelming surplus of data, model-driven exploration quickly and efficiently delivers answers to the most important questions. In principle, model-driven exploration entails a risk that modelers will not realize where information is missing or will not recognize what is unknown or misunderstood, but in practice this does not seem to be a problem. In any event, it is almost invariably cheaper and easier to go back and fill in a few blanks missed on a tightly focused initial inquiry than to gather great quantities of superfluous data that must nevertheless be processed and understood before it can be discarded. Complete task modeling. Of all the thing that visual and interaction designers and other usability professionals need to understand about users, none is more important than their intentions. What are the tasks that users intend to accomplish with the product? Guided by a task model that maps out all the user tasks and how they are interconnected, designers are in a better position to put features that support user tasks in the most appropriate places. Task cases and essential use cases (Constantine, 1995; Constantine and Lockwood, 2001) offer a more precise and less wordy alternative to user-centered models like scenarios and customer stories. These models have a structure that focuses on the intentions of users and the responsibilities of the system in support of those needs. Their fine-grained and succinct format helps promotes compact but comprehensive modeling of task essentials. They the have a long record of success in leading to world-class designs that enhance user performance (Windl, 2002b). |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.foruse.com/articles/beyond.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
