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User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach, by Karel Vredenburg, Scott Isensee, and Carol Righi, is reviewed.
User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach, Karel Vredenburg, Scott Isensee, and Carol Righi, Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ (2002). 247 pp. with CD-ROM. (ISBN 0-13-091295-6).
With the growth of consumer markets and increased competition for market share, it is hard these days not to encounter the term "usability" in the computer industry. In today's market, functionality and "speeds and feeds" are no longer sufficient conditions for the design of successful products. Even enterprise customers are no longer satisfied with raw power and lightning-fast performance in the designs of the systems and software they purchase. Functionality isn't enough; users are demanding that ease of use be designed into the products they buy. In fact, Boeing Corp. and a number of other companies recently announced that before they will purchase a product, they now require that vendors demonstrate the usability of their designs through usability testing. Similarly, EU (European Union) companies are looking for products that meet the ISO 9241-11 standard, which defines usability as "the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals in a specified context of use with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction."
User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach is an interesting history of the ways in which IBM responded to this evolution in the technology market. Its authors were all champions of UCD (User-Centered Design) throughout the 1990s. Karel Vredenburg was responsible for the development of IBM'S approach to UCD in the early 1990s. Scott Isensee and Carol Righi were significant contributors to revisions of the original approach and played leading roles in the development of educational programs aimed at spreading the UCD approach to product development throughout the company. The authors' emphasis on developing approaches to UCD and their experience offering training programs are noteworthy because they give the book its distinctive features.
User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach is almost entirely about the "integrated approach" that companies should use in order to develop a user-centered product development cycle. In other words, the book doesn't attempt to teach design techniques from a human factors perspective, nor is it intended to be a primer on usability testing methodologies. Instead, it focuses on the high-level process that a multidisciplinary design team should use in order to ensure that ease of use is a characteristic of the product being designed.
The authors' previous experience offering workshops and training programs in UCD is clear from the richness of the book's design. Visual learners will be pleased to learn that User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach is not just another prose-only introduction to UCD. There are so many diagrams and graphics in the book that it doesn't take much imagination to see the ways that the authors' slides from their workshop presentations probably evolved into the book. Almost every page in the book has some kind of visual aid that supports the text. In addition, the accompanying CD-ROM offers nine different video clips that further illustrate principles discussed in the book. Those readers seeking hard-headed, practical examples will also be pleased by the authors' use of sample case studies, which illustrate the concepts being discussed in each section of the book. Taken from an impressive array of the authors' practical, hands-on experiences with the development of actual products, these case studies make a compelling argument for the viability of the UCD approach offered in the book. The authors are not merely describing a theoretical process that might work; instead, they are illustrating a process that has worked for practitioners in the trenches.
Because User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach is a discussion of an approach that companies may use to implement UCD, the book's five chapters are loosely organized around the chronology of implementing the integrated approach. Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of ways to consider your own institution's current use of UCD in its product development cycle, and it provides strategies for discovering points of resistance to change within your organization. Of particular interest in this chapter is a section entitled "Dealing with the 'Yeah, buts . . .'" which offers compelling counter-arguments to those members of an organization who argue that UCD is a good idea but too expensive, time-consuming, or resource-intensive. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the authors' "integrated approach," which is based on the following six UCD principles:
1. Set business goals. Determining the target market, intended users, and primary competition is central to all design and user participation.
2. Understand users. An understanding of the users is the driving force behind all design.
3. Design the total customer experience. Everything a customer sees, hears, and touches is designed together by a multidisciplinary team.
4. Evaluate designs. User feedback is gathered often with rigor and speed and drives product design.
5. Assess competitiveness. Competitive design requires a relentless focus on the ways users currently carry out the tasks and a determination to create designs that add value.
6. Manage for users. User feedback is integral to product plans, priorities, and decision-making.
Chapter 3 is probably the strongest chapter in the book. It discusses the issues involved in actually introducing the integrated UCD approach into an organization. It begins with an excellent section on ways to educate various stakeholders in an organization and even provides Microsoft PowerPoint** slides that readers can use for short programs at their own sites. Also discussed in this chapter are infrastructure elements such as funding sources, lab setups, and key personnel, which must be put into place before a UCD approach can be successfully introduced.
Chapter 4 discusses how, after the infrastructure needs have been met, UCD can be deployed, and focuses primarily on using the appropriate usability-testing technique at the appropriate phase of a product's development cycle. During the concept phase of a product's development, for example, familiar techniques like task analysis, contextual inquiries, use cases, usability walk-throughs, and several others are discussed. Finally, Chapter 5 is entitled "Optimizing Your Implementation of the Approach," and discusses synchronous conferencing software, Web-based applications, and other technologies that have been developed at IBM in order to reduce the time and effort required to collect and analyze user data.
User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach is the kind of accessible and pragmatic book about designing for usability that busy professionals need. Because it was written by people who have led the UCD charge from the trenches, this book offers the kinds of strategic insights and practical knowledge necessary for success in industry contexts. If you're looking for a "how-to" introduction to usability testing methodologies or a general overview of interface design principles, then you will probably want to look at books like A Practical Guide to Usability Testing, the Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, or The Usability Engineering Lifecycle, a Practitioner's Handbook for the User Interface. If, however, you are looking for a book that will help you transform your organization so that you can put UCD into actual practice, then User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach offers precisely the kind of practical, business-focused skill set that you want, and it will sit comfortably on the shelf next to those other texts.
** Trademark or registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.
Tharon Howard
Clemson University
Clemson, South Carolina
Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2003