Thesis-1989-Guevara.pdf (5.38 MB)
An investigation of the representations of users' requirements in the design of interactive systems
thesis
posted on 2014-10-17, 09:46 authored by K.A. GuevaraThe design of interactive computer systems was
identified as an important area for investigation due to the increasing
evidence of a discrepancy between the intended use of the systems,
and the use by users. This led to the hypothesis that the
discrepancies between systems and users were attributed to an
inadequate representation of users' requirements in the design of the
systems. Therefore, the research focused on the design process, and
how users' requirements were represented in the process. The
research was based on an investigation of two areas of design: the
type of design processes that developed in system design, and the
representations of users' requirements in design. Studies were based
on structured interviews with designers, on observations of design
teams engaged in design tasks, and on documentation from design
projects.
A major component of the research findings concerns the design
context. The research has made it possible to see how the variations
in design relate to the context in which it takes place. Some of the
primary contextual influences include the commercial constraint, the
pressure to innovate, and the specialisation in user interface design.
Another significant finding relates to the representations of users'
requirements in the design process. Two key issues emerge from the
findings. First, designers approach design tasks with a technical,
system based design model. The application of this model to design
tasks is often inappropriate; however, designers lack design schemas
appropriate to user related tasks.
The second issue is that designers often work with inadequate
information on users' requirements. The design process is
characterised by limitations of information on users' information in
design tasks. The extent to which these limitations are experienced by
designers differs according to the design context.
History
School
- Design
Publisher
© K.A. GuevaraPublisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
1989Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.EThOS Persistent ID
uk.bl.ethos.626991Language
- en