| 1. |
- Ekelin, Annelie, et al.
(författare)
-
KomInDu : A Small Project about Big Issues
- 2004
-
Ingår i: The proceedings from the biennial Participatory Conferences (PDC)2004. - Toronto : CPSR. - 1581138512
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this short paper, we present glimpses from an interdisciplinary research and development project aimed at enhancing local democracy by developing ICT support for the consultation process around the comprehensive plan of a municipality. For the participating researchers, the project offered the opportunity of combining and comparing approaches and methods from two different design traditions that share democratic ideals and ambitions of nurturing citizen/user participation in design processes. This proved to be more challenging than we had originally anticipated. Differences in perspective gave different interpretations of the design context as well as of how participatory the processes actually were.
|
|
| 2. |
- Elovaara, Pirjo, et al.
(författare)
-
Educational programs in e-government : An active, practice- and design-oriented network?
- 2004
-
Ingår i: 3rd International Conference on Electronic Government (EGOV 2004). - Zaragoza, SPAIN : SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN. ; , s. 457-459
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the autumn of 2004, two higher educational programs in e-government will be starting up at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Southern Sweden. One of these is a Master’s level program, while the other is a more basic, two-year vocational education. Each will be the first of its kind in Scandinavia, and both will be offered as net-based distance education. The interdisciplinary group of researchers/teachers now developing the courses for these educational programs, in co-operation with several other research groups in Scandinavia, see this co-construction of distance education as the beginning of an active Scandinavian network of competence around higher education and ongoing research and development in the e-government area. We are currently exploring the possibilities of using distance education in this area as a way of networking around on-going e-government research and competence enhancement in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian tradition of Participatory Design, as well as ideas about e-government as constantly ongoing co-construction, have inspired us in our work with developing the new educational programs. A reference group consisting of representatives from a number of municipalities and various government agencies plays an important role in this work.
|
|
| 3. |
- Eriksén, Sara, et al.
(författare)
-
What have we learned from the TANGO arena for regional cooperation in Southern Sweden?
- 2004
-
Ingår i: Electronic Government. - Zaragoza : Springer Verlag. - 9783540229162 ; , s. 156-163
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The TANGO e-government arena is a project in Southern Sweden, funded by the Innovative Actions of the European Regional Development Fund. The project is now nearing its end, and we are thus at the stage of reflectively reviewing what has actually been accomplished and how this relates to the original goals of the project. In July 2002, when the project began, the aim was to establish cooperation between the public sector, private enterprise and university-based research in designing public e-services. In cooperating around development of new, integrated services, catering to various categories of users as well as to a growing diversity of mobile technologies, we have aimed towards es-tablishing feedback channels between practice and theory, between use and design, and between different academic disciplines where we see a need to synchronize the models and methods we work with. Our research questions have focused on exploring and managing multi-perspectivity as a resource for design. In this paper we look at how we organized our cooperation around these goals, and attempt to address those basic summing-up-the-project questions; How well have we succeeded? What have we learned in the process?
|
|
| 4. |
- Rönkkö, Kari, et al.
(författare)
-
Inside Information 2 − Usability and User Research : Eight years of research and method development cooperation
- 2009
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report is a follow up to the Inside Information – Usability and User Research at UIQ Technology report that was made available in October 2006. The initial report was written from an industrial point of view aimed to market UIQ Technology through the demonstration of the UIQ usability and user research philosophy. UIQ Technology Usability Metrics (UTUM) was important result here. UTUM was considered an extremely cost-effective method for keeping in focus what is important for users and handset makers. It was a tool for guiding development decisions as well as for validating the worthiness of design concepts. The two parts in UTUM was perceived by the company as an innovation in their software development practice. The first part was the relationship to users and attitude to their participation in the design process. The second part was how the company immediately and directly incorporated this usability understanding into the software development process. UTUM, together with other usability methods and results presented in this report, have been produced in an action research manner. Due to the closure of the company, the main author of the 2006 report, and the same researchers who also supported the writing of the initial report, decided to produce a follow-up and closure version of the initial report; as a way to summarize the results from the academic and industrial cooperation. In this updated version, eight years of joint action research and cooperative method development surrounding usability and user research is concluded.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Winter, Jeff, et al.
(författare)
-
Developing Quality through Measuring Usability--The UTUM Test Package
- 2007
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents a tool for building quality of use into software and the software process, in the form of a test package for mass market devices. It is developed for measuring user experience, which is seen as a more encompassing term than usability. The test package, which is under constant development, is the result of a long term cooperation between industry and academia, and is in use in indutrial development projects. It shows usability through the use of metrics, for efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction, supported by qualitative judgements made by a test leader/usability expert. It gives a clear demonstration of quality, from the customer and end-user point of view. The case presented here, where the test has been performed concurrently in two countries, has been a quality assurance of the test package, which has been found to work efficiently and flexibly in a complex industrial environment, with complicated relationships between customers, partners and end-users.
|
|
| 7. |
- Winter, Jeff, 1959-, et al.
(författare)
-
Identifying organizational barriers : A case study of usability work when developing software in the automation industry
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier. - 0164-1212 .- 1873-1228. ; 88, s. 54-73
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigates connections between usability efforts and organizational factors. This is an important field of research which so far appears to be insufficiently studied and discussed. It illustrates problems when working with software engineering tasks and usability requirements. It deals with a large company that manufactures industrial robots with an advanced user interface, which wanted to introduce usability KPIs, to improve product quality. The situation in the company makes this difficult, due to a combination of organizational and behavioural factors that led to a “wicked problem” that caused conflicts, breakdowns and barriers. Addressing these problems requires a holistic view that places context in the foreground and technological solutions in the background. Developing the right product requires communication and collaboration between multiple stakeholders. The inclusion of end users, who fully understand their own work context, is vital. Achieving this is dependent on organizational change, and management commitment. One step to beginning this change process may be through studying ways to introduce user-centred design processes.
|
|
| 8. |
- Winter, Jeff
(författare)
-
Law, knowledge and mobility in local planning
- 2004
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Interpretation of the law is important in the administrative decision-making process in local municipal planning, which is a co-operative process. Local mobility also plays an important role. A study of work practice highlights the need to take this into account when designing support for decision-making processes.
|
|
| 9. |
- Winter, Jeff
(författare)
-
Measuring usability - balancing agility and formality : for stakeholders’ needs in software development
- 2009
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main focus of the research presented in this thesis is a usability evaluation framework for mass market mobile devices, allowing measurement, comparison and presentation of the usability of hand held devices. The research has been a cooperation between an academic and an industrial partner, based on an action research approach, following the processes of Cooperative Method Development (CMD). It has used a case study approach, where the data has been analysed using techniques taken from grounded theory. Ethnography and participatory design have been central to both the research and the cooperation. With its basis in the evaluation framework, and its use of quantitative measurements and qualitative judgments framed by a focus on usability testing, this thesis contributes to aspects related to capturing real world usage in a continuously changing society, and supporting information needs in the process of building software. The evaluation framework can be used as a quality assurance tool in a wide perspective. It measures usability and the user experience, quickly and flexibly, and in so doing measures aspects of quality in use. It has been tested in a complex industrial development project and is a valuable and flexible tool that is easy for a usability expert to learn and use, to measure and help build quality on the customer’s terms. The results we have arrived at are of practical and theoretical interest within software engineering and the industrial telecom sphere. Several features and aspects of the evaluation framework are new and challenging. These are: its mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, allowing it to target many different stakeholders; experience in applying these methods in the technology-focused and rapidly changing mobile phone area; the challenge of addressing end users in a mass market; the challenge of finding presentation models for the many different stakeholders; the challenge of making sure the framework can be used in different stages in the industrial software development process. The framework is related to three areas of software engineering, Market Driven Requirements Engineering, Statistical Usage Testing, and Organisation and Product Together. Our work includes a discussion of the need for agility, which has not so far been focused upon and discussed within the area of software engineering and usability. The combination of factors included in the framework means that is unique in solving a number of the problems that are found in these different areas within software engineering, especially in a rapidly changing marketplace. We also contribute to the field, through the qualitative element of the evaluation framework, which is inspired by ethnography and participatory design. It thereby makes a contribution that can improve practice in the field of software engineering, and that contributes to the theoretical work that is being performed within these different research areas.
|
|
| 10. |
- Winter, Jeff, et al.
(författare)
-
Meeting organisational needs and quality assurance through balancing agile and formal usability testing results
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Lecture Notes in Computer Science. - Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer. ; , s. 275-289
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper deals with a case study of testing with a usability testing package (UTUM), which is also a tool for quality assurance, developed in cooperation between industry and research. It shows that within the studied company, there is a need to balance agility and formalism when producing and presenting results of usability testing to groups who we have called Designers and Product Owners. We have found that these groups have different needs, which can be placed on opposite sides of a scale, based on the agile manifesto. This becomes a Designer and a Product Owner Manifesto. The test package is seen as a successful hybrid method combining agility with formalism, satisfying organisational needs, and fulfilling the desire to create a closer relation between industry and research.
|
|
