Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics
2 total works
It is all too common for products, such as consumer appliances, information systems, mobile apps, and websites, to cause trouble and frustration. For example, products are often difficult or dull to use, make tasks less flexible or more tedious, shift attention away from important or gratifying activities, and simply fail to deliver expected benefits or experiences. By identifying such trouble and frustration in the lab prior to widespread use, usability tests have proven a valuable method for informing redesign efforts. A usability test consists of having test users exercise a product and think aloud about their experience using it, while an evaluator observes the users and listens in on their thoughts. On this basis, the evaluator identifies usability problems and assesses the user experience. This book describes how to conduct usability tests. After providing context about concepts and testing, the main chapters of the book cover the steps involved in preparing for a usability test, executing the test sessions, and analyzing the test data. Throughout the chapters, concrete guidance is balanced against more complex issues with an impact on the robustness, validity, completeness, impact, and cost of a usability test. The book concludes with an outlook to variations of usability testing and alternatives to it.
Information systems are part and parcel of organizations. Yet, organizations often struggle to realize the benefits that motivate their introduction of these systems. To derive benefit from a new information system, it must be integrated into the structures and processes of the organization. That is, the system must be organizationally implemented. This book is about organizational implementation, which requires thorough preparations but also continues long after the system has gone live: (1) During the preparations, the implementation is planned. This phase includes specifying the effects pursued with the system, adapting the system and organization to each other, and obtaining buy-in for the planned change. (2) At go-live, the system is put to operational use and the associated organizational changes take effect. This phase is about insisting on the planned change even though go-live is normally hectic and accompanied by a productivity dip. (3) During continued use after go-live, implementation continues as design in use. This phase is long and improvisational. It includes following up on effects realization, but it is just as much about embracing the opportunities that emerge from using the system. Apart from covering the three phases of organizational implementation, the book inserts implementation in an organizational-change context and discusses barriers to implementation as well as boosters of implementation. The book concludes with an outlook to larger-scale issues beyond the implementation of one system in one organization and with an overview of the competences needed in the implementation team, which runs the organizational implementation.