Strategies to design for dynamic usability

Since usability is a property of the interaction between a product, a user and the task that he or she is trying to complete [6], a product’s usability can vary when it is used in varying use situations. We define this as dynamic usability. This study is aimed at exploring how practitioners currently deal with dynamic usability. From a retrospective case study research of three design projects different principles and strategies were formulated for dealing with dynamic use situations. In this paper we present solution principles that are applied to accommodate products to dynamic use situations and we discuss two design process issues with regard to dynamic usability, namely the information sources that are used to get insight in the use situations and the means by which designers try to get insight in the consequence of their design decisions with regard to future use situation

Participatory Scenario Generation: Communicating Usability Issues in Product Design through User Involvement in Scenario Generation\ud

Scenarios have proven to be a valuable tool in evaluating and communicating usability issues in consumer product design. Scenarios are explicit descriptions of hypothetical use situations. Realistic scenarios can serve as a valuable frame of reference to evaluate design solutions with regard to usability. To be able to achieve this required level of realism, involving users in scenario generation is essential. In this presentation we discuss how and where users can be involved in a scenario based product design process by means of examples of design projects that were executed by master students Industrial Design Engineering of the University of Twente. \ud \ud We distinguish direct and indirect scenario generation. In direct scenario generation the user is actively involved in a participatory scenario generation session: the scenarios are created together with users. Indirect scenario generation is an approach in which scenarios are created by designers based on common analysis techniques like observations and interviews. These scenarios are then offered to users for confirmation. Both types of user involvement in scenario generation can be aimed at either current use scenarios which describe the current situation or future use scenarios which include a new product design. \ud \ud The examples show that all strategies can be applied successfully to create realistic scenarios. Which strategy to choose depends among others upon risks and privacy issues, occurrence of infrequent events and availability of users. Furthermore, the variety of approaches shows that there is still a lot to explore with regard to benefits and limitations of the many techniques that can be applied in generating scenarios for consumer product design. We hope to contribute to this field by means of the research in our group and the work of students in the SBPD course\u

From remembering to envisioning product use: an informal design technique

To be able to get insight in potential use experiences of design proposals, designers would ideally have continuous access to a diverse group of end-users who could give feedback. Since in practice this is not possible designers often have to rely on other sources to be able to reflect on the use issues of their design proposals. Previous research has shown that designers often apply informal techniques to reflect on use issues, in which personal knowledge and experience of previous projects serve as a frame of reference.. However, this knowledge often remains implicit. In this study we explore a technique in which members of a design team make all personal knowledge and assumptions about use in a certain product domain explicit. In this technique we distinguish remembering, imagining, experiencing and envisioning use. The information that is gathered in this way is captured in a matrix which structures use situation aspects and corresponding use issues. These issues concern user experience, usability as well as performance. In three workshops with different designers we explored the benefits and limitations of such a technique. Particularly iterating between remembering, imagining and experiencing worked very well to evoke experiences of the designer

Atomic Action Refinement in Model Based Testing

In model based testing (MBT) test cases are derived from a specification of the system that we want to test. In general the specification is more abstract than the implementation. This may result in 1) test cases that are not executable, because their actions are too abstract (the implementation does not understand them); or 2) test cases that are incorrect, because the specification abstracts from relevant behavior. The standard approach to remedy this problem is to rewrite the specification by hand to the required level of detail and regenerate the test cases. This is error-prone and time consuming. Another approach is to do some translation during test execution. This solution has no basis in the theory of MBT. We propose a framework to add the required level of detail automatically to the abstract specification and/or abstract test cases.\ud \ud This paper focuses on general atomic action refinement. This means that an abstract action is replaced by more complex behavior (expressed as a labeled transition system). With general we mean that we impose as few restrictions as possible. Atomic means that the actions that are being refined behave as if they were atomic, i.e., no other actions are allowed to interfere

Bus rapid transit system : a study of sustainable land-use transformation, urban density and economic impacts

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has shown significant growth in recent years, particularly in developing countries because of its cost-effectiveness. However, empirical evidence on land-use and economic impacts of BRT is limited. This study measures the sustainable land-use transformation, urban density, and economic impact witnessed after the development of BRT. Spatial analysis shows that BRT has the potential to simulate land-use transformation, however, the extent of transformation is context-dependent. Population density has increased from 268 persons/acre to 299 persons/acre. Besides land-use transformations, inward investments and extension of the labor market were also evident in areas served by BRT. The amount almost equal to US $140 million of inward investment was detected after implementation of BRT, which ultimately brought around 800 new employees from remote areas. An efficient land-use policy, streamlining these land-use transformations, and inward investments, can benefit from developing compact and sustainable neighborhoods. This study will help in the performance evaluation of BRT systems in developing countries for sustainable development

Exploring design for dynamic use

Products that are used by varying users, for varying purposes in varying contexts (dynamic and diverse use situations) are difficult to design because it is hard to predict the situations in which the product will be used and consequently what this requires from the design. In our research we develop guidelines and the Envisioning Use workshop to support designers in dealing with dynamic use. The basic idea of both support tools is that an overview of possible users, goals and contexts serves as an evolving frame of reference for use evaluations in the design process. In the course `Design for Dynamic Use of the master Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) of the University of Twente students applied the developed workshop and guidelines to the design of a carrier bike for a real client. This paper describes the application and evaluation of the workshop technique by students. From this can be concluded that the workshop results in a structured view on the broadness of use situations and use issues. Therefore it is a valuable tool in setting the basis for a frame of reference of product use. For research purposes, a company was involved in the project to provide a real case. While this led to useful research results, students benefited from the collaboration as well by being able to do an exercise in a realistic design context and learning how to deal with client demands. Moreover, the company benefited from the involvement in education by gaining new ideas and insights