Preface

This book grew out of a workshop held at CHI’97 in Vancouver in April 1997 on “Transforming User-Centered Analysis into Concrete Design”. The workshop was motivated by the lack of published accounts of how experienced designers use the results of user work/task analyses and other tools and resources to produce Graphical User Interface (GUI) designs (i.e., to bridge the gap between analysis and interface design). Interface designers with a wide variety of experience were invited to share their methods for addressing the problem. This book is a result of our collective efforts.

Several themes became apparent in our workshop discussions, such as representations and models of work, scenarios (examples of user tasks), and high- and low-fidelity prototyping; designing for heterogeneous vs. homogeneous user populations; designing “breakthrough” systems vs. supporting existing work or redesigning legacy systems; and the virtues of objected- vs. task-oriented interfaces. Authors of individual chapters elaborate the role of these issues as appropriate to their own methods and work context.

The book should be useful to anyone involved in or interested in the issues surrounding user-centered design of software applications. However, it was our intention to provide information that will be particularly useful to practitioners who have a role in designing GUI’s. The emphasis on examples from real GUI design projects will hopefully accomplish that goal.

PARTICIPANTS

There were fourteen people who participated in the workshop, among whom there was a wide variety of design experience. Including the organizers, there were three from academia, ten from large software development companies, and one who operates her own consulting firm. The participants included the following individuals:

•  Larry Wood, Brigham Young University, USA (organizer)

•  Ron Zeno, Intuitive Design, USA (organizer)

•  Tom Dayton, Bellcore, USA

•  Joseph Kramer, Bellcore, USA

•  Tom Graefe, Digital Equipment Corporation, USA

•  Frank Ludolph, SunSoft, Inc., USA

•  Andrew Monk, University of York, U.K.

•  Peter Nilsson, Linné Data, Sweden

•  Martin Rantzer, Ericsson Radio Systems AB, Sweden

•  Allan Risk, IBM SWS Toronto Laboratory, Canada

•  Sabine Rohlfs, IF Interface Consulting Ltd., Canada

•  Jean Scholtz, Intel Corp., USA

•  Kevin Simpson, University of Guelph, Canada

•  Colin Smith, Northern Telecom, Canada

Acknowledgments

I express my appreciation to the workshop participants for their willingness not only to share their knowledge and experience in interface design at the workshop, but especially for their efforts in writing the chapters that make up the substance of this book. I regret that after his enthusiastic participation in the workshop, Allan Risk was unable to complete a chapter to be included in the book. Likewise, following his efforts at organizing the workshop, Ron Zeno was unable to contribute to the book, which is unfortunate.

I also want to thank our CRC publisher, Ron Powers, and his assistant, Cindy Carelli, for their patience and flexibility in working with us to produce this volume.

Finally, I express my gratitude to Shannon Ford, who “found” us and was willing to provide helpful feedback on the chapters, expecially the introduction (Chapter 1).

The Editor

Larry Wood is a professor of cognitive psychology at Brigham Young University, who has taught human-computer interaction and interface design courses and consulted on design projects for 10 years. His research interests include all aspects of user-centered design.