Chapter 8 Transforming User-Centered Analysis into User Interface: The Redesign of Complex Legacy Systems
Sabine Rohlfs
IF Interface Consulting Ltd., Ottawa, Canada
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1. Redesigning Complex Legacy Systems: Characteristics of Projects
- 1.2. Overview
- 2. Usability Project Planning Planning the Construction of the Bridge
- 2.1. Structure for User Involvement
- 2.2. Required Usability Engineering Skill Set
- 2.3. Usability Engineering Tool Kit
- 2.4. Usability Engineering Room
- 2.5. Usability Engineering Project Plan
- 3. Usability Analysis Laying the Foundation of the Bridge
- 3.1. Business Objectives for the Application
- 3.2. Definition and Description of Current and New User Classes
- 3.3. Current Task Definitions
- 3.4. Malfunction Analysis of Current System
- 3.5. System Requirements, Functional Requirements, and Functional Specifications
- 3.6. Training and Documentation Strategy
- 3.7. Hardware/Software Environment
- 4. Usability Design Building the Bridge
- 4.1. New Task Definitions
- 4.2. Usability Performance Objectives
- 4.3. Building a Model for the User
- 4.3.1. Design and Use of Metaphors
- 4.3.2. Task vs. Object Orientation in the User Interface
- 4.3.3. Designing the User Interface Horizontally First Opening Screen and Navigation Principles
- 4.3.4. Vertical User Interface Design Second Design for Each Task
- 4.4. Detailed Design
- 4.5. Tips for Managing Design Iterations
- 5. Usability Deliverables Documenting the User Interface Design
- 5.1. User Interface Architecture
- 5.2. Application Style Guide
- 5.3. User Interface Specification
- 6. Conclusions
- 7. Acknowledgments
- 8. References
1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter describes a pragmatic approach to building a bridge from user/system requirements to a reasonably polished user interface design. Managing the building process efficiently and effectively is of critical importance in bridge building and, therefore, usability project management issues are addressed throughout. The goal is to provide heuristics for scoping and estimating usability project tasks, the content of usability deliverables within a widely used framework for information systems architecture, and suggestions for managing user involvement. The emphasis here is on practical suggestions and solutions, because this reflects the authors experience developing and implementing such user interface designs.
The bridge from user/system requirements to a reasonably polished user interface design is built by carrying out a sequence of well-defined project tasks. For each task, building the bridge requires a carefully thought out project methodology, approach, and plan, appropriate tools, methods, and people. It also requires metrics to measure the quality of the results at each step.
The scalability of methods and their appropriate selection is a significant challenge; yet it is crucial to success. The authors experience has been that there is no one-size-fits-all set of user interface design methods, guidelines, and techniques that are applicable to all projects. Rather, each project requires a custom-tailored set of methods, guidelines, and techniques. When deciding which ones to apply and how to custom-tailor them, several factors shape the decision:
- Product for sale vs. in-house application.
- Product/application upgrade vs. new product/application (no manual or computerized system to accomplish the user tasks exists (i.e., this has never been done before).
- Degree of novelty of the technology (e.g., Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) are tried and proven, whereas an interface combining a small display and voice recognition technology is relatively new, with many unanswered questions and few guidelines for design).
- The availability of real vs. surrogate users.
- The nature of the user interface assignment: firefighting (we have major usability problems, the project is already over budget, and the deadline for roll-out is x weeks/months from today) vs. fire prevention (we want to integrate usability into the project right from the start).
- Size of the project in terms of function points, budget, staff, and number of stake holders.
- The budget, staff/consultants, and time available for the user interface work.
This chapter presents a pragmatic approach to redesigning the user interface for so-called legacy systems (by contrast, design for novelty products is addressed in the chapters of this volume by Smith, Chapter 11, and by Scholtz and Salvador, Chapter 9).
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