Organizer: Nancy A. Van House, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: David Levy, Xerox PARC
UC Santa Barbara DLI Project:
UC Berkeley DLI Project:
User-centered design requires a collaboration between computer scientists, system designers whose priority is the development of an efficient, elegant system, and social scientists or information service professionals, whose role is to represent the needs of the users. This kind of collaboration often results in a creative tension between the goals and styles of the two groups. The challenge is to reap the benefits of these differences without them interfering with the progress of the project.
Some key points for discussion:
What significant differences exist between these groups? Examples:
What strategies have you found for bridging these differences? How and to what extent does each group educate the other? What works and what doesn't?
Can you identify instances in which the usability assessment had a major impact on design? How did this come about?
How do you negotiate the allowable design space -- what's fixed and what's changeable in DL design? How do you deal with the rate and continuity of change; the pressure to keep improving the DL vs. to hold it fixed for a while for users?
When designers' and users' priorities seem to be at odds -- what do you do?
Before attending this session, please read the following papers.
This list of materials will be extended until the Monday before the conference, March 18, 1996.
nvh/wya/reb-a
Last revised: March 18, 1996