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Workshop 7
Product Designers and Product Users: Understanding Conceptualizations Across The Great Divide
Lillie Jenkins, Mike Prasse
June 30, 1999, 8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Developers and designers create products that consumers either use or ignore. For decades professionals have struggled to understand users' willingness or unwillingness to use a product. Researchers in the fields of psychology, engineering, computer science, linguistics, and information science have investigated this question using such techniques as task analysis, usability testing, and semiotic system analysis. Still, the question of "For whom was this system designed, anyway?" remains a point of contention. Does the designer conceptualize a product with the user in mind according to cognitive task analyses and requirements gathered? Does the user continue to find that a new system is not useful for his/her purposes and/or must formulate ways to work with the useless features? Designers sometimes ponder customer work-arounds and/or abandonment of a system. Users, on the other hand, find themselves forced into work-arounds in the face of having to use a cumbersome product. These actions lead each "camp" to ask, "What were they thinking?"
Users and designers rarely speak the same language. Consequently, a method must be devised to grasp the conceptualizations that (in popular mythology, at least) characterize users and designers dissimilarly. Current techniques used to uncover these particular mindsets leave us with more questions than answers. What seems to be needed is a method that allows people to talk about what they think or have experienced, and enables them to speak about their interpretations of the actions of others. Too often research examines the motivations of one group without also seeking to understand how construal of another group feeds back into the initial group's attitudes and practices. By combining both perspectives, this project aims to provide a more thorough explanation of the reason for the divide between users and designers, and isolate ways of anticipating, compensating for, and initiating successful communication despite the detection of significant differences.
In this workshop participants will be asked to contribute by analyzing some aspect of the reputed differences between designer and user perceptions of a product or system. Workshop discussions will center on the results of original research and/or the interpretations drawn from meta-analyses of previous research findings. Due to the fact that the workshop format facilitates the interactive exchange of information, reports on original research are preferred. These discussions will take up the morning hours of the workshop.
In the afternoon segment of the workshop the facilitators will interview the workshop participants. The rationale for such a move is that the narratives of the participants provide a layer of interest that has not been studied sufficiently in that they have the perspective of the usability professional. Interviews will allow for a debriefing of the workshop participants such that they can contribute to this research by discussing their own behavior and their interpretations of others' behavior.
The facilitators will examine the interviews and identify communicative patterns and constructions in an effort to begin to understand how respondents' constructions can offer insight that is valuable to the usability testing process and to the closing of the gap between user and designer perceptions of the design/use cycle.
Outline of position paper (for workshop participants)
Usability professionals interested in improving communication between designers and users are welcome to attend this workshop. Participants will be expected to produce a short paper that briefly describes users' and designers' experiences with the design/use cycle. These instances should be those that are directly observable in that they result from the experiences of usability professionals in the arena of their work.
Registering for a Workshop
Workshops are closed sessions; you may register for a workshop onlywith
permission of the workshop organizer. To participate, please send your
position paper to one of the following
addresses by May 27, 1999. Electronic applications may be submitted in
plain text (.txt), rich text format (.rtf), or Microsoft Word for
Windows.
Although the workshop deadline is after the end of early registration, you
can still qualify for the early conference registration discount if you register during
the early registration period. Your registration should include the workshop
you are requesting. Workshop registration (which is not discounted based on
the registration date) will be processed when approved by the workshop coordinator.
Lillie Jenkins
+1 614 764 6122 or
+1 614 292 3400
jenkinsl@oclc.org
Mike Prasse
1 614 761 5157
prasse@oclc.org
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