Usability

Usability has become increasingly important as an essential part of the design and development of software and systems for all sectors of society, business, industry, government and education, as well as a topic of research. Today, we can safely say that, in many parts of the world, information technology and communications is or is becoming a central force in revolutionising the way that we all live and how our societies function. IFIP's mission states clearly that it "encourages and assists in the development, exploitation and application of information technology for the benefit of all people". The question that must be considered now is how much attention has been given to the usability of the IT-based systems that we use in our work and daily lives. There is much evidence to indicate that the real interests and needs of people have not yet been embraced in a substantial way by IT decision makers and when developing and implementing the IT systems that shape our lives, both as private individuals and at work. But some headway has been made. Three years ago, the IFIP Technical Committee on Human Computer Interaction (IFIP TC13) gave the subject of usability its top priority for future work in advancing HCI within the international community. This Usability Stream of the IFIP World Computer Congress is a result of this initiative. It provides a showcase on usability involving some practical business solutions and experiences, and some research findings.

Klappentext
Usability: Gaining a Competitive Edge presents contributions from practitioners and researchers from many countries. Starting with an introduction of the problems that industry faces today and suggested usability solutions to these problems, the book explores the following technical areas: -User-Centred Design Process; -Usability of Mobile Systems; -User Requirements Analysis; -Usability Evaluation; -Tools; -Web Usability; -Frameworks for Usability.Usability: Gaining a Competitive Edge contains the edited proceedings of Stream 9 of the 17th World Computer Congress, which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in Montréal, Québec, Canada in August 2002.

Inhalt
One Keynote Speaker.- Deconstructing Silos: The Business Value of Usability in the 21st Century.- Two Technical Sessions.- A Method-Independent Process Model of User-Centred Design.- Use and Reuse of HCI Knowledge in the Software Development Lifecycle: Existing Approaches and What Developers Think.- Analyzing the Role of Organizational Culture in the Implementation of User-Centered Design: Disentangling the Approaches for Cultural Analysis.- The Importance of User Roles in Feature Bundling Decisions in Wireless Handheld Devices: Strategic User Needs Analysis (SUNA).- Exploring the Use of the Mobile Phone.- Usability Engineering Milestones In Complex Product Development Experiences At Nokia Mobile Phones: Industrial Experience.- Use Case Maps: A Roadmap for Usability and Software Integrated Specification.- User Requirements Analysis: A Review of Supporting Methods.- Specifying and Evaluating Usability Requirements Using the Common Industry Format: Four Case Studies.- Formal Usability Testing of Interactive Educational Software: A Case Study.- EQUAL: Towards an Inclusive Design Approach to Novice Programming Languages and Computing Environments for Native Users.- MouseLupe: An Accessibility Tool for People with Low Vision.- A Framework for Rapid Mid-Fidelity Prototyping of Web Sites.- Keep on Trying: Online Securities Trading Sites.- User Satisfaction, Aesthetics and Usability: Beyond Reductionism.- Evaluating Security Tools towards Usable Security: A Usability Taxonomy for the Evaluation of Security Tools Based on a Categorization of User Errors.- Improving Usability in Decision Support Systems: Practical Use of the Decision Enquiry Approach for Requirements Analysis.- Teaching Human-Computer Interaction: Qualitative Support for an Alternative Approach.- Usability:Who Cares?: An Analysis of Indifference Towards Usability Within the IT Industry.- Author Index.- Keywords Index.