EPICS-Purdue Human-Centered Design

1. EPICS-Purdue Human-Centered Design Carla B. Zoltowski EPICS Conference 2009

2. The EPICS Design Cycle Problem Identification Specification Development Redesign Retirement Conceptual Design Detailed Design Service Maintenance Production Disposal

3. Motivation Experience and literature provide many examples of lack of understanding of user in design Examples in EPICS Design of Everyday Things (Norman) Set Phasers On Stun (Casey)

4. Motivation: IDEO “Design thinking … enables us to collectively tackle problems and ideas that are more complex than the lone designer can imagine: inaccessible healthcare, billions of people living on a few dollars a day, energy usage outpacing the planet's ability to support it, education systems that fail students, and beyond. These problems all have people at their heart. They require a collaborative, human-centered, iterative, and practical approach to finding the best ideas and ultimate solutions. Design thinking is just such an approach to innovation. “ (IDEO Website)

5. Motivation, cont. Utilizing human-centered design processes Increase productivity Improve quality Reduce errors Reduce training and support costs Improve people’s acceptance of new products Enhance companies’ reputations Increase user satisfaction Reduce development costs (Maguire, Damodaran)

6. Motivation, cont. • Paradigm shift from “technology-centered” to “human-centered” (Krippendorff)

7. Human-Centered Design Processes User-centered design “Approach to design that grounds the process in information about the people who will use the product. UCD processes focus on users through the planning, design and development of a product.” (UPA website) Participatory Design “Commitment to worker participation in design and an effort to rebalance the power relations between users and technical experts and between workers and managers” (Kensing and Blomberg)

8. Human-Centered Design Processes Contextual Design Beyer and Holtzblatt Context on which product is used Inclusive Design Clarkson, Coleman, Keates, Lebbon Goal is to allow the greatest number of people to user the product being designed and does not exclude people from using it unnecessarily.

9. 7-level Design Approach, Keates and Clarkson

10. UCD: Process and Products 1. Plan UCD: Decisions about which methods to use 2. Specify context of use: Description of users, tasks, context, problems 5. Evaluate against rqmts: Data on how well system meets expectations 3. Specify user/org rqmts: Statements about what the design should fulfill 4. Produce Design Solutions: System specifications Slide by Dennis Wixon; adapted from Maguire 2001, p. 589 & ISO 13407

11. Methods for user-centered design Maguire 2001, p. 590

12. Prototyping!!! “It’s a lesson that too few companies have learned even today. ‘If a picture paints a thousand words, a prototype is worth a thousand pictures,’ says Eisermann,” director of strategic design agency Prospect.

13. Service-learning Learning tied to academic learning outcomes, content and standards Service meeting real needs in community, especially under-served Reciprocal in nature Engineering service-learning models: EPICS Engineers Without Borders Engineers for a Sustainable World Service-learning User-centered Design

14. The EPICS Design Cycle Problem Identification Specification Development Redesign Retirement Conceptual Design Detailed Design Service Maintenance Production Disposal

15. EPICS Human-Centered Design Process: Work in Progress

16. EPICS Human-Centered Design Process: Work in Progress

17. As educators…. How can educators help students develop understanding and skills needed for human-centered design? What experiences contribute most to students’ learning of human-centered design and development of understanding of the user?

18. First need to map the space First educators need to map the space, i.e., understand the variations in the way that the students experience and understand Human-centered design Understand the user and the role of the user in design Incorporate the users’ needs into the product

19. Current Research What are the qualitatively different ways that students who design for “others” experience and understand human-centered design, understand the user and the role of the user in design, and incorporate the users’ needs into the products? Secondary: What are the attributes of service-learning courses that help students develop an understanding of human-centered design process?

20. Methodology Phenomenography Qualitative method of research in which the object of research is the “variation in ways of experiencing phenomena.” (Marton and Booth) Example studies Sustainable design (Mann) Learning object-oriented programming (Stamouli and Huggard) Engagement and creativity in design (Reid and Solomonides) Design across the disciplines (Daly)

21. Phenomenographic Research Explore the range of meanings within a sample group Collective experience vs. individual experience Typically uses interviews Interviews considered within context of all of the other interviews No other evidence used in analysis except transcripts

22. Example Outcome Space Daly, ASEE 09

23. Questions?