Computers, Communication and Usability

In the last half century, research on usability has been dominated by three main areas: military hardware, telecommunications equipment and information technology. Characteristically, research was carried out on local issues as they affected a particular class of technology and its design. In just the last decade there has been a massive convergence both in the technological bases of these areas of concern and in the human factors issues they raise. This book considers usability research in depth but does not seek to provide a comprehensive view of all European research on related topics. Rather, it draws on a limited number of projects and juxtaposes contributions concerned with practical issues in method development and more basic research. This strategy was chosen with three general objectives in mind. The first was to provide a description of the product design context for usability research and practice, focusing in particular on the problems and opportunities arising from the advanced communication services which are expected to be in business and domestic markets within 20 years.
The second was to draw upon some illustrative basic research in usability, system modelling and design behaviour which could lead to significant improvements in design practice in the long term. The last was to provide an integrated guide to some recently introduced usability design methods which are particularly appropriate to the design problems of advanced communication services. Specifically, the publication should also be viewed as a demonstration of the results of international collaborative research supported by the European Community. Researchers from most of the western European countries have jointly engaged in a series of projects in telecommunications and information technology, these programmes being RACE, ESPRIT main and ESPRIT Basic Research. The book not only represents a significant sample of collaborative research within these programmes but attempts to bring together the results around the general theme of usability requirements. It is hoped that this publication will be of interest to those developing future research programmes, to researchers in industry and university and to psychologists and engineers designing new computer and service products.