The document describes choosing and implementing a user-centered product development method for developing the TUT Virtual Library. It provides an overview of the product, outlines several usability goals and development methods including Contextual Design and Participatory Design. The document will compare two methods and describe how the chosen method will be implemented.

1. TUT Virtual Library Choosing and implementing user­centered product development method V 1.2
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Choosing and implementing user­centered product development
method
TUT Virtual Library
version 1.2
COURSE: TIE­41206 User­centered product development
GROUP NAME: K­T­N
Ekaterina Olshannikova
Tatiana Anagnostaki
Nazia Hasan
ekaterina.olshannikova@student.tut.fi
tatiana.anagnostaki@student.tut.fi
nazia.hasan@student.tut.fi
246836
248601
244888
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2. TUT Virtual Library Choosing and implementing user­centered product development method V 1.2
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Version history
Version Date Author(s) Definition
0.1 18.02.2015 Nazia Personalization of assignment template
according to group; sharing via Google drive
0.2 26.02.2015 Ekaterina Added description of Contextual Design and
Participatory Design methodologies
0.3 27.02.2015 Ekaterina Added definition of LUCID, JAD, TRUMP
and Usage Сentered design methodologies
0.4 27.02.2015 Tatiana Added paragraphs 1.1, 2.1 and 2.2.
0.5 28.02.2015 Tatiana Added additional paragraphs in 2.2 and added
paragraph 3.
0.6 28.02.2015 Tatiana Added paragraph 1.2
0.7 28.02.2015 Nazia Proof Reading;
0.8 01.03.2015 Nazia Added references
0.9 01.03.2015 Ekaterina Added references, information to the Method
vs. Method and Chosen method sections,
Added info to the 1.2 section
1.0 01.03.2015 Tatiana Proofreading; added new material in paragraph
1.2
1.1 02.03.2015 Tatiana,
Ekaterina,
Nazia
Added Chapter 5; proof reading; preparing for
final submission.
1.2 22.03.2015 Ekaterina,
Tatiana,
Nazia
Added information to the 4.2 paragraph;
Added 2.3 paragraph; Proofreading.
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3. TUT Virtual Library Choosing and implementing user­centered product development method V 1.2
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Table of contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Overview
1.2 Words, concepts, notations
1.3 References
2. Usability goals
2.1 Short description of the product
2.2 Usability goals of the product
2.3 Measurement of the goal achievement
3. Product features
4. Human­centered development methods
4.1 Representing methods
4.2 Method vs. method
4.3 Chosen method
5. Implementing the chosen method
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1. Introduction
1.1 Overview
The purpose of this document is to give a description about the product the team decided to design
by using augmented reality. The TUT Virtual Library is a product that aims to modify and master
the traditional way of searching, finding and using learning materials. In the following sections, it'll
be described in details how the system functions, who are the end users and how they can interact
with it. The main focus will be on the most important usability goals and features by providing a
proper justification for these goals.
As an attempt to understand how this product can be further developed, from the conceptual model
to the final product, a thorough analysis of several development methods, such as Contextual
Design, Participatory Design, Logical User­Centered Interaction Design (LUCID), Joint
Application Design (JAD), Trial Usability Maturity Process (TRUMP) and Usage­Centered Design
will be explain later on. Two of the aforementioned methods will be compared furthermore. The
final selection criteria of the chosen method and a concrete guideline of how this method will be
implemented to the product development will also be mentioned here.
1.2 Words, concepts, notations
Augmented Reality​: ​a technology that superimposes digital elements on a user’s view of the real
world and provides a composite view. These elements are supplemented in the view in real life, by
using computer­generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.
End User​:​ ​the person who actually uses a particular product.
Usability Goals​: ​according to an international standard, usability is the extent to which a product
can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and
satisfaction in a specified context of use. In order to do so, the product should be evaluated
properly, from many different aspects by using some measurable goals, e.g. how easily the user can
learn to interact with the product, how fast and so on.
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5. TUT Virtual Library Choosing and implementing user­centered product development method V 1.2
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Conceptual Models​: ​According to Don Norman [1], "a conceptual model is an explanation, usually
highly simplified, of how something works. It doesn’t have to be complete or even accurate as long
as it is useful”.
Virtual (object)​: ​an item that does not physically existing as such, but instead is made by software
to appear to do so.
TUT: ​Tampere University of Technology
Requirements specification (of a software​) [3]: a list of functional and non­functional requirements
that describe a software system which will be developed. It can include different use cases that
explain the different interactions the users will have with that specific software.
Prototype​: a first or preliminary version of a product, which is used for further development.
Stakeholder​: a person with an interest or concern in something, especially a business.
Table 1 Notation used in the document.
Italic Terms that require further explanation
CAPS Abbreviations for specific terms
[Square brackets] References
1.3 References
[1] ​Norman D. The Design of Everyday Things. 2013. Library of Congress
Cataloging­in­Publication Data. Date: 28.02.2015
[2] Wikipedia. 2005. Prosody (Linguistics). [ONLINE] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(linguistics)​. [Accessed 28 February 15].
[3] Wikipedia. 2004. Software Requirement Specifications. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_requirements_specification​.​ [Accessed 28 February 15].
[4] ​Beyer, H., & Holtzblatt, K. 1997. Contextual design: defining customer­centered systems.
Elsevier.
[5] Kensing, F., & Blomberg, J. 1998. Participatory design: Issues and concerns.Computer
Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Vol. 7(3­4), 167­185.
[6] Kreitzberg, C. 1998. The LUCID Design Framework (Logical User­Centered Interaction
Design). Cognetics Corporation, Princeton, NJ, USA.
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6. TUT Virtual Library Choosing and implementing user­centered product development method V 1.2
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[7] Davidson, E. J. 1999. Joint application design (JAD) in practice. Journal of Systems and
Software, 45(3), 215­223.
[8] Kuusinen, K. 2009. Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Automation (Doctoral
dissertation, Tampere University of Technology). ​[ONLINE] ​Available at:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/ihte/projects/kaste/Msc_Thesis_Kuusinen.pdf​. [Accessed 27 February 15]
[9] Constantine, L. L., Biddle, R., & Noble, J. 2003. Usage­Centered Design and Software
Engineering: Models for Integration. In ICSE Workshop on SE­HCI. Vol. 3,106­113.
[10] Bevan, N. 2003. UsabilityNet methods for user centred design. Human­Computer Interaction:
theory and Practice.
[11] Nielsen Norman Group. 2012. 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. [ONLINE]
Available at: ​http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten­usability­heuristics​. [Accessed on 02.03.2015]
[12] Nielsen Norman Group. 2013. Severity Ratings for Usability Problems. [ONLINE] Available
at: ​http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how­to­rate­the­severity­of­usability­problems​. [Accessed on
02.03.2015]
2. Usability goals
2.1 Short description of the product
The intended product to be designed is called TUT Virtual Library. As the name suggests, it's about
a library which is located in a special room at the university premises. Students of all nationalities
who attend the university, as well as university personnel like professors, administrators and
researchers between the ages of 20­65 can have access, by using their identity card provided by the
university. In this card will be stored all the personal information about the user, i.e. name, age,
nationality, program degree, courses, and any other information that can be useful to identify in
which category the user belongs: students, administration and staff members.
A user needs to swipe his/her card before getting access to the room where the virtual library is
located. Once the user enters the room, the system automatically authenticates his/her identity
based on the information that is stored in the respective ID card and creates an account for that
particular user. This way the user doesn't need to use any usernames or passwords to have access to
it. The main equipment is a pair of augmented reality glasses along with a camera, a microphone
that is embedded in the glasses and gloves with sensors that will aid the user to interact with the
virtual objects, i.e. keyboard, books, magazines, newspapers, articles and so on.
Like in any traditional library, the primary task of the user is to search and find any kind of
learning/study material. The basic interface types are speech, command­based by using a virtual
keyboard and air­based gestures which can be captured from the camera's sensors. When the user
interacts with the system for the first time, a virtual tutorial will be displayed guiding him through
the basic features and usage of the system, such as common commands, gestures etc.
It's very important that the environment is as quiet as possible in order for one to study properly. To
achieve this, the room will be divided in smaller separate slots, so maximum of 5 to 10 users can
have access at the same time. So even though the users might use speech as an interaction type, the
other persons who are in the room will not be affected by noises produced. Also in this way, it is
possible for a small group of users to work together, like in any other traditional libra
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The only prerequisite for using the TUT Virtual Library, is that the user needs to book in advance a
specific date and time to reserve a slot in the room. This can be achieved by filling an on online
timetable, provided by the university to all the potential users.
2.2 Usability goals of the product
1. ​Usability goal​: 100% of students can send the studying material to their email account
with a single click or command.
Justification​: The prerequisite for using the TUT Virtual Library is to book in advance a
free slot and it’s not always easy to find the most suitable time. In addition, the user should be able
to have access to the material at any given time.
2. ​Usability goal​: At least 95% of people with poor eyesight can effectively use the
augmented reality glasses.
Justification​: Many people between the ages of 20­60 are wearing glasses either because
they suffer from myopia, farsightedness or astigmatism.
3. ​Usability goal​: At least 90% of the users can find the book that they're looking for under
2 minutes by using speech commands in English.
Justification​: In a university such as the TUT, there is a great number of international and
exchanged students. In addition, English is the most common language that it's used in the
technology field.
4. ​Usability goal​: At least 75% of users can find the correct excerpt from a book, article,
research or other learning material without knowing the title or the author.
Justification​: Many times people have poor recollection as to what they have read exactly
and where they have read it. In a conversation it's quite common to say something like "I don't
remember where exactly I've read this, but the article was talking about this and that", where "this
and that" is a short synopsis of what the user remembered.
5. ​Usability goal​: At least 95% of users can create their own private mini library according
to their studies and field of expertise with a single click or command.
Justification​: With the private mini library the user can use the material which is stored
there for future reference, without having to search for it again.
6. ​Usability goal​: At least 95% of the users who use the system for the first time will have
immediate access to suggested learning material based on their studies and field of expertise.
Justification​: The suggested learning material aims to decrease the search time for the first
time user. This will lead to better understanding of the system, less frustration and enjoyable user
experience.
The main evaluation approach for the aforementioned usability goals is usability tests. Typically
usability tests take place in a laboratory or in laboratory­like conditions where the user is isolated
from the normal day­to­day interruptions. The session is recorded, so that it can be analyzed later
on and user's behavior is observed to give a better understanding. In addition, it's quite common to
use the think­aloud method, where the user speaks out loud, expressing his/her thoughts or the steps
that s/he has to follow in order to complete the series of tasks that s/he has been given.
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Another reason for using usability tests is that by definition, the virtual library has very similar
environmental conditions: it's an isolated quiet place, where talking to other people is very limited
and the user is mainly focused on his task.
A second evaluation approach is to use analytical evaluation such as walkthroughs. As the name
suggests, the evaluation method involves experts in walking through scenarios with prototypes of
the application. A key feature for this kind of evaluation is that the end users don't need to be
present. The experts can give their opinion on how efficient is the system, how effective it is to use
and how much satisfying the experience can be.
2.3 Measurement of the goal achievement
The level of successful completion of the target task reveals if the goal has been achieved or not.
This can be measured by the level of tips from supervisor:
Tip level 1 – Supervisor answers on the question of participant, but don’t give any additional
details.
Tip level 2 – Supervisor admits that the participant has a problem while doing task and gives an
advice without specific details.
Tip level 3 – a participant gives up while completing the task or tries to do it many times without
any result. Supervisor gives a certain suggestion on how to perform it.
It should also be transformed into “acceptability” rating at the end so we will have information how
many test participants were satisfied with the tested application / concept or not.
For that we need to assign specific “acceptability” (usability) value to each level of tips. For
example, an acceptability rate of the range 80% ­ 100% can be considered as tip level one; an
acceptability rate of the range 60% ­ 80% as tip level 2 and below this range (60% or less) can be
considered as tip level 3. Our target is to achieve a tip level 1 for 80% of all the users. Since we are
adopting an iterative development method, the chances are higher that we will gradually increase
the number of users who successfully complete the given tasks according to the improvements
made from the previous tests.
3. Product features
The following features are according to the list of usability goals that are described above.
1. As it was mentioned in the description of the product, the personal ID of the user
contains valuable information. The system automatically recognizes the user and logs in to his/her
account. This way, when the user finds the material s/he is looking for, s/he can give a simple
command like "send to email" or press a button with the same command, if s/he prefers to use the
virtual keyboard.
2. For this usability goal, there will be a button in the augmented reality glasses that can
adjust the power and enhance the eyesight, just like using prescribed glasses from an eye doctor.
3. To achieve this goal, an advanced voice recognition system, will remove any prosodic of
the spoken language from the speech, such as variation in syllable weight, loudness, pitch, breaks
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between words, accent, emotions of the speaker and so on. This will create a "raw" voice, which
enables the system to recognize and interpret the input correctly. [2]
4. By giving an oral command or typing to a virtual keyboard keywords and small pieces of
text, the system will run an advanced algorithm to find all the possible combinations of the given
words. It will offer a list sorted from the most common excerpts to the least common ones.
5. Similar to the first feature, the personal identity card will be used to recognize the user, so
the s/he can give a simple command such as "send to my library" or press a button.
6. Again, this feature is based on the personal identity card, where all the information of the
user is stored. Using this collected data, the system will be able to give proper suggestions.
4. Human­centered development methods
4.1 Representing methods
Contextual Design
According to Beyer and Holtzblatt [4], context study is based on the craft (master ­ apprentice)
model of learning: it is necessary to observe the user and ask him questions as if he were a good
craftsman, and the interviewer is his new apprentice. Beyer and Holtzblatt have also listed four
basic principles of organization of ethnographic interviews:
1. Context. ​Instead of conducting interviews in a clean white room, the interviewer should
interact with users and observe them in a natural work environment or otherwise, something
appropriate for this product, the physical context. Users are observed when they are busy
with their activities and making inquiries in their familiar surroundings with a lot of artifacts
they use on a daily basis, help to extract the core characteristics of their behavior.
2. Cooperation. Interviews and observations should have the characteristics of a joint user
study in which observation activity is focused on the discussion of its structure and
subtleties.
3. Interpretation. ​A ​designer's work is largely reduced by identifying what is behind the
words and behavior of users and the characteristics of their habitats. The task of the
designer is to consider the collected data as a whole and to reveal the impact that they have
on the design.
4. Orientation. Instead of rigidly adhere to a pre­existing questionnaire or, conversely, making
the interview "a free voyage", the designer must carefully guide the conversation in search
of data related to design issues.
Participatory Design
Participatory design [5] is a design method where all stakeholders (users, customers, designers,
developers, sales and marketing personnel, management personnel, etc.) have opportunity to be
actively involved in the developmental processes and procedures. Participants’ roles and
responsibilities are varying and their involvement differs throughout the project. The aim of such
kind of approach is that the final project meets all needs of various stakeholder groups. A ground
rule of this approach is that each person in this group should be an expert at some field.
LUCID
Originally, Logical User Centered Interaction Design [6] was used as an approach to interface
designing at Cognetics Corporation. Currently, it is a powerful method to conduct the process of
software development process. It assists designers in order to:
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1. Elaborate consistent and clear concept of a product that will create its connectivity with
project’s goals.
2. Reveal business objectives which in turn will improve developmental performance.
3. Gain demographic data of population and the needs of each segment.
4. Provide final needs and functionality analysis from user’s perspective.
5. Establish navigational structure which includes all required functionality in a simplest
manner.
This methodology has six phases that are listed in the table [6] below:
Table 1. LUCID process.
JAD
Joint Application Design [7] is a methodology like the Participatory Design which is based on the
concept that users are the main experts. This method leads to a shorter developmental life cycle and
greater user satisfaction because of the collaborative system analysis and design. The outcomes
from group sessions are requirements specification and prototype. There is a planning phase,
several design sessions and final Wrap­Up stage.
TRUMP
The international principles of Human­Centered Interaction are the basis of Trial Usability Maturity
Process [8]. It is a project that raised the usability maturity of large companies and it shares its
knowledge to others in order to achieve beneficial results. The lifecycle of this methodology
includes several phases that are listed below:
1. Feasibility. This phase consists of stakeholder meetings, revealing context of use and
creating scenarios.
2. Requirements. Evaluation of existing system and outlining the usability requirements are
performed in this phase.
3. Design.​ ​The phase includes prototyping and creating a style guide.
4. Implement. ​This is an evaluation phase where usability testing takes place.
5. Release. ​This phase relates to collecting feedback.
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Usage­Centered Design
The main focus of Usage­centered design [9] is on “usage”, i. e. is on the improvement of task
accomplishment. This method is driven by different models. The process includes selective user
involvement and consists of exploratory modeling, model validation and structured usability
inspections. The accent is made on models of user relationships with the system. Design models are
abstract in comparison with the user­centered methodology. The designing process is systematic,
fully specified and made through modeling.
4.2 Method vs. method
In this section, comparison is made between TRUMP and Participatory design methods. TRUMP
project is a trialed use of User­Centered design methods based on ISO 13407 [8]. Tables included
in reference [10] demonstrate correlation of TRUMP methods with the User­Centered Process:
Table 2. TRUMP methods
There are ten methods/stages which were selected as applicable in the development environment
for the ​TRUMP​ approach:
1. Stakeholder Meeting​. This method is aimed to identify and reconcile usability goals,
intended context of use and their relation to the business objectives and success criteria for
the system. A meeting is organized for this purpose which lasts for a half of a day.
2. Context of Use. This stage is organized as half­day workshop where information about
intended users, their tasks, technical and environmental constraints are collected.
3. Scenarios of use. This method reveals how a user is expected to carry out main tasks in a
certain context. Such process provides a significant input to design.
4. Evaluate an existing system. In this stage, assessment of previous system is done in order to
obtain usability issues and measurements of usability. This stage supplies input to the
usability requirements.
5. Usability requirements. In this stage, elaboration of usability requirements for the user
groups and tasks is made. These requirements are identified in the analysis of context of use
and in the scenarios.
6. Paper prototyping. It is evaluation stage where users test low fidelity prototypes (paper or
other materials are used). It helps to reveal usability drawbacks in the early stage.
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7. Style guide. In this stage, project conventions are created and documented for screen and
page design.
8. Evaluation of machine prototype. 3­5 expert users carry out key tasks and give a rapid
feedback on the usability of the implemented system.
9. Usability testing. At least 8 users participate in the formal usability testing. Evaluation of
usability is aimed to objectify the overall achievement of the designed and implemented
system.
10. Collecting feedback from users​. Usability surveys help to reveal hidden problems that
should be fixed in newer/upcoming version.
TRUMP approach to software and hardware design identifies an appropriate interaction between
user and system, active involvement of users to the development process and iterations of various
design solutions. Moreover, for this method it is important to observe the users’ practices and
behavior in the context of use.
Participatory Design is a specific mode of User­Centered Design where users participate in the
designing through the entire development process and make decisions regarding to designs. It
should be mentioned that TRUMP and Participatory design can be considered as overlapping
because some cases which are user­centered can be compatible with user participation and vice
versa.
The main difference between TRUMP and Participatory Design methods is that PD establishes
bespoke (custom­made) product with the participants, who are end users of the product being
developed; while TRUMP method can work with both the representative users and actual users.
Participatory Design is not only a development approach but also a methodology that adjusts the
workplace processes by improving employee job satisfaction via diminishing power distance. Such
aspect does not tend to appear in TRUMP method and users’ influence in a system’s development
is usually limited.
By a user­oriented approach, such as Participatory Design, it is possible to reveal information about
context specific technical, multifaceted cultural, political, communication, motivational and
personal issues. Unfortunately, information which is obtained by this method cannot be used as
detailed instructions for the system development. Meanwhile, the multi­methodological approach
as TRUMP contains many important techniques that are part of other independent methods for
designing (e. g context of use, scenarios, prototyping and involvement of stakeholders) and they are
strongly incorporated with the development process.
Moreover, in our case it will be problematic to search and recruit appropriate participants, because
they have to be fluent and expert in certain areas of the research and development topic. This can
be a negative point of the Participatory Design method because participants’ selection is a time
consuming process.
Furthermore, it is obviously difficult to find people who are ready to contribute to the whole
designing process without any financial support. From the TRUMP perspective, developers have to
meet stakeholders/target user group ​not more than what is necessary and does not require any
significant funding. The goals of the meeting are to create common visions regarding to the project
and to ensure that all factors that relate to use of the system are identified before the actual design
work starts.
Nevertheless, in spite of all positive aspects of the TRUMP method, many techniques are used in
this approach might become a negative factor. Since ours is a small team, not a large organization,
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and this project is the assignment of the course at university and not funded, we will be able to
implement only a few phases of TRUMP method. In our study, the final product will be
represented by a low­fidelity prototype, which means we would need to skip some of the final
techniques of the TRUMP lifecycle (e. g. evaluation of machine prototype).
In a conclusive aspect, the challenges of TRUMP are not significant comparing to what advantages
it may provide for efficiently designing our product. The potential of this approach provides us
wide range of opportunities in design and the organization of the workflow.
4.3 Chosen method
We consider the TRUMP method to be the best option for designing our project. The main benefits
of TRUMP method for user­centered design affected our decision are:
● Development time can be reduced, because the identification of the usability goals and
objectives, as well as revealing resolution of usability issues, occurs in the early stages;
● Techniques which are used during the TRUMP life cycle are cost­effective and easy to learn
and to use;
● This method provide the system that meet users needs and improve their processes;
● As it has been mentioned above, TRUMP method contains aspects of Participatory Design.
In addition, this method contains similarities with Contextual Design, JAD and LUCID
methods as well;
● It is based on ISO 13407, which is recognized and accepted in the Human­Centered
Interaction field of research and study;
● This approach consists of a number of significant practices, including the user participations
and contextual studies. From this point, we have the option of a wide range of techniques
that can be implemented during the designing process;
As it was mentioned in the 4.2 paragraph, the wide range of the techniques can trigger a number of
difficulties in the organization of the designing process as well. Our aim is to carefully identify
applicable techniques for the assigned goals. Certain phases should be modified according to their
feasibility. For example, the style guide creation will be replaced by the designing of the
Moodboard, where elements of virtual interface will be displayed (icons, patterns of layout, fonts,
etc.).
5. Implementing the chosen method
Here is demonstrated the process by designing how it is used on implementing the product that will
be designed in 2nd part of the assignment with the chosen development process.
1. ​Stakeholder meeting​. In this stage we will demonstrate user case scenarios to make stakeholders
familiar with the concept of the project. Moreover, we will provide an online questionnaire from
which we will obtain basic background information (demographic data etc) and additional data on
how the users are likely to use the non­traditional library. Afterwards we will have informal
discussion with the participants in order to receive their attitude and opinion about the project.
2. ​Context of Use. As the stage is conducted using a half day workshop, we intend to create User
personas in order to describe the potential users of the library system that is to be implemented by
using information that was collected from the interviews of representative user groups. Description
in the User Persona will include name of a user (the names are imaginary for the sake of privacy
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and confidentiality), their purpose of using a library system, their usual way of searching and
gathering learning materials, technical skills, etc. Also the possible environment and associated
constraints the user may face while using a traditional library system can be included.
Persona Student
Photo
Fictional Name April Louvre
Job Title International Degree Student
Demographics <Age>
<Marital Status>
<Nationality>
<Degree>
<Area of Study>
<Skills>
Tasks and Goals ● looking for reference journals and books to write down thesis report
● <task2>
● <task3>
Environments ● Likes to work in a quiet environment
● <characteristics 2>
Constrains ● Has near vision
● <constraint 2>
Fig: Sample of a User Persona
3. ​Scenarios of Use​. Prior to the stakeholder meeting, we intend to develop a few of the possible
scenarios of working with the library system for different user personas based on our experience
and research about traditional library system and how different users use different services
provided by a library. In the stakeholder meeting, we can present these scenarios and can make
necessary updates to the existing scenario as well as adding new ones by consulting the primary
stakeholders of the intended system.
An example scenario can be: “April is looking for a book in Cross Cultural Design, but she doesn’t
exactly remember the title of the book. All she remembers is that the book contains a chapter on
designing system based on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions.”
4. ​Evaluate an existing system. ​We will evaluate the current system in the context of use, i.e.
physical space of university’s library and electronic search of resources. In addition we will prepare
some key tasks for the representative user groups in order to measure criteria such as duration of
the task completion, level of the task achievement and user satisfaction. From this stage we can
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reveal potential existing problems in the traditional system and design novel features that can be
implemented in our project, e.g. to collect data from all universities’ libraries into common
cloud­based server. This evaluation can be made in a Heuristic approach, where usability problems
can be defined, described and the severity as well as the category of the problems can be rated
based on some well established Usability Heuristics (e.g. Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics [11]).
[No.] [Name of the Usability Problem Found]
Description
Heuristic(s)
violated
<heuristic1>, <heuristic2>
Severity of
the Problem
[scale of 0 ­4] [12]
Fig: Sample template to define usability problem based on Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics.
5. ​Usability Requirements​. The results obtained from conducting a usability evaluation test on
existing library system can work as an excellent source for defining the primary requirements for
the intended system to be implemented. All the requirements defined can be categorized depending
on which functionality/feature they most resemble to fulfill. For Example:
Category 1. System Initialization and Setting
1.1 On punching/swiping an ID card, the system will automatically create a user
account/profile based on the information contained in the ID card.
1.2 <requirement description>
Fig: Sample format to define usability requirements.
6. Prototyping​. For this stage we create cardboard/plastic prototype for the glasses and use textile
for the gloves. In addition we will create the basic views of the user interface. These will be
designed in a graphical software (e.g. Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop etc) and upload them to a
web­based prototyping tool (e.g. InVision). This will help the user to interact with the system and
achieve his tasks.
7. Collecting feedback from users​. As it was stated before, the usability surveys will help to reveal
any potential problems. The purpose of collecting the feedback is to have a perspective of people
who will actually be using the system. The statistical analysis of the overall feedback helps to
determine whether the system has achieved its intended purpose and users can accomplish their
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tasks with efficiency, effectiveness and having a good experience. The feedback can be collected
by providing a questionnaire. The questions can be answered by simply providing the answer on a
scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is defined as least satisfaction/mostly disagree, etc. and the 10 is defined
as most satisfaction/mostly agree.
1. You could easily find the book you were looking for in you customized library without
looking into the extended library:
Ans.
Mostly Disagree Mostly Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Fig: Sample of a question in Feedback Questionnaire.
8. ​Usability Testing. ​The usability testing can be conducted on the developed product by inviting 2
users from each target groups that we have considered while implementing the overall system. As
the testing includes users navigating and searching through different feature of the augmented
library system, the environment settings can be fairly within our control. The usability test will
proceed as the following:
8.1 introducing the user to the system
8.2 describing purpose of the usability test,
8.3 how the test is going to be conducted and user’s role in the test
8.4 collecting consent form from the user
8.5 giving a demo of “think aloud method”
8.6 handing over tasks, one by one, to the user to perform
8.7 conduct a short interview asking for users’ overall experience, opinion and feedback
about the system
8.8 collecting a feedback questionnaire from the user to gather statistical data for later
analysis.
Task “You are looking for a book on cross cultural design. You don’t remember the
exact title, but you remember the book contains a chapter on Hofstede’s Cultural
Dimension. Ask the library system to look for your desired book by providing it
the information you know”
Fig: Sample task in the usability testing.
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