UCD Workbench

1
User Centered Design For the Expeditionary
Warfare Decision Support System (EDSS)
UCD Workshop David Jones APL-University of
Washington
July 30, 2002
2
UCD ideas from IBM

• Do they apply to Navy problems?

3
What is UCD?
"An approach to designing ease of use into the
total user experience with products and systems.
It involves two fundamental elements -
multidisciplinary teamwork and a set of
specialized methods of acquiring user input and
converting it into design."
Vredenburg, K., Isensee, S., and Righi, C.
(2001). User-Centered Design An Integrated
Approach (Software quality institute series).
Prentice Hall
4
Transformation
5
Ease of Use
6
Total User Experience
7
UCD Principles
8
UCD Process
9
What UCD Isnt
10
What UCD Is
11
UCD for DOD?

• Do military users expect ease of use?
• Is user acceptance important?
• Do DoD developers get user input prior to the
  design?
• Should developers/sponsors be concerned about
  competitiveness?

12
UCD for EDSS

• The Six UCD Principles applied to EDSS
• What are the main objectives of EDSS?
• Who are the real users what do they need to do?
• Can we define the total experience for EDSS?
• How can the EDSS design be evaluated?
• What will compete with EDSS?
• How can feedback be gathered from fleet users?

13
UCD for EDSS

• The Six UCD Principles applied to EDSS
• What are the main objectives of EDSS?
• Who are the real users what do the need to do?
• Can we define the total experience?
• How can the design be evaluated?
• What will compete with EDSS?
• How can feedback be gathered from fleet users?

14
Planning

• Expeditionary Warfare Planning Process (Joint Pub
  3)
• Mission Analysis
• Course of Action Development
• Course of Action Wargame
• Course of Action Comparison and Decision
• ORDERS and OPGEN Development
• Transition

15
EDSS Goals

• What is the most important aspect of mission
  planning EDSS wants to address?
• Increase Mission Planning productivity
• Animate Mission Plans
• Export Mission Plans
• Provide for Distributed Planning
• Create Post Planning Products

16
UCD for EDSS

• The Six UCD Principles applied to EDSS
• What are the main objectives?
• Who are the real users what do they need to do?
• Can we define the total experience?
• How can the design be evaluated?
• What will compete with EDSS?
• How can feedback be gathered from fleet users?

17
EDSS Users

• Three main user groups
• Decision makers gtgt O5 to Flag
• Planners gtgt Typically officers O2-O4
• Supporters gtgt Typically enlisted E5-E6
• Need to know
• Education level
• Tactical experience
• Computer knowledge
• System requirements

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Task Analysis

• The Analysis of User Tasks should drive the
  design and evaluation of the HCI
• Requirements and User Performance Specifications
• Functional Description
• Task Description
• Teaming Environment
• Decision Making Cognitive Task Analysis
• Information Requirements Analysis

 
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Task Description

• Major Goal Landing Control Plan
• Sub Goal Regulate ship movement
• Sub Goal Regulate assault craft
• Sub Goal Establish areas for supporting forces
• Sub-element Create 4W Grid

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Detailed Task Description
 
21
cont..
 
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UCD for EDSS

• The Six UCD Principles applied to EDSS
• What are the main objectives?
• Who are the real users what do they need to do?
• Can we define the total EDSS experience?
• How can the design be evaluated?
• What will compete with EDSS?
• How can feedback be gathered from fleet users?

23
The Total User Experience

• User Experience includes
• How software loads updates
• The interface visuals
• The ease of use
• The training user instruction
• The help function
• The products it can produce

 
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EDSS User Experience
EXPEDITIONARY WARFARE DECISION SUPPORT
SYSTEM (EDSS) USERS GUIDE
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UCD for EDSS

• The Six UCD Principles applied to EDSS
• What are the main objectives?
• Who are the real users what do they need to do?
• Can we define the total experience?
• How can the design be evaluated?
• What will compete with EDSS?
• How can feedback be gathered from fleet users?

26
Design Evaluation

• Ideas for Fleet Evaluation
• Build an evaluation team
• Developers
• Users
• Others
• Low Tech/High Tech Evaluation
• Do Function Evaluation
• 4W Grid
• Boat Lanes
• Do Scenario Evaluation
• From OPORD to Plan

27
UCD for EDSS

• The Six UCD Principles applied to EDSS
• What are the main objectives?
• Who are the real users?
• Can we define the total experience?
• How can the design be evaluated?
• What will compete with EDSS?
• How can feedback be gathered from fleet users?

28
What Competes w/ EDSS ?

• Interface Competition
• Most users have high expectations from digital
  technology
• Todays users are MS Windows and MS Office savvy
• Increasing expectation of browser-like operations
• Function Competition
• Are there other programs out there that can do
  nearly the same job but are easier to use?

29
UCD for EDSS

• The Six UCD Principles applied to EDSS
• What are the main objectives?
• Who are the real users what do they need to
  do??
• Can we define the total experience?
• How can the design be evaluated?
• What will compete with EDSS?
• How can feedback be gathered from fleet users?

30
User Feedback

• The Key to Usability
• Pre-testing
• Fleet training
• Surveys
• On-line trouble reports
• Customer prioritization of feature additions

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The End
Questions ?