Designing New Technologies with People at the Centre

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Designing New Technologies with People at the
Centre

• By
• Assoc Prof Supriya Singh
• Head, User-Centred Design Project
• SITCRC
• Supriya.singh_at_rmit.edu.au
• www.rmit.edu.au/bus/rdu/supriya
  www.smartinternet.com.au/UCD
• Presentation to IEI, IETE and CTMS
• Hyderabad
• 28 January 2004

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Why Does it Matter?

• The users and activity perspective changes the
  story
• The challenge is to connect the different stories
  from the business, policy, technology and use
  perspectives
• Without this connection the story is partial
• Use without financial and organisational
  sustainability does not work. Innovative
  technology without use is irrelevant.

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Different Stories

• Security, trust and control
• A cashless society or a mix of payments?
• E-governance focused on the department or the
  citizen?
• One virtual café or a multitude?

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Trust rather than Security

• Why do you feel secure withdrawing money from an
  ATM and may not deposit in an ATM?
• Why do you freely give your credit card to a
  waiter or cite it on the phone and hesitate to
  put it on the Web?
• This is because security is a necessary but not
  sufficient condition for trust. But without
  trust, you do not use new technologies.

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Control rather than Ease of Use

• In our study of the use of electronic money in
  the home, we showed there is hard trust and soft
  trust.
• There are three components of soft trust
  control, comfort and caring.
• However, a study of computer scientists showed
  that they emphasise control over and above every
  other aspect of soft trust.

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Not Designing for Use

• Traditionally computer scientists consider the
  dimension of use after they have a device that
  works.
• Use is often seen as a problem of interface and a
  matter of user testing.
• A computer scientist who helped devise a
  scheduler said it was not useful for him, as it
  did not take account of power relations.

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A Cashless Society

• Groceries

Gifts
Utilities
Credit Card
Business
Entertainment
Holidays
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A Mix of Payments
Cultural Context
Cash Eftpos Credit Card
Groceries
Credit Card Cheque Cash
Gifts
Utilities
User Payment Activities
Cash/ Credit Card
Business
Entertainment
Holidays
Cheque/ Credit Card
Credit card Cash
Credit Card
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Focused on the Citizen

• Is the aim to have all departments on line? This
  in itself does not ensure citizen centred
  electronic service delivery?
• Are the projects focused on the citizen to ensure
  the most appropriate channel is used for
  different activities?

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The Virtual Café
Private tables
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The Virtual Lounge Room and Café One Version
Common meeting room
Virtual Lounge Room
Foyer (SPA)
Trophy Room (SPA)
Virtual Cafe
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About SITCRC

• SITCRC began operating in November 2001 as a
  partnership between Australian Universities and
  Corporate Partners. It has been funded for seven
  years with A120 million in cash and kind from
  corporate, university and government sponsors,
  including 22 million from the federal
  Government.
• Corporate partners include Telstra, Westpac,
  Novell, Adacel.

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Distinctiveness of SITCRC

• Two technology programs Smart Networks and
• Intelligent Environment, Smart Personal
• Agents and Natural Adaptive User Interface.
• The User Environment program intersects these to
  ensure that new internet products and
  services will work for people and are
  market focused.

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UCD Project Objectives

• We aim to establish a culture of placing the user
  at the centre of the discovery and development
  phases of the design of Smart Internet
  Technologies.
• This year we are working with technologists and
  industry on four projects
• - The Virtual Café
• - Amivox project
• - Secure Identity Management
• - Digital Rights Management

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Joint Projects

• Amivox design a portable multi-modal device
  (speech i/o keyboard) interface for blind
  people
• Nymity exploring identity, anonymity and
  security
• The virtual café social interaction and smart
  networks
• Digital rights management - To provide secure
  and user-centered DRM solutions for
  deliveringany content, anytime,
• anywhere

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Why is it Difficult?

• Communicating across boundaries
• Need for two way communication
• Connecting perspectives
• Different methodologies
• Building a team.

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Working with the Technology Researchers

• The intention of having a UCD perspective was
  clear. However, UCD was at the beginning
  interpreted in terms of a book-end tell us what
  you know about users, let us get on with it, and
  then you test it.
• Presentations, co-opting UCD people to technology
  programs, use of personas and scenarios and
  interaction over time
• led to goodwill but not necessarily
• accompanied by understanding.

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Need for a Meeting Place

• The interaction has to be two way rather than
  just UCD researchers going to the Technology
  programs
• Workshop in Nov 2002 where key technology
  researchers came to meet with the UCD team
• Able to explain what UCD could do for their
  individual technology programs
• Worked together to develop personas and scenarios
  the character and plot of the story of the
  technology to be designed
• UCD people went to Wollongong.
• Wollongong people came to Melbourne.

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Our Early Personas
Anton, 50, Staff Business Faculty
Bruce, 34, Masters by Research, FT
Sandra, 39, Professor of Computer Engineering
Charles Li, 38, part time Engineering student,
Singapore
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More personas
Patricia 22, 2nd year Architecture student.
Indonesian / Malay
Lisa, 31, Admin Coordinator
Jayne 28, 1st year EDIM / Art Design and Comms /
TAFE
Jenny 19, is a Marketing Major student
in Computer Information/IT
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Crossing Boundaries

• Time to establish a relationship of trust and
  demonstrate value
• Face-to-face workshops in Melbourne and
  Wollongong
• Use of personas and scenarios as communication
  tools
• Having champions of UCD in the technical and
  corporate community.

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Connecting different perspectives and seeing
differently

• It is a bit like a migrant coming from one
  country and living in another
• You are never quite at the centre of anything
  and often at the fringes
• You live in the in-between spaces
• But it is in these spaces that discoveries are
  made
• You are then lost to a monocultural
• world.

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Working with different methodologies

• The story of a very heated discussion
• Rigour at a trotting pace
• Tension between judging the process and the
  outcome
• Disciplinary conflicts -feeling valued or your
  expertise being trivialised
• Yet you need to connect earlier rather than
  later.

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Building a Team

• Core at RMIT came from CIRCIT where we had a
  history of working together across disciplines
• Face-to-face meetings, teleconference most
  recently fortnightly newsletter and website
• Came together because of an interest in UCD, but
  from different starting points
• Writing papers and reports together
• sharing tentative thoughts.

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What we did Wrong

• A too great dependence on virtual communication
• Expecting relationships to be built just because
  there is a project
• Not knowing that you do not understand
• Not being able to live with differences of
  approach and perspective.

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Lessons learnt

• UCD in the academic discovery stage of design
  does not resemble text book descriptions of UCD
  in the corporate context
• Getting the UCD virtual team working together
  issues of virtual team formation
• Working together with the technology researchers
  using UCD tools such as interviews,
  
• personas and scenarios to begin working
• in interdisciplinary virtual teams.

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UCD in the Discovery Context of Design

• We are working at the early stages of design
  where projects are being formulated
• In general, we are not working with prototypes
  that can be tested
• We are working in the academic rather than
  corporate context in this discovery
• stage
• We are working in virtual
• interdisciplinary teams.

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What has worked for us

• Recognising that it takes time to develop
  relationships. We have common projects between
  the UCD group and technologists but we are now in
  our third year
• There has to be a reciprocity of visits us
  going to their turf and the technologists coming
  to ours
• Charting out the differences and translating
  where we can. The rest we agree to live with
• Agreeing on the social outcomes we
• desire
• Designing and writing papers together.

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Translating user research to design

• Detailed user studies are often done by
  sociologists, anthropologists or psychologists
• Often it is the study which is the product
• Difficulty of translating from current to future
  use
• Translating the research to design via agreement
  on social outcomes
• Without this translation you have the study on
  one side and the people who will use your study
  on the other - with no connecting bridges.

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Still Searching for a Repeatable Methodology

• Together we are reflecting on our experience of
  working together in different projects at
  different phases
• Working out what led to success
• What we should avoid
• How do we replicate it across projects?
• And cultural contexts?

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Challenges of a Cross-Cultural UCD

• Designing user studies involve time and costs
• Matters of cultural arrogance
• Understanding the different roles of government
  in addressing the digital divide
• The individual and shared context of use
• Affordability
• Language issues
• Connectivity
• Overall understanding how the use of
  technologies shapes and is shaped by
  culture.