This article presents a framework for studying users in order to support designers in constructing usable and useful consumer products. The framework is aimed at designing consumer products for which users cannot be specified in advance, long lasting observations of users are difficult or impossible to arrange, and the time frames available are short. We discuss what kind of end user information is needed, how to gather it, and how to transfer the results to designers. We applied the developed framework in a case study and found that it is capable of providing a reasonable depth of knowledge in a short time frame with low costs. Comments from designers indicate that the methods give concrete input to design work, such as the necessary feature composition users need. Finally, we draw out a number of lessons learned. Keywords User-centred design, user study methods, user requirements, consumer products 1.

Groupware Task Analysis (GTA) is applied for the redesign of a commercial security system. The problem is the confidentiality of the knowledge on the task domain. The system is the actual security systems in use in companies, AND, obviously, none of them is eager to have details of its security management situation and security procedures being made available to outsiders, even if these are employed by a company that designed their system. The paper describes the problems in applying GTA and shows ways to cope with the restrictions involved in analysing safety critical systems in industrial design projects.

This paper presents the identification, design and implementation of a user interface to a brokerage system and the conceptual architecture and functional behaviour of an intelligent interaction agent that supports and enhances the interaction between the user and the system. The term interaction agent is used in order to describe a particular class of interface agents that function as intelligent personal assistants to users of a computer - based system. The interaction agent provides assistance to the user in two contexts. On the user interface level, it assists users to comprehend and manipulate the user interface. On the domain of application level, it provides users with information and advice according to their preferences. This work is being carried out in the context of an ACTS (AC 221) project GAIA (Generic Architecture for Information Availability).

acta psychologlca

Task Knowledge Structures provide an account of the knowledge structures that people possess and use when performing a task. Such models can be constructed using various techniques, such as direct observation, interviews, questionnaires, and others. TKS models can represent either knowledge structures that are possessed by a specific individual or, alternatively, a number of such individual TKS models can be amalgamated to form new TKSs. Demos 2000 is tool for specifying and executing mathematical simulation models of systems. The structure of Demos 2000 models can be considered to be based on the resources and processes that describe the system components and a stochastic representation of the (dynamic) environment within which the system resides. This report summarizes our work in translating models of human behavioural characteristics, as represented by Task Knowledge Structures, into Demos 2000 models.