Designing for user benefit: a methodological cautionary tale

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the problem of ‘losing sight’ of the user during the design of human-computer interfaces. A methodological practice is proposed which enables the designer to track the implications of design proposals with respect to both the benefits they confer on the user and their goodness of fit with user characteristics. The methodological practice, which is seen as a technique for early or formative evaluation, is then applied in retrospect to two adaptive prototypes which are currently being incorporated into a Multi-Author Document Preparation System. The results of this process are intended as a methodological cautionary tale for other designers, illustrating the potential consequences of failure to evaluate the implicit assumptions that are being made about users by the designer.

Keywords:

• Evaluation
• User benefit
• Adaptive interface design

Additional information

Notes on contributors

PETER TOTTERDELL

Present address: MRC/ESRC Social and Applied Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.