Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


osu1086193345.pdf (1008.78 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Designing systems that make sense: what designers say about their communication with users during the usability testing cycle

Jenkins, Lillie Ruth
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1086193345

Abstract Details

2004, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Communication.
This dissertation project focused on design practitioners’ communicative experiences as they occurred during usability testing in an attempt to isolate and lay out the contradiction that occurs between practitioners’ belief in user-centered design (UCD) and their practice of that methodology. Communication was important to study because it is a central aspect of UCD, but the notion that design practitioners perceive communication to be instructive and/or useful as indicated by their design practice has not been well documented and represents an axiom of sorts in the design field. The goals of this research were to trace the contradiction to determine how design practitioners perceive communication between themselves and the users—the UCD rationale—and by extension, to better understand communication’s impact upon their subsequent design decisions. The following research questions flowed from this idea: (a) How does the contradiction between design practitioners’ values and practices play itself out in their experiences communicating with users to implement UCD in the form of usability testing? (b) What do design practitioners say about the reasons that factor into their decisions to exclude users’ suggestions from the final product design? Sense-Making Methodology, a methodology in the tradition of Grounded Theory, was used to isolate contradictory communication behaviors related to design practitioners’ belief in UCD and their practice of UCD methodology as represented by usability testing and users’ suggestions. Twenty-two in-depth interviews were conducted and Sense-Making’s Communication-As-Procedure analytic was used to analyze the data, examining occurrences of contradicting communication behaviors. The results of this exploratory study indicated that communicative tactics seeking connection with and direction from users to validate the product under design, led most often to a design effort that included usability testing and users’ suggestions. On the other hand, the results of tracing the communication showed that behaviors that disconnected from users, did not seek to orient toward the direction of their needs, and in the end rejected their input led most often to a design process that excluded both usability testing and users’ suggestions as means of practicing UCD.
Brenda Dervin (Advisor)
182 p.
Communication; Cognitive Engineering; Design Process; Design Lifecycle; Design of Information Technology; Design Practitioners; Developers; Designers; Human-Computer Interaction; Interaction; Usability Testing; Usability Evaluation; User Centered Design

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jenkins, L. R. (2004). Designing systems that make sense: what designers say about their communication with users during the usability testing cycle [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1086193345

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jenkins, Lillie. Designing systems that make sense: what designers say about their communication with users during the usability testing cycle. 2004. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1086193345.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jenkins, Lillie. "Designing systems that make sense: what designers say about their communication with users during the usability testing cycle." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1086193345

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1086193345
1,181
© 2004, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.