Computer Aided Improvement of Human-Centered Design Processes

With the increasing relevancy of usability as a software quality factor, a growing demand for tools that support the special activities of HCD (human-centered design) processes within the industrial software development community is expected to arise. To elicit initial requirements for tool support, we analyzed the real tasks of developers of four major companies engaged in the development of highly interactive systems, the problems incurred and the burning support issues. Inspired by the results of this survey we developed REUSE, a system that facilitates the elicitation, organization and effective reuse of best practices and artifacts concerning HCD activities and makes their performance more efficient. An initial formative evaluation with future users showed that REUSE is able to improve the utilization of HCD methods within the development process of interactive systems and overcomes some limitations of related approaches.