What, then, should be the future actions for researchers and practitioners?
From the viewpoint of researchers, the findings of this study, especially usability engineering guidelines, should first be validated using other research approaches, due to the small number of case projects and only one industry perspective. Secondly, this study addresses some weaknesses in the current understanding and theory of user-centred design (ISO 13407): the lack of coordination and capability to deal with complex development. It should be studied, whether the ideas of this study can improve the theory of user-centred design.
From the viewpoint of practitioners, usability engineers in complex projects, the results of this study suggest that usability engineering approaches described in the literature may not be sufficient for effective and efficient usability engineering, and for making usable products. The practitioners should test the usability engineering guidelines in practice and propose improvements. If they are useful, we will more often see products that are easy to use.
Companies developing innovative consumer products, such as Nokia, should continuously strive for embedding user-centred development elements in the early and late development activities.
Many chapters in this study identify and propose ideas for future work. Those ideas are discussed at the end of each chapter (Chapters 4-9). There are still wider research issues not described this far. Large organisations, such as Nokia, have typically several concurrent development projects going on in parallel. In other words, several products are being developed simultaneously. In order to minimise overlapping usability engineering work and to enable better use of the organisation's tacit and explicit memory about user requirements and related issues there is a need to develop mechanisms to support co-operative usability engineering across development projects. Can the principles of CE or usability engineering guidelines be used to improve the efficiency of parallel usability work?
In the projects followed in this study, the usability related knowledge has turned out to be difficult to maintain and share. A typical reason for this phenomenon is that when a project ends, the resources are soon allocated to new tasks. The organisation's memory improves if the knowledge of an ending project is transferred forward or stored. What kind of practices would enable efficient usability knowledge transition when a complex development project ends (the last phase in Figure 9.1)?
Usability of a mobile phone is not only product design. As seen in Chapter 5 it covers also external and service interfaces. The special problem area to be solved by manufacturers, service providers and researchers lies is the transparent integration of wireless services and mobile
products. In the ideal world, a user cannot (or need not) make distinction between the personal services (content) and the product, i.e. there is no need to spend time on difficult configuration, reading manuals, finding access numbers or calling help-desks. To what extent we can solve this by product design and implementation with the help of human-centred design?
Usability testing of mobile phones is challenging because of the mobile context and the small size of the product. The special research topics that I have found interesting for mobile phone usability testing are:
- the need for such usability testing methods that ensure the carefully preserved product confidentiality during testing. Mobile phones will have functionality that is location dependent, such as available services. Sometimes, usability testing ought to be done in a real mobile context and real places in order to capture the real-life problems. What is needed for usability testing on the field that should preserve product confidentiality?
- mobile phones and smart devices become smaller. The observation of small devices in the test situation is more difficult than observation of larger systems, for example, desktop applications especially in the mobile context. What kind of observation methods and tools can be used without disturbing the user?
- out-of-box readiness should be good for consumer products. More OBR research focusing on the special system set-up, such as the first connection between the product and supporting PC, of smart device (user-, external-, service-) interfaces is needed.
10.2.1 Cycle of innovations
New design ideas are invented and captured always when users are involved in the early development and product testing. Especially human-centred design activities, such as usability testing, often lead the designers to innovative design solutions and fresh ideas.
Innovations do not (always) come by accident. Sometimes they are logical consequences of earlier actions and development. Innovations have the power to trigger the birth of further innovations. The triggered innovations may be in the same or different expertise areas of development. In the optimal case, triggering can potentially lead to a cycle (or cycles) of innovations. In this section I will discuss concept, design, implementation and user innovations, and propose the cycle of innovations as topic for further research.
A product concept can be based on L-, E-, I-, or R- (material, technical, human, social, data, information, knowledge, money) ideas or innovations. The innovations may be originated from several sources, such as new enabling technology, convergence of existing technologies, early identified user needs, insights based on competitor analysis, or findings from market research.
These concept innovations are often the most important reasons to make the new product.
When the development team converts the product concept to detailed product design, it may produce design innovations. These can be logical consequences of solving the design challenges of new concepts. Design innovations can be based on ideas and insights, for example, from human-centred design or user requirements that are identified during product development.
Product implementation solves the practical challenges given in the product design, such as better integrated electronics, new programming algorithms and manufacturing processes. Often, product implementation generates such intellectual innovations that can be protected, i.e.
patented, more easily than concept or design innovations. These implementation innovations are concrete and often easy to document.
By using a product the users can find innovative solutions for reaching their personal goals. The solutions can be based, for example, on finding new cost-effective ways for communication, such as making charge-free phone calls in order to give a notification to a friend (Kasesniemi 2001). The main idea in these user innovations is that the functionality has not been identified or intended by the product designers to be used in the way as they are used.
In the large consumer markets, especially when dealing with technically complex devices, the product maintenance and available customer support is a critical part of the service chain and perceived quality. By studying the product maintenance case stories of users and customer contact points the development organization can identify such product development issues that have major impact on the total cost of future products. These studies may lead the organization to create innovations related to either maintenance or better product and service concepts.
By observing users and identifying user innovations manufacturers have an opportunity to implement functions that support user innovations, or build functionality that better meets the real user needs and supports existing or new work practises. This can lead to new concept innovations, and new cycle of innovations (Figure 10.1).
Concept innovations
Design innovations
User and
innovations
Implementation innovations maintenance
Figure 10.1. Cycle of innovations
Innovations are essential for product development, and an important area of IT research. Any company that has product development and customer research has probably seen triggering of new innovations. Research on the instances of innovation triggering and cycle of innovations might provide useful and valuable information for companies and researchers who need better models and constructs for understanding the birth of new ideas, and to have even more benefit of the human-centred design.