Testing the Boundaries of Two User-Centered Design Principles: Metaphors and Memory Load

This experiment examined how varying implementations of two user-centered design principles affected the usability of a computer program. Drawing from human-computer interaction, as well as cognitive psychology, the following principles were implemented and tested: maximizing use of the user's expectations and stereotypes and minimizing the user's memory load. Nine interfaces were created using Hypercard' s datebook program. On each interface, the graphics and text were manipulated according to the design principle and the related cognitive psychology research. A total of 108 people participated. Of the five hypotheses, only one was supported by the data. The data suggest that for less complicated programs and tasks, strict adherence to design principles may not be required.     

A Walk-Up-and-Use Information System for the Sydney Olympics: A Case Study in User-Centered Design

The info information retrieval system was designed and developed for the XXVII Olympic Summer Games held in Sydney, Australia in September 2000. info provided journalists and broadcasters with information for planning their days at the games and producing their coverage of Olympic events. The user-centered design (UCD) team from the IBM Storage Systems Group was invited to work with the info system for the 2000 games and was able to do extensive UCD work, including working with journalists, broadcasters, and sports researchers from North America, Europe, and Asia. Throughout the development cycle the UCD team worked closely with the info programming team located in Madrid, Spain and with other teams in Sydney, Australia. Later, the UCD team joined a large cast of volunteers and professionals in providing support for info at the Sydney games. This opportunity allowed the UCD team to make observations and collect data on the usability of the system, and these indicate that info was indeed easy to use and that customers were very satisfied with the system. info's success was due to an extensive multidisciplinary team that included visual designers, human factors and human-computer interaction specialists, user research specialists, developers, marketers, IBM executives, and an active customer sponsor. The project demonstrates that application of UCD methods can improve product usability even when challenged with extremely dispersed teams and immovable deadlines.     

用户为中心的设计方法在产品开发中的运用——以IF中国2008获奖作品学生笔记本电脑设计为例

在IF中国奖2008年度的评选中,第二代英特尔学生笔记本电脑以其为学生贴切的设计而获奖。英特尔新兴市场研发部一直以来致力于对学生电脑的开发,目前已有两款产品上市。本文结合了在产品设计开发工作中的经验及体会,以学生笔记本电脑的设计为例,从产品设计方法入手,大致介绍了以用户为中心(UCD)的设计方法在产品设计中的运用。     

DB2 Universal Database: A Case Study of a Successful User-Centered Design Program

This case study describes the application of user-centered design (UCD) principles to the development of a complex middleware software product-IBM's DB2(r) Universal Database. Motivated by trade press reviews highlighting ease-of-use problems, a multisite development team utilized IBM UCD to transform ease of use into a featured product attribute. This case study describes the initial application of UCD to DB21 and the positive business results that followed: critical acclaim, increased marketshare and user satisfaction, and increased support and adoption of UCD across the IBM database product family. Although ease-of-use objectives, target markets, and human factors practitioners' roles have evolved over 6 years and multiple versions of the product, DB2 continues to achieve positive results with UCD. In addition to the flexibility of the UCD methodology, other factors that influenced DB2's success included management support, resource commitment, cross-site communication and collaboration, detailed product specifications, and a focus on supporting user tasks.     

User-Centered Design and Reference Services in International Librarianship: A Case Study of Nazarbayev University Library

Major changes over the past decade have moved Kazakhstan and its university students out of the old Soviet model of education and into the realm of international scholarship. While students from this region are being prepared in new and innovative ways, their research needs are still unique and require a firm understanding on the part of academic librarians. With an eye to better serving students at Nazarbayev University, librarians undertook a usability of the library's web resources in February 2013. This article presents findings from the study, which address the distinct needs of university students from post-Soviet nations.     

联想ThinkPad携手宝马(BMW)助精彩旅程

联想ThinkPad继数度携手宝马(BMW)之后,今年再次作为该活动的独家电脑合作伙伴,为本次BMW 3行动提供全程笔记本电脑设备与技术支持。ThinkPad将协助热爱探索、挑战的车手实现历年来规模最大的激情之旅,而两大高端品牌连续三年成功携手,也堪称是国内跨界营销方面的经典案例。     

联想ThinkPad携手宝马(BMW)助精彩旅程

联想ThinkPad继数度携手宝马（BMW）之后,今年再次作为该活动的独家电脑合作伙伴,为本次＂BMW 3行动＂提供全程笔记本电脑设备与技术支持。ThinkPad将协助热爱探索、挑战的车手实现历年来规模最大的激情之旅,而两大高端品牌连续三年成功携手,也堪称是国内跨界营销方面的经典案例。     

基于Winsock的3D游戏设计与开发

随着游戏玩家需求的不断提高,现在的2D游戏已不能满足用户需求,提出一种基于Winsock的3D游戏设计方法,旨在提高用户在视觉效果上对游戏的体验,同时使用优化的引擎提高游戏的性能。Winsock是在实现多人游戏中常用的一种开发技术,相对于其他的开发技术具有明显优势,而随着3D电影的发展,用户对于3D游戏的需求与时俱进,通过这两者的完美结合,为游戏厂商提供一种引擎技术开发经验,同时也为用户提供更具创意的游戏。     

体验时代之产品设计

当下已经进入到体验时代,我们购买商品时的关注点已经变得不再只是简单的关注产品是否好用,即产品的功能层面;或者只是关注产品是否好看。即产品的审美层面。而是逐渐上升为一个整体的感受过程。购买者、使用者的产品体验感受已经成为整个产品设计活动的核心思考。     

The Crystal Multicomputer: Design and Implementation Experience

This paper presents an overview of the hardware and software components of the Crystal multicomputer project. The goal of the Crystal project is to design and implement a vehicle that serves a variety of research projects involving distributed computation. Crystal can be used simultaneously by multiple research projects by partitioning the available processors according to the requirements of each project. Users can employ the Crystal multicomputer in several ways. Projects such as operating systems and database machines that need direct control of processor resources (clock, memory management, communication devices) can be implemented using a reliable communication service (the "nugget" that resides on each node processor. Projects that prefer a higher-level interface can be implemented using the Charlotte distributed operating system. Finally, users interested in Crystal principally as a cycle server can run UNIX® jobs on node machines using the "remote" unix service. Development, debugging, and execution of projects can take place remotely under the control of any of several UNIX hosts. Acquiring a partition of machines, resetting each machine, and then loading an application onto each machine is performed by invoking a UNIX-resident program (the "nuggetmaster"). Communication with node machines in a partition is facilitated by a virtual terminal and window mechanism. Crystal is fully operational and has been used to support a variety of research projects. To illustrate the flexibility provided by the Crystal environment, four of these projects are described.     

On Using B in the Design of Secure Micro-controllers: An Experience Report

The stepwise formal development of safety critical software is now a well established engineering practice, noticeably in railway systems. However, it has not been applied as successfully to hardware development, where formal methods are mainly used for verification and gate level transformations and optimizations. In this paper, we report our recent experience in the stepwise formal development of a real macro-cell, that opens the way to the design of synchronous digital circuits with zero functional bugs. We propose a development flow suited for obtaining proven correct-by-construction circuits that further possess additional robustness properties desirable for secure chips. The reported work is prospective and is meant to show the feasibility of such a technique for high confidence trustful devices.     

Simplification orderings: Putting them to the test

Various methods for proving the termination of term rewriting systems have been suggested. Most of them are based on the notion of a simplification ordering. In this paper, a collection of well-known simplification orderings will be briefly presented including path orderings and decomposition orderings. A satisfactory application to examples often found in practice is an essential requirement concerning such orderings. We describe a detailed empirical study of their time complexities with respect to comparable pairs of terms.This research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 314 (D4-Projekt).     

产品设计中的用户体验与感官

用户逐渐增长的体验需求和日渐强烈的参与欲望使产品设计理念的内涵不断拓展到"体验"上来。为了能让体验深刻独特,探索感官刺激和情感体验之间的关系日益得到人们的关注。本文首先分析了体验与情感和感官的联系。然后,针对产品设计中的视觉、听觉、触觉、嗅觉等感官因素,结合成功案例,运用现代设计理论分析了感官与情感体验的关联因素及其外在表现形式,希望能够对产品体验设计有所启迪。     

物流仓库设计施工经验浅谈

在社会经济不断发展的今天,物流业作为一个朝阳产业,也随着改革开放的不断深入而迅速发展。物资储存是物流产业链条的一个重要组成部分,因此,我国经济发展对物流仓储设施的需求越来越大,对物流仓库建设的要求也越来越高。