Paul Rouke - Usability Professional » software http://www.paulrouke.co.uk Head of Usability at PRWD, providing a range of usability services Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:50:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 In Layman’s Terms: User-Centered Design For Software http://www.paulrouke.co.uk/2009/02/10/in-laymans-terms-user-centered-design-for-software/ http://www.paulrouke.co.uk/2009/02/10/in-laymans-terms-user-centered-design-for-software/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:09:41 +0000 Paul Rouke http://www.paulrouke.co.uk/?p=217 As part of my presentations at Manchester Digital’s event Usability: What’s The Use?, we produced a short video explaining the importance of adopting a user-centered design approach when developing business critical software and systems.

Rather than us preaching about this subject, we decided to ask our client C&O Powder Coatings a few questions and get them to explain why user-centered design is so important for their new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that we are developing.

Questions we asked that feature on this video are:

  • what are your efficiency and productivity issues?
  • what are their customer service demands?
  • what are your expectations?
  • what does user-centered design mean to you?

Comments and feedback greatly received…

]]> http://www.paulrouke.co.uk/2009/02/10/in-laymans-terms-user-centered-design-for-software/feed/ 1 Oh No, Not More Unusable Business Software! http://www.paulrouke.co.uk/2008/10/28/oh-no-not-more-unusable-business-software/ http://www.paulrouke.co.uk/2008/10/28/oh-no-not-more-unusable-business-software/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:32:20 +0000 Paul Rouke http://www.paulrouke.co.uk/?p=190 I have just written an article over at E-consultancy entitled ‘Usable Internal Business Systems – Just a Pipedream?‘.

I would recommend having a read as the usability issues that I talk about are what we have all experienced during our working lives, and there is extensive research provided which proves that the majority of business systems and software solutions in the market don’t value usability anywhere near as highly as we would always advocate.

The article includes my:

  • evaluation of the enterprise level software market
  • industry analysis on the lack of importance placed on usability in software
  • advice on how businesses can attempt to improve the usability of their existing systems
  • advice on how User-Centered Design should be embraced for businesses looking at bringing in new internal software systems
  • summary of why usable internal business systems shouldn’t be a pipedream

Further reading

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