Case Studies of User Orientation in Working Life

Despite all the research and development that have taken place on user centered methods, techniques and tools, the actual user influence in the development of their own work situation shows to be rather limited. User involvement is regarded as time consuming and tends to receive low priority in working life development projects. This often results in systems with severe usability defects. Questioning the usability is still a novel approach that has not yet been incorporated into the software development life cycle. These six case studies show that there can be no general approach to usability engineering and user oriented work. The characteristics of an in-house development domain varies significantly from product development, consultants work and, especially, from development for users with special needs. Methods techniques and tools must be adjusted to the development characteristics.