Usage-Centered Engineering for Web Applications

This paper presents a lightweight form of usage-centered design that has proved particularly effective in designing highly usable Webbased applications. Fully compatible with both traditional object-oriented software engineering methods and newer agile techniques such as Extreme Programming, this approach employs rapid, card-based techniques to develop simplified models of user roles, tasks, and user interface contents. The process attempts to resolve the conflict between the demands of rapid iterative design and incremental development on the one hand and the needs for integrity in a user interface fitted to the full set of user tasks on the other. The resolution depends on creating a navigation architecture and a visual and interaction design scheme based on quick but comprehensive task modeling. The process is illustrated with experiences from the design of a Web-deployed application for classroom teachers.