In this paper, we address the topic of user-centered design (UCD) for cartography, GIScience, and visual analytics. Interactive maps are ubiquitous in modern society, yet they often fail to “work” as they could or should. UCD describes the process of ensuring interface success—map-based or otherwise—by gathering input and feedback from target users throughout the design and development of the i...

This paper investigates how the integration of agile methods and User-Centered Design (UCD) is carried out in practice. For this study we have applied grounded theory as a suitable qualitative approach to determine what is happening in actual practice. The data was collected by semi-structured interviews with the professionals who have already worked in the integrated agile UCD methodology. Fur...

As a large share of the people who write about User-Centred Design seems to consist of gurus, visionaries and other enthusiasts, the story that is preached might be a bit too optimistic. Furthermore, with only some consensus on a high, abstract level, there is a lack of agreement on what UCD exactly is, which makes the concept rather ambiguous. Simultaneously, the amount of problems faced when ...

We present a photometric search for UCD candidates in the nearby galaxy group NGC 1023 (d=11 Mpc) – the poorest environment searched for UCDs yet –, based on wide field imaging with CFHT. After photometric and morphological selection, we obtain a sample of 21 UCD candidates with −12 < MV < −11 mag, if located at NGC 1023’s distance. From spectroscopy taken at Calar Alto observatory, we identify...

We carried out a series of case studies in industrial settings to learn how to perform effective assessments of user-centred design (UCD) processes. Our research strategy was to gather qualitative feedback from the organisations assessed, to understand how the different stakeholders perceive the assessments. We started with SPICE process assessment and a related UCD process model. Our observati...

This paper describes a new unifying workstyle model for the usercentered design process, comprised of eight dimensions that we claim as fundamental to supporting the UCD process. Our proposal is new because it is the first workstyle model tailored to UCD. We also show the usefulness of workstyle modeling when evaluating the stage/effort of a project at a given time. Our workstyle model was base...