User Centred Design through an Iterative and Incremental Approach3Page
1.
Introduction:
The diversity of web application and ease of publishing content has made it one of the best sources of information now a days. Internet comes in handy in almost every aspect in modern day to day life of aperson. For this reason as this media is getting more popular every day, the end users started to expectmore from it. Web sites too, became more interactive and user oriented. Big corporations like MicrosoftCorporation (2001) and Google Inc (2002) are taking user experience as a major issue in making theirsoftware. However the question is whether the software developers should limit user involvement to letthem influence the aesthetic feature of the software. The answers is with no doubt user should beincluded in all the phases of software development rather than making their mark in UI design. Thedevelopers should not forget, the users are integral part of any software. They are the ones who mark
the software’s success. More involvement of the u
ser makes software more close to the users. On theother hand, more user involvement also increases the cost of the software. It is because most of theusers are aware of the end product but they are ignorant of the processes and engineering lies beneath.So when they are included, their adoption time in the development process makes the developmentslow. One of the other factors is when the users are included in the system they waste time with givingaway useless requirement for the software. Last but not the least, there are no software which canmake its end user hundred percent happy. User centred development though comes us with thesoftware which is more user focused, it does not consider the software development life cycle from a
designer’s point of
view. Issues like how to adopt to the requirement changes of the user are notdiscussed in the user centred design. If the user centred design become more iterative in nature will itbe benefitting the system development? How a crucial software like a medical information software, if put to the development in such manner, will result in? These questions will be answered in the later partof the research.Iterative and incremental development methodology has been a buzzword for quite a long time.Introduced as quality (Larman, Craig and Basili, Victor (2003)), this process has been modified time andagain to overcome traditional downside waterfall approach. However, question always arises whether itcan address all the issues in development of a software. Apparently iterative and incrementaldevelopment has a tendency to break down the actual objectives into measurable pieces. Question ishow we can define measurable chunks. And when the chunks are joined together do they portray theactual objective that was initially set. Iterative and incremental software development becomes verysuccessful as a project when it is short lived and less innovative. I will be concentrating on whether thiswill be the answer for making a successful health care software. In order to that I will try to figure outthe common but critical criteria for an average health care software thorough gathering requirementfrom potential customer. I will try to identify the common requirement of a heath care organization. Thelater part of the project will deal with the success and cost factors for these softwares. In my practicalpart of the research I will try to make a software that is based on the preference of criteria of healthcare software that has been indentified earlier. The other important objective of the project will be tofind out whether user centred development process is ideal for the development of this kind of softwares.
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