A User-Centered Approach to Object-Oriented User Interface Design

This chapter emphasizes user-centered design as the essential process for developing usable systems. User-centered design tries to strengthen the creative aspects of user interface design. However, this does not fit very well with the more structured, architecture-centered nature of object-oriented development methodologies. Several problems associated with object-oriented techniques have been observed in development projects in practice. In this chapter, realizing the increasing commercial market share of such software development processes, we set out to strengthen the user-centered design aspects of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM). We describe the method of User Interface Modeling (UIM), which is based on object-oriented use cases, and establish task requirements that are specific to the user interface design process. We also introduce the role of the usability designer in vouching for the usability throughout the system development process. Finally, we describe our experiences in promoting user-centered design with object-oriented interface design techniques at the Swedish National Tax Board.