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China's Digital Sector Focus On Users

Dr Rachel Jones, founder of Cambridge design and innovation company Instrata, reports on the recent SESUN project user-centred design (UCD) workshop tour of China. The workshops, led by leading practitioners in the field, shed light on the levels of technological progress in the country...

A recent user-centred design (UCD) workshop tour of China held by the SESUN project and involving leading experts and practitioners in the field unearthered some interesting insights into the levels of design and progress towards usability in websites in the region...

By Dr Rachel Jones

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The aim of the SESUN project (www.sesun-usability.org) is for China and the EU to collaborate in the design of usable IT. The objectives are mutually beneficial: contributing to the development of usability practices in the Chinese IT industry whilst showcasing European expertise in user-centred design.

UCD tends not to have been given the same level of priority in China in the past as in Europe, so we were surprised to discover the high level of both interest and progress.

We led workshops in Beijing, Dalian and Shanghai. On each occasion, we asked participants their background discipline and application area. Most participants were from the software industry or had an industrial design background. They worked in fairly equal proportions on products, websites and handheld devices.

China’s tech-designers focusing on the user

Workshops were well-attended with between 100 and 120 participants at each session. There are very few UCD courses offered by Chinese universities and as a result of this lack of formal training, many of the questions asked in the workshops reflected on the different roles in UCD, how the roles worked together, the skills required, and how to recruit and gauge UCD expertise.

Participants were keen to hear about case studies, carry out exercises, and learn about the impact of limitations, such as recruiting from internal staff.

We were particularly surprised by how comparable the issues are to those of practitioners in Europe, at least as reflected by participants’ questions. For example, common issues that were raised in workshops included:

• knowing how to shift users to a radically new interface when they are familiar with the old one
• gaining time to do user research and iterative development
• how to use different types of prototyping at different stages in the process
• how to understand usefulness when a device does not already exist
• the relationship between data mining and usability
• how to test for emotional appeal

The tour was organised from China by Prof Zhengjie Liu, and four people from Europe ran the workshops: Professor Jan Gulliksen from Uppsala University in Sweden, Nils-Erik Gustafsson from Metamatrix in Sweden, Jon Rimmer from University College London and Rachel Jones from Instrata in Cambridge.

Professor Janni Nielsen from Copenhagen Business School joined them for the last workshop. Christina Li from Thames Valley University was interpreter, guide, reviewer and food advisor.

About the Author:
Dr Rachel Jones is Managing Director and founder of Instrata. She has worked for the two foremost pioneers of people-centred techniques in design: Xerox EuroPARC and Sapient (formerly E-lab), and has over 20 international publications and has authored 10 patents. Headquartered in Cambridge UK, Instrata specialises in people-centred innovation and design. This includes design research, user-centred interactive solutions and strategic market innovation. Instrata’s team includes technologists, anthropologists, strategists and designers, building an in-depth understanding of the requirements of potential customers. The company has extensive experience in the technology sector, including: mobile services; home devices; medical products; web services and control systems. Instrata’s work is relevant across diverse market sectors. Clients include: Microsoft; Yahoo; The Automation Partnership (TAP); University of Cambridge; British Design Council and The Countryside Agency. Instrata has conducted projects in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Japan, and the USA. www.instrata.co.uk