Enhancing user-centered design by adopting the Taguchi philosophy
pp. 350-359
in: Julie Jacko (ed), Human-computer interaction. Interaction design and usability, Berlin, Springer, 2007Abstract
Since the 1980s User-Centered Design (UCD) has been becoming popular in the ICT industry. It helps seek usable designs through a set of workflows, evaluation methods, and design approaches, which construct a comprehensive UCD framework. Along with its extensive utilizations, its pitfalls are also exposed in cost-benefit, robustness, and optimization respects. However, applying the Taguchi Method can remedy these pitfalls to gain robust optimal designs. This approach is feasible but less emphasized in the Human-Computer Interaction field. From a theoretical perspective, this paper depicts a practical approach to enhance UCD framework by adopting the Taguchi philosophy. Based on the analysis of the UCD framework and the Taguchi Method, it discusses key adaptation points for the Taguchi philosophy adoption in the UCD framework. As a result, the Taguchi-Compliant User-Centered Design (TC-UCD) framework is proposed in this paper.