User-Centred Product Creation in Interactive Electronic Publishing

Vision

The field of human-computer interaction is mature and has produced a large body of methods and tools. The innovative contribution of VNET5 is to define and document the best practice of applying these methods and tools in electronic publishing and media production.

A user-centred approach requires attention to user issues throughout all phases of a development project. The approach of VNET5 is to assure that user validation is planned explicitly into development projects right from the start to make user-orientation effective, efficient and manageable in the product creation process. The appropriate and most cost-effective approach to user validation depends on the parameters of the specific development project, i.e. the type of application to be developed, critical success and quality factors, user requirements, the budget and resources available, the competence of the project team for user validation and the time schedule for the development process.

The main thrust of VNET5 is to assure that project work plans include an appropriate approach to user validation. The first step is to assess the needs and the proposed user validation plan in a project, and the competence available. Subsequently some support is provided to allow project teams to improve their approach for user-orientation in the project. The main goal is to improve the competence of project teams and to empower them to carry out a competent user-centred approach by their own resources. This ensures that the competence for user validation will penetrate the organization.