Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2008-11 (VOL.59, NO.6)

Special Issue: Human Centered Design

Trends and Fujitsu's Approach

• Fujitsu's Activities for Human Centered Design

Today we are witnessing the widespread proliferation of IT systems and services, which have become indispensable in modern society. The IT technologies being applied to a large number of diverse applications have also become increasingly complex. Conversely, such indispensable IT systems and services must be designed so as to be easily available for various customers. In adapting to this situation, it is essential to focus on the "persons" that use IT systems in order to provide customers with better IT systems and services than in the past. This entails research and analysis of actual scenes of such focus in terms of customer visions, work styles, communications, equipment, and workplace. It is also necessary to consider human characteristics relative to these conditions for creating optimum solutions. This paper outlines Fujitsu's Human Centered Design policies and the activities being taken to achieve them.

• Trends of Human-Centered Design Standardization in Japan and Overseas

Given the very expansive the scope of Human Centered Design (HCD) and the extreme difficulty in understanding it systematically, most efforts made until now to standardize HCD have partially focused either on describing the desired direction or defining standards only for the particular concepts of HCD. However, some attempts have begun to understand HCD within a broader framework and introduce more specific tests and perspectives from which to evaluate it in various regions worldwide under varying circumstances. In particular, Japan has played an important role in international standardization efforts and is expected to further contribute in the future.
This paper surveys the current HCD framework that encompasses Japanese and international standards, de facto standards, regulations by law, and other requirements regarding HCD. It also describes recent trends in both Western and Asian countries.

Viewpoints and Activities

• Human-Centered Business Process Management

We present here a method to develop business processes that considers the human actions and skills up front, and then fills in information technology functions to support that. This approach is suitable for business processes identified as "facilitator processes" in which people inherently play a part that can not be easily replaced by automation.

• Service-Oriented Design Required in Ubiquitous Era

Typically product design is based on market research activities in order to clarify the features and benefits desired by consumers. However, the trend among customers has recently shifted from purchasing only products to experiencing services. This makes it more difficult for manufacturers to create products to attract customers. Manufacturers should focus on offering customers experience through their products and services. In this situation, designers should envision a future life by observing customer behavior. Designers need to contribute to product development by imaging our future life, creating scenarios of service desired by customers, and designing products based on this approach. In this way, product design will promote "Service-oriented design." This is important since service-oriented design will be mandatory in a ubiquitous era. This paper introduces some examples of designing and its processes.

• Kansei Quality Control in Product Development Process

When developers focus on pursuing user satisfaction based on the concepts of Human Centered Design (HCD), it is important to not only consider such measurable levels of performance as processing speed, power consumption, operating efficiency, size and weight, but also Kansei Quality. Kansei Quality refers to the quality evaluated in terms of sensitivity defined as human visceral mood shifts relative to feeling impressions from external stimulation. Fujitsu has created a conceptual model consisting of six elements to define Kansei Quality. We use this model in the process of product development in an attempt to manage Kansei Quality. This paper introduces Kansei Quality management and explains the conceptual model.

• Using Fieldwork to Hand Down Expert SE Skills

Various efforts are made to hand down the skills of expert SEs to young SEs. However, none can serve as the ultimate solution to an issue. The fundamental problem is that young SEs simply accept the knowledge given them as general information without fully appreciating its real value. To solve this problem, the Fieldwork which the Social Science Center has been putting to practical use has the advantage of being human-centered and fact-based. Among the new items on our menu is "handing down expert SE skills." This service utilizes HCD where the practice of skills is captured by focusing on human behavior and action. It also involves the three processes of 1) making a skill visible, 2) systematizing the skill, and 3) sharing the skill. Based on a mechanism that combines a realistic visualization of skills and the skill analysis support provided by having a joint study meeting, this service provides a new and effective way to address the current issue of "Off-JT of work in the field."

• Human-Centered Design Approach for Middleware

At the UI Center of the Fujitsu Software Unit, we have introduced the concepts of UI design and UI evaluation to our development processes with the goal of achieving universal design of open source middleware products in fiscal 2008. Universal design of middleware products entails recognizing the target users of our products, and then developing software products that those users find easy to understand and use. We are concentrating our efforts primarily in three areas: the education and training of UI architects, standardization and process reform, and UI design and evaluation by specialists. In order to continue providing products of high UI quality, we consider the training and employing of UI architects who are mindful of usability and functionality, as well as capable of detailed UI design and evaluation based such on human-centered design techniques as an awareness of competitor benchmarks, analysis of related issues, and user analysis of crucial importance.

Investigation and Analysis Techniques

• Qualitative Design for Visualizing User Viewpoints

In order to better understand user viewpoints and plan a business solution, we have developed a qualitative design methodology―AIm (Appreciative & Imaginative) Interview―for surveying and visualizing the user's work environment, actual work practices, problem consciousness, core values, and mid/long-term objectives from individual worker's viewpoints, and designing the concept of a business solution. AIm Interview has four components: an interview for understanding workplace context, an interview for understanding workplace vision, a reflective workshop, and qualitative data analysis. This method uses original interview worksheets based on a strategic framework, which is a model of a cultural frame of reference. This framework consists of seven frames: actual context, values, energy source, strength, ideal objective, gap between actual context and ideal objective, and business concept.

• Implementation of Persona Marketing for Fujitsu Kids Site

In December 2007, Fujitsu published the "Guide to Creating Web Contents for Kids" with the aim of popularizing the concept of universal design and promoting the creation of good-quality content for children's Websites. When developing our own "Fujitsu Kids Site," we adopted a new approach called "persona marketing" that allows us to visualize and better understand our target users. Persona marketing allows users to participate in the process of developing products and services, thereby clarifying their needs to be satisfied. The method is currently attracting attention and being widely used in the areas of Human Centered Design (HCD) and marketing. This paper describes the characteristics of persona marketing, explains how personae were created when we developed the "Fujitsu Kids Site" and utilized during site reviews, and discusses what effects have been brought about through their use.

• User Experience Index Scale
  ―Usability Quantification Applied with Magnitude Estimation―

Conventional methods of evaluating usability focus mainly on finding problems and those improvements, therefore usage of the methods are limited in the development evaluation process. Moreover, efficient techniques to capture an overall usability of products have not been established, and consequently the comparison of the levels of usability has been difficult. Magnitude Usability (MU), developed based on magnitude estimation in psychophysics, is highly effective in providing insights to the issues above. Fujitsu Design Limited has found it useful to create the User Experience (UX) Index Scale in order to utilize scale in the various Human-Centered Design (HCD) processes. The UX index scale is easy to understand even for non-specialists and very useful in finding new issues or making policy throughout product development.

Case with Product and Service

• Establishing Human-Centered Design Process in Mobile Phone Development

Fujitsu is improving the usability of mobile phones based on human centered design that involves the research, development, and evaluating processes, as well as the strengthening of human resources. Third-party research and creating Persona in the research process, user testing and heuristic evaluation in the evaluation process, and host usability lead to strengthening human resources. In the development process, we applied our method previously devised for Web development called the Scenario-Based Walkthrough method, which allows those not specializing in usability to easily conduct evaluation at the design phase. We also prepared a usability dictionary that contains case studies of usability problems found in various evaluations. For these measures, we established a human-centered design process in order to improve product usability. This paper introduces an outline of each process and gives specific examples of improvement.

• Human Centered Design in Medical Fields

This paper introduces Fujitsu's human-centered design approaches to reducing human errors in such Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems as HOPE/EGMAIN-FX and HOPE/EGMAIN-GX. We aim at establishing easy-to-use, easy-to-understand, and familiar and comfortable design by improving the uniformity of design and operability, including physical operability. These approaches have evolved into human-friendly systems through a trial and error process during research and development that would become the basis of current EMR systems. The recent project on improving User Interfaces (UIs) marked the first collaboration between the EMR development division and Design Center. We recognized the importance of UIs by promoting the development of design along with reflecting the direct views, opinions and uniqueness regarding the jobs of such sites as those pertaining to development and medical fields.

• Activities for Improving Web Accessibility

In response to the growing the number and the diversity of people using the Internet, the role of Web such as electronic applications became more important. Therefore, government agencies and local governments have begun developing Web sites that can be easily accessed by more people, including the elderly and people with disabilities, in accordance with the u-Japan plan formulated based on the Basic Law for Persons with Disabilities, such government policies as the New IT Reform Strategy and so on. Against this trend, Fujitsu created the Fujitsu Web Accessibility Guidelines in 2002, then has also made various efforts to promote Internet use, such as the free distribution and sales of diagnostic tools, and the sales of Web accessibility assist tools. Many countries including Japan are expected to continue pursuing efforts toward enhancing Web accessibility. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines―the de facto international standards―will be revised in the latter half of fiscal 2008, and JIS X 8341-3―the equivalent Japanese Industrial Standard―will be revised in 2009. This paper reviews Fujitsu's past activities for improving Web accessibility, mainly from the viewpoint of human-centered design, and proposes future issues and directions.

• Development of Color-Distinguishing Application "ColorAttendant"

Under the current situations of the widespread of mobile phones, the consideration of the design of public space for the persons with color blindness and the needs for the legibility of colors in the daily life, Fujitsu has developed "ColorAttendant", a mobile phone application that assists perceiving colors. In its development, we practiced the process of Human Centered Design (HCD). First, we decided a concept and functions through understanding our user's difficulties and knowhow in the daily life by considering the results of researches such as user-hearings. Additionally, we adjusted tint or shade and the function of color identification, and improved the usability through the evaluations by the persons with disability and color experts. Consequently, we have released the application which not merely solves the difficulty of users' color perception with its simple and convenient operation but enables users to experience the enjoyment of the discovery of unique color names. This paper reports the features and the modifications of ColorAttendant based on the HCD process.