Abstract
It is important, for our credibility as user interface designers and educators, that we practice what we preach. Many system designers and programmers remain sceptical about the need for user-centred design. To win them over, we need to be absolutely clear about what they need to do. We, as a community, propose many different methods to support naïve designers so that they will design and implement user-centred systems. One of the most popular methods is HCI design patterns – captured and formulated by experts for the sole purpose of transferring knowledge to novices. In this paper we investigate the usability of these patterns, using both theoretical and experimental analysis, and conclude that they are not usable. Hence, unfortunately, we have to conclude that we don’t practice what we preach. We conclude the paper by making some suggestions about how we can address this situation.
The original version of the book was revised: The copyright line was incorrect. The Erratum to the book is available at DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-92698-6_37
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Kotzé, P., Renaud, K. (2008). Do We Practise What We Preach in Formulating Our Design and Development Methods?. In: Gulliksen, J., Harning, M.B., Palanque, P., van der Veer, G.C., Wesson, J. (eds) Engineering Interactive Systems. EHCI 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4940. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92698-6_34
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