The doctoral dissertations of the former Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) and Aalto University Schools of Technology (CHEM, ELEC, ENG, SCI) published in electronic format are available in the electronic publications archive of Aalto University - Aaltodoc.
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User Centered Design of New and Novel Products: Case Digital Television

Leena Eronen

Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering for public examination and debate in Auditorium T2 at Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland) on the 26th of November, 2004, at 12 o'clock noon.

Overview in PDF format (ISBN 951-22-7322-5)   [2463 KB]
Dissertation is also available in print (ISBN 951-22-7321-7)

Abstract

Product development of innovative new products and applications like digital television is challenging. For new and novel products in general, there is no defined product direction given to the design team at the beginning of the project and there is no clear understanding of user requirements which results in constantly evolving product features. Yet there is a need for new or not-yet-existing hardware and software technologies but no earlier product versions or comparable existing products to benchmark against.

User centered design aims to actively involve the users in product development in all phases of the new product design. The limits of user centered design and user research are that the users cannot address any particular future needs without prior experience or knowledge of the subject. Research methods such as usability testing are concerned about existing devices or prototypes but they do not tell directly which new technologies could help meet the users' future needs. New design methods which welcome users' active participation in gathering and interpreting the user data help to shift the point of interest from usability testing in the late phases of usability engineering life cycle to the early phases of product development.

Digital television and the new interactive applications enable a transition in the user behavior from straightforward channel surfing to active application usage. This thesis concentrates on user centered design during the early phases of interactive application design for digital television. The aim of research was to find techniques to meet users' future needs and to provide examples of future product concepts. Several techniques were used: a user study based on 'Cultural probes' method, interviews, focus groups, design sessions, usability testing, and storytelling. The work documented here originates from the pre-digital television era in Finland between the years 1998-2003. The author has published her results in seven publications.

This thesis consists of an overview and of the following 7 publications:

  1. Eronen, L. and Vuorimaa, P., 2000. User interfaces for digital television: a navigator case study. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI 2000). Palermo, Italy, 23-26 May 2000, ACM Press, pages 276-279.
  2. Eronen, L., 2001. Combining quantitative and qualitative data in user research on digital television. In: Proceedings of the 1st Panhellenic Conference with International Participation on Human-Computer Interaction (PC HCI 2001). Patras, Greece, 7-9 December 2001, University of Patras, pages 51-56. © 2001 University of Patras. By permission.
  3. Eronen, L., 2002. Design of future television. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Conference 2002 (HF2002), the 1st Joint Conferences of the Ergonomics Society of Australia (ESA) and the Australian CHISIG, Design for the Whole Person: Integrating Physical, Cognitive and Social Aspects (12th OZCHI). Melbourne, Australia, 25-27 November 2002, Ergonomics Society of Australia (ESA) and CHISIG, 8 pages (CD-ROM). © 2002 Ergonomics Society of Australia and ACM CHISIG. By permission.
  4. Eronen, L., 2002. Early stages of digital television: user research and application innovation. In: Proceedings of the 4th NordDesign Conference (NordDesign 2002), Visions and Values in Engineering Design. Trondheim, Norway, 14-16 August 2002, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), pages 65-72. © 2002 Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). By permission.
  5. Eronen, L., 2002. Design of interactive television programs. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Annual ACM SIGCHI-NZ Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction (CHINZ 2002). Hamilton, New Zealand, 11-12 July 2002, ACM SIGCHI-NZ, pages 73-78. © 2002 ACM SIGCHI-NZ. By permission.
  6. Eronen, L., 2003. Digital television for all: user preferences and designers' views on what would suit the user. In: Carbonell, N. and Stephanidis, C. (editors), Universal Access: Theoretical Perspectives, Practice, and Experience. 7th ERCIM International Workshop on User Interfaces for All. Paris, France, 24-25 October 2002. Revised Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2615. Heidelberg, Germany, Springer-Verlag, pages 179-186. © 2003 Springer-Verlag. By permission.
  7. Eronen, L., 2003. User centered research for interactive television. In: Proceedings of the 2003 European Conference on Interactive Television: From Viewers to Actors. Brighton, UK, 2-4 April 2003, University of Brighton, pages 5-12. © 2003 University of Brighton. By permission.

Keywords: user centered design, digital television, user research, television usability

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© 2004 Helsinki University of Technology

Last update 2011-05-26