Thesis (MCIS - Computer and Information Sciences) -- AUT University, 2007. / Primary supervisor: Anne Philpott. Co-supervisor: Professor Stephen MacDonell. Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (x, 147 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm.) in City Campus Theses Collection (T 005.12 LIC)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2006.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2004. / "Submitted as fulfilling the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree"-- t.p. "March 2004" Includes bibliographic references.

It is a challenge to work in a software development project. People with different backgrounds are together working towards the goal of delivering a run able piece of software. The influences to the design are many and all of them will affect how the program will be designed. During this spring we have been involved in a large software engineering project. Our part of the project has been focusing on interface design and using the design method persona. In this bachelor thesis we describe our experiences of participating in a software development project. We will explain how our design work was affected by the organisation of the project and how we have worked with adjusting the method of persona to the conditions given in the project. We will also describe the importance of communicating the design within the project. The main purpose of the report is to show how we during the project have become aware of the importance of tracing design decisions back to its origin. Many attributes has come to inform our design and this has made us aware of the importance of having a traceability of our work.

Many companies invest large amount of money in developing new technology, without knowing how it will be used. To succeed in making these technologies useful it is necessary to understand the context that gives meaning to the artifact. In the case of generic products, especially in new domains, the context is not obvious. This bachelor thesis analyses what Usability Engineering, Participatory Design and Ethnography can contribute to the problem of learning about the context of usage for generic artifacts. Understanding and identifying details of context is considered to be important to achieve usability in software development. The experience is that most recommendations on usability methods concern situations of specific users in a specific context. In order to find important aspects of the real-world use of generic products, we suggest that ethnographic studies can be conducted in contexts where behaviors relevant to the design are thought to be found. The problem of not knowing the context was experienced in usability work practiced in a large software engineering project. The project task was to develop a web browser for Symbian's ?Quartz? reference design for handheld devices. Methods used were taken from participatory design and usability engineering.