Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

User-Centered Systems Design: A Brief History

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems

Abstract

The intention of this book is to help you think about design from a user-centered perspective. Our aim is to help you understand what questions to ask when designing a technology or a system or when you are evaluating a design that already exists. We focus on physiological, cognitive, and social aspects of the human user, aspects that will affect how someone will use what you design. This chapter introduces some historical background to the field of User Centered System Design, and introduces current themes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 34.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    We note that the language at the time used the word man to include both genders, a practice that, appropriately, is no longer acceptable.

References

  • Anderson, J. R. (1993). Rules of the mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, J. R. (2007). How can the human mind exist in the physical universe?. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., & Qin, Y. (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychological Review, 111(4), 1036–1060.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avgerou, C., Ciborra, C., & Land, F. (2004). The social study of information and communication technology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bannon, L. (1991). From human factors to human actors: The role of psychology and human–computer interaction studies in systems design. In J. Greenbaum & M. Kyng (Eds.), Design at work: Cooperative design of computer systems (Vol. 25–44). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, V. E., & O’Connor, D. E. (1989). Expert systems for configuration at Digital: XCON and beyond. Communications of the ACM, 32(3), 298–318.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baxter, G., & Sommerville, I. (2011). Socio-technical systems: From design methods to engineering. Interacting with Computers, 23(1), 4–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berg, M. (1999). Patient care information systems and healthcare work: A sociotechnical approach. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 55(2), 87–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berg, M. (2001). Implementing information systems in health care organizations: Myths and challenges. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 64(2–3), 143–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berg, M., & Toussaint, P. (2003). The mantra of modelling and the forgotten powers of paper: A sociotechnical view on the development of process-oriented ICT in health care. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 69(2–3), 223–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bødker, S. (2006). When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges. In A. Mørch, K. Morgan, T. Bratteteig, G. Ghosh, & D. Svanaes (Ed.), NordiCHI Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction October 14–18, (pp. 1–8). Oslo, Norway.

    Google Scholar 

  • Booth, P. (1989). An introduction to human-computer interaction. Hove, UK: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, C. M. L. (1988). Human-computer interface design guidelines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Busemeyer, J. R., & Dieterich, A. (2010). Cognitive modeling. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Card, S. K., Moran, T., & Newell, A. (1983). The psychology of human-computer interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cherns, A. (1987). Principles of socio-technical design revisited. Human Relations, 40(3), 153–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Churchill, E., Bowser, A., & Preece, J. (2013). Teaching and learning human-computer interaction: Past, present, and future. Interactions, 20(2), 44–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clegg, C. (2000). Sociotechnical principles for system design. Applied Ergonomics, 31, 463–477.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eason, K. (1984). Towards the experimental study of usability. Behaviour and Information Technology, 3(2), 133–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Emery, F. E., & Trist, E. L. (1960). Socio-technical systems. In C. W. Churchman & M. Verhulst (Eds.), Management science models and techniques (Vol. 2, pp. 83–97). Oxford, UK: Pergamon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haynes, S. R., Cohen, M. A., & Ritter, F. E. (2009). Designs for explaining intelligent agents. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 67(1), 99–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hedge, A. (2003). 10 principles to avoid XP-asperation. Ergonomics in Design, 11(3), 4–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hewett, T. T., Baecker, R., Card, S., Carey, T., Gasen, J., Mantei, M., et al. (1996). ACM SIGCHI curricula for human-computer interaction. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. http://sigchi.org/cdg/index.html

  • Hollnagel, E., & Woods, D. D. (1983). Cognitive systems engineering: New wine in new bottles. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 18, 583–600.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hollnagel, E., & Woods, D. D. (2005). Joint cognitive systems: Foundations of cognitive systems engineering. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Holloway, W. (1991). Work psychology and organizational behaviour: Managing the individual at work Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Laird, J. E. (2012). The Soar cognitive architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mosier, J. N., & Smith, S. L. (1986). Application of guidelines for designing user interface software. Behaviour and Information Technology, 5, 39–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mumford, E. (1983). Designing human systems for new technology—The ETHICS method. Retrieved March 10, 2014, from http://www.enid.u-net.com/C1book1.htm

  • Mumford, E. (1995). Effective systems design and requirements analysis: The ETHICS method. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mumford, E. (2006). The story of socio-technical design: reflections in its successes, failures and potential. Information Systems Journal, 16, 317–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mumford, E., & MacDonald, W. B. (1989). XSEL’s progress: The continuing journey of an expert system. New York, NY: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newell, A. (1990). Unified theories of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newell, A., Shaw, J. C., & Simon, H. A. (1960). Report on a general problem-solving program for a computer. In International Conference on Information Processing, (pp. 256–264). UNESCO: Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1972). Human problem solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nickerson, R. (1969). Man-Computer interaction: A challenge for human factors research. Ergonomics, 12: 501–517. (Reprinted from IEEE Transactions on Man-Machine Systems, 10(4), 164–180).

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman, D. A., & Draper, S. W. (Eds.). (1986). User centred system design. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. New York, NY: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman, D. A. (2013). The design of everyday things. New York, NY: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pew, R. W., & Mavor, A. S. (Eds.). (2007). Human-system integration in the system development process: A new look. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11893. Accessed 10 March 2014.

  • Ravden, S., & Johnson, G. (1989). Evaluating usability of human-computer interfaces: A practical method. Chichester, UK: Ellis Horwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reason, J. (1997). Managing the risks of organizational accidents. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shackel, B. (1991). Human factors for informatics usability book contents. In B. Shackel & S. J. Richardson (Eds.), Usability—context, framework, definition, design and evaluation (pp. 21–37). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swain, A. D., & Guttman, H. E. (1983). A handbook of human reliability analysis with emphasis on nuclear power applications. Washington, DC: US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whetton, S. (2005). Health informatics: A socio-technical perspective. South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, D. D., & Hollnagel, E. (2006). Joint cognitive systems: Patterns in cognitive systems engineering. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Young, R. M., Green, T. R. G., & Simon, T. (1989). Programmable user models for predictive evaluation of interface designs. In Proceedings of CHI’89 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (pp. 15–19). ACM Press: New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of IST, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Frank E. Ritter

  2. School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK

    Gordon D. Baxter

  3. eBay Research Labs, San Jose, CA, USA

    Elizabeth F. Churchill

Authors
  1. Frank E. Ritter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gordon D. Baxter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Elizabeth F. Churchill
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Frank E. Ritter .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag London

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Ritter, F.E., Baxter, G.D., Churchill, E.F. (2014). User-Centered Systems Design: A Brief History. In: Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5134-0_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5134-0_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-5133-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-5134-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation