Page 93 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

82 5 Users Perspective of Educational Technology
2. Users should be involved throughout the design and development process.
3. The design should be driven user-centered evaluation and then refined by
user-centered evaluation.
4. The design process should be iterative.
5. The design should address all the areas of user experience.
6. The design team should include multi-disciplinary skills and perspectives.

Norman (1988) proposed the following seven guiding principles of design to
ensure useful and usable products.
1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head. Build con-
ceptual models based on research and investigation, write manuals before the
design is implemented, and make sure the manuals are easily understood.
2. Simplify the structure of tasks. Understand that users can only remember five
things at a time on average and therefore not to overload their short-term
memory. It is important to provide mental aids for easy retrieval of information
from long-term memory. Make sure the user has control over the tasks, and the
tasks should be consistent.
3. Make things visible to facilitate execution and evaluation. The user should be
able to figure out the use of an object by seeing the right buttons or devices for
executing an operation.
4. Make the connection of operations obvious. One way to make connections of
functions understandable is to use graphics.
5. Exploit the power of constraints. These can be both natural and artificial, and
their use gives the user the feeling that there is one thing to do.
6. Design for error. Plan for errors to be made by users; one way to do this is to
provide allowed the option of quick and easy recovery from any possible error
made.
7. When all else fails, standardize. Create an international standard if something
cannot be designed without arbitrary mappings (Norman, 1988).

Norman’s work stressed the need to fully investigate the desires and needs of the
end users and the possible uses of the product. Users became a central part of the
product development process. Their involvement will contribute to more effective,
efficient, and safer products and lead to the acceptance and success of our products
(Preece, Rogers, & Sharp, 2002).
Involve Users in the Design
In order to involve users in the design, the first and most important task is to
identify who is the user. Eason (1987) proposed three kinds of users: primary,
secondary, and tertiary users. Primary users are those who actually use the product;
secondary users are those who will occasionally use the product or those who use it
through a mediator; tertiary users are those who will be affected by the utilization
of the product or make decisions about its purchase. The successful design of a