A retrospective and prospective view of information technology professionals' use of tools: Maturing the user experience

Abstract

The Information Technology (IT) professional's user experience has evolved both in terms of software tool attributes and the process workflow within which the IT tasks exist. Based on user research with IT professionals over the past two decades, including ethnographic observational field studies, focus group discussions, and hands-on user tests with analyses of errors and perceived complexities, this paper presents a set of hypotheses about user interface design aspects that across the industry most impede the workflow of typical IT professionals. It discusses how this relates to typical information workers' behavior, as well as what steps we as tools and systems designers can take to better support the IT professionals' user interface needs. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.