Keynote: Bridging the Gap Between Requirements and Design

Abstract

Despite billions of dollars being spent on IT around the world each year on business applications, Excel spread sheets continue to be the corporate chewing gum of choice. IT has failed to consistently and predictably produce the results required of business. IT has focussed on technical aspects – efficiency, response times, data base optimisation, network performance, architectures, interoperability and so on. The majority of IT projects have experienced one more of the following: The technology solution is chosen before the requirements are know, The requirements change throughout the project, They’re late, They don’t deliver what was expected, They cost more that expected, They don’t work the way people work. What is needed is a bridge between business, requirements and IT. IT lacks this ‘blueprint’ to build an application the right way, the first time. But it’s not just IT’s problem. Craig’s own fields of user interface design and usability also have significant problems in their methods. There are various standards, like ISO 9241 (part 11) and ISO 13407:1999) that ultimately describe what usability is and how to measure it, but there is no systematic process to move from requirements to design. There is not even an agreed operational definition of usability, other than that used to measure it (efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction). This means that if two designers approach the same user interface design process, independently, they will come up with markedly different designs. This is not what is expected from a ’quality’ process. Craig will be presenting a basis for a new framework for business IT that integrates business and user requirements using a blend software engineering, psychology and design principles to create a precise blueprint that IT can build from that bridges requirements to design – that is, getting IT right the first time.