Synergy between TRIZ and usability: A review

Abstract

Innovation is the main way that leads the industries to attain high profit. There several methods and tools to assist designers systematically towards the generation of new ideas and problem solving and TRIZ is one of the methods. However, this assistance is not enough to generate a successful and impeccable product, because an ultimate actor, the end user of the product during development is still underestimated. To satisfy the user’s requirements, designers or developers must keep into consideration also the usability methods. Unfortunately, these methods are not as organized as the TRIZ theory and often it is very challenging to apply them in an effective way. Therefore, it seems quite realistic to think through the development of innovative, as helped by a synergy between the Usability and the TRIZ theories. After some highlights about similarities and differences of these two methods, this paper develops the basis of a new integrated analytical method that able to suggest a collection of guidelines for the definition and implementation of engineering requirements.