NOMADIC MEDIA: User-Centred Design: Guidelines for Methods and Tools

The vision of the Nomadic Media project was to combine people, technologies and services in a way that allows consumers to enjoy content and interactive services at the times and in the places they prefer, using the devices that best suit their context, at home or on the move. This challenging vision was tackled by the Nomadic Media project consortium1) of several European companies, research institutes and universities within the ITEA programme2) (ITEA = Information Technology for European Advancement). The purpose of UserCentred Design (UCD) is to involve end users in the development process of the product or system in a way that the prototypes and designs, and finally the products or systems would meet the needs and requirements of the users as well as possible. The UCD work is multidisciplinary, joining together the expertise of different stakeholders, such as UCD experts, engineers and graphical designers. In the Nomadic Media project, different organisations participated in UCD. These were VTT Information Technology, Department of Information Processing Science of Oulu University, Philips Research and Philips Applied Technologies. By focusing on the needs of the technical work packages in the project this UCD team carried out various UCD activities during the project. The authors believe that this work has proved to have a positive effect both on the designs and demonstrations of the project and on the knowledge and understanding of the importance of UCD among the technical people working in the project. This guide is the final deliverable of UCD work package (WP4) in the Nomadic Media project. The report is produced to be utilised beyond the Nomadic Media project by the product or system development teams of European ICT industries intending to reach an enhanced level of usability and user acceptance of the nomadic interactive systems and devices to be developed. The characteristic features for those kinds of projects include issues such as context awareness and development of multi user applications for various device platforms, multi location based systems and systems supporting privacy, security and portability aspects.