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“User” is the lingua franca term used across IT design, often critiqued for giving a reductionist portrayal of the human relationship with technologies. The purpose of this paper is to argue that equating “user” with flesh and blood “people out there” is naïve. Not only that, it closes important options in conducting human-centered design.

The authors conceptually elaborate a relational understanding of the user and integrate research findings on user representations found at the intersection of human-centered design and social studies of technology.

The user is best understood as a relational term that bridges between people out there and renditions of them relevant for design. A distinction between “user representations” and “engaged use” is a key distinction to clarify this further. Research to date demonstrates that R & D organizations have a wide range of user representations and positioning human-centered design to these would advance its likely yield.

The strategic positioning of user studies and other human-centered design within R & D organizations is a growing research area that merits further research.

Descriptions of users would benefit from being more strategic in order to become viable amidst other design concerns. This can be aided by, for instance, visualizing the “users” that different fractions in the company rely on and compare these to the users indicated by human-centered design.

The paper makes an original reconceptualization of the user and integrates literature on user representations to open new options for conducting human-centered design.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework applicable to interactive video retrieval. The objective of the framework is so that it can be applied conceptually for understanding users and use of video digital libraries, and also practically for designing retrieval components like user interfaces.

The framework was developed through a user-centered and analytical approach, and serves as an initial attempt at generalizing how users interact when searching and browsing digital video, throughout different situations, along with the general designs that can be supportive.

The framework is two-fold, yet, together, comprises one set of conceptual findings. The first component of the framework depicts generalized user interactions throughout varying contexts of an interactive video retrieval process, followed by a second component, an illustration of the resulting supportive interface designs or sets of features. Cautions from previous studies not to over generalize the interactive process were heeded.

The implications for such research are based on the understanding that video retrieval will benefit from the advancement of user-centered foundations, which can guide and support design decisions for resources like digital libraries.

The need for this study is rather straightforward: there is currently not enough conceptual research of interactive video retrieval from a user-centered perspective, which contrasts with other areas of information retrieval research where the interaction process has been thoroughly examined for a variety of domains and contexts with implications for different retrieval tools like OPACs, search engines, and article databases.

How do you efficiently design a global yet local user experience for Web sites? Arguably, the user-centered design approach has been one of the best methods in designing a successful user experience for Web services in the initial market, but why isn’t this process applied to international markets? This chapter makes a case for applying a user-centered design process to the international expansion of Web sites and discusses issues impacting the creation of a successful user experience for local audiences. Although this chapter primarily focuses on designing large scale Web services, many of the principles can be applied to any sites that undergo internationalization.

Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users’ personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design by focusing on real users’ needs. However, the use of personas in educational research and design requires certain adjustments from its original use in human-computer interface design. This paper aims to propose a process of creating personas from phenomenographic studies, which helps us create data-grounded personas effectively.

Personas have features that can help address design problems in educational contexts. The authors compare the use of personas with other common methodologies in education research, including phenomenology and phenomenography. Then, this study presents a six-step process of building personas using phenomenographic study as follows: articulate a design problem, collect user data, assemble phenomenographic categories, build personas, check personas and solve the design problem using personas. The authors illustrate this process with two examples, including the redesign of a professional development website and an undergraduate research program design.

The authors find that personas are valuable tools for educational design websites and programs. Phenomenography can productively help educational designers and researchers build sets of personas following the process the authors propose.

The use and method of personas in educational contexts are scarce and vague. Using the example contexts, the authors provide educational designers and researchers a clear method of creating personas that are relatable and applicable for their design problems.

To provide the results of research to evaluate the usability of a University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries digital initiatives project that provides online access to historical Aerial Photographs of Colorado.

This paper describes usability testing conducted as a part of a user‐centered redesign. The three stages of the evaluation – a requirements analysis, a heuristic evaluation, and user testing – are explained and the findings are discussed.

The usability testing revealed the needs of the project's target user group and identified issues with the interface that will be addressed in its redesign. It has also contributed to the larger understanding of how researchers use digital Aerial Photographs and their preferred methods of access and desired functionalities.

Results from the study will be used to guide the redesign of the Aerial Photographs of Colorado digital library and can be generalized to add to a broader understanding of the usability requirements for a digital library of geospatial materials. Libraries providing a digital collection of geospatial materials may use these findings to inform design decisions.

Much research has been done on the use and evaluation of digital libraries, but few articles have reported on usability studies of online collections of cartographic materials similar in structure to Aerial Photographs of Colorado. It is hoped that these findings will be instructive to librarians designing and evaluating similar digital libraries.

Information commons were introduced into libraries in the early 1990s. Now universities are building library learning commons and campus learning spaces. This paper sets out to present a participatory library (re)design approach for collaborative planning “for and with” faculty teachers, student learners, and campus stakeholders.

Collaborative design (co‐design) employs user‐centric investigations to produce products, applications, and environments aimed at advancing learning, sustaining communication, and building relationships. Examples from California Polytechnic State University and San José State University in California, USA, suggest the efficacy of this inclusive, learner‐centered (re)design approach for library facilities, services, and systems.

Inviting and enabling user input from the start offers a fruitful planning approach in which campus librarians, stakeholders, and beneficiaries “learn their way” to appropriate library (re)design decisions. Also, user involvement in information gathering and interpretation activities initiates the interactive relationships necessary for continuous improvement.

Collaborative design (co‐design) yields sustained interaction with user beneficiaries and campus stakeholders. It changes how library staff members think and what they think about, concurrent with enhancing libraries' appeal and value.

In development since 2002, the highly participatory design approach reflects theoretical and applied insights from researchers in Europe, Australia, and North America who have worked with US library practitioners to develop user‐centric processes for advancing organizational learning and enhancing user efficacy. Its practical application to planning for library learning commons and learning spaces contributes to the small but important literature on user‐centered library (re)design.

Despite the widespread use of authentication schemes and the rapid emergence of novel authentication schemes, a general set of domain-specific guidelines has not yet been developed. This paper aims to present and explain a list of human-centered guidelines for developing usable authentication schemes.

The guidelines stem from research findings within the fields of psychology, human–computer interaction and information/computer science.

Instead of viewing users as the inevitable weak point in the authentication process, this study proposes that authentication interfaces be designed to take advantage of users’ natural abilities. This approach requires that one understands how interactions with authentication interfaces can be improved and what human capabilities can be exploited. A list of six guidelines that designers ought to consider when developing a new usable authentication scheme has been presented.

This consolidated list of usable authentication guidelines provides system developers with immediate access to common design issues impacting usability. These guidelines ought to assist designers in producing more secure products in fewer costly development cycles.

Cybersecurity research and development has mainly focused on technical solutions to increase security. However, the greatest weakness of many systems is the user. It is argued that authentication schemes with poor usability are inherently insecure, as users will inadvertently weaken the security in their efforts to use the system. The study proposes that designers need to consider the human factors that impact end-user behavior. Development from this perspective will address the greatest weakness in most security systems by increasing end-user compliance.

Innovation is about creating new products, and new solutions, sometimes in ways people can’t even anticipate. Why is it then important of to use user-centered design processes? What is the value and ROI of User Experience (UX)-based practices for entrepreneurs? And how can those be achieved?

This chapter will introduce User Experience principles, their value add for innovation, and the best practices for achieving them. Children-centric design examples will be incorporated.

This paper sets out to present the concept of the value of information, review the descriptive, rational, social and behavioral approaches for assessing the value of information, and explain why user‐centered rather than information‐centered evaluations are the most relevant.

The paper starts by highlighting the main facets and market characteristics which influence the value of information. Next, four approaches to assessing the value of information are explained, including a discussion of advantages and limitations of each approach. The approaches reviewed include descriptive, rational, social and behavioral research. Finally, an information value assessment recommendation is given and a theoretical framework is offered.

The descriptive approach is useful in raising new angles for theory development. The rational approach assumes that the value is inherent in information and offers models that describe how information should be valued. The social perspective suggests that markets are enhanced by social activity. The behavioral aspect teaches that value perception changes by person and circumstance and is a key influence on information markets.

This paper offers a concentrated multi‐dimensional theoretical basis on a topic of central importance to anyone interested in Internet research, information consumption and production. Theory offered here constitutes a basis for a large number of potential empirical research endeavors.