This paper describes the concept of the human-centered design and the usability, and the significance of the advent of ISO13407, then summarizes the key points in the practice of usability engineering approach.

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This paper describes the micro-scenario method (MSM) that was proposed to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the scenario-based design approach. Micro scenario is the formal representation of the information about the user and the context and summarizes the micro structure of the user requirement. There are two types of micro scenario, namely the problem micro scenario and the solution micro scenario. The former represent the usability problems one by one in a short sentence with the tag information and the latter is the conceptual representation of the idea to solve such problems. In between creating two kinds of scenario, there is a sorting process to group the similar problems among different informants. The use of MS Excel is recommended to sort the problem micro scenario before considering the solution micro scenario. The validation of this method is now under way in many different fields such as the motor cycle, the home utilities, and the medical information system.

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Concept of “Quality in use” was introduced as quality concept aimed by usability engineering. It could be essential for embedded system manufactures for expanding the market. Accordingly, to keep and improvement of the high standard quality, usability engineering will take an important part of solving challenges of embedded system development. Incorporating usability engineering into embedded system developing processes will make international competitive development capability raised. Human resource development must be the first key step for promoting it and organizational infrastructures must be established.

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The purpose of this study is to explore a design approach to user experience design. This paper describes a design approach to user experience design based on user centered design as a platform method. To approach user experience design, universal design, brand design and smile design are described as a part of extension from user centered design. And also, two case study of user experience design are described.

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This paper introduces and describes the Human-Centered Design Organization (HCDO), which has been recently established in Japan as the first official organization for the promotion of human-centered design. The background and significance of the establishment of the organization is explained, as well as the purpose of the organization. The paper concludes with some mention of the expected role and future prospect of the HCDO.

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This paper clarify the requirements of the user interface design system. The user interface design consists of various elements. Most of design target system has the display device such as CRT and LCD. Therefore screen design and operational flow design are the most important aspects in it.

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This paper describes the roles of scenario in human-centered design (HCD). Two views on HCD are described. Work-driven design view focuses on the work of user's field and context to develop a usable and useful system. Technology-driven design view starts at the sheer idea of technology to create a system which may expand a new market for new user class. This article argues that the two design views explain the characteristics of HCD and scenario has the central role. It also introduces the authors' approaches to scenario-based design in HCD.

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The ISO 13407: Human-centred design processes for interactive systems that was established in 1999 has become a period of major revision this year. Until upon now, the way of process implementation has been discussing and exploring by many organizations and committees. They are distributing many handbooks and textbooks. However, the ISO 13407 process has not been integrated well into the existing product / system development process in Japan. It is difficult to organize and manage the effective relationship among the functional divisions and departments inside of the business enterprise. There are some reasons. The first of all, there are lack of management tools to promote HCD process integration into the current development process. Another reason is that there is not established a concrete maturity model for ISO 13407. This report concentrates on how we can integrate HCD process to the existing development process, and explains how we prune away negative elements as it inhibits integration. The report also provides us a useful management tool, called “HCD Process Management Toolbox”, that developed by author.

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Information appliances are became popular in our everyday life. However, most of those appliances are not easy to use, because of the lack of the philosophy of human centered design. Human centered design of software design has more serious issue than hardware design. System engineer, software designer, should have to understand the importance of users point of view. Future University-Hakodate established April 2000 with “human values” as its basis is now trying to understand the importance of human centered design to students as a system engineer. To fulfil this goal, special curriculum and teaching systems are provided such as collaborate teaching by the faculties of three deferent field, computer science, cognitive science and product design. This system is getting some effect on students but also having some difficulty, teaching both computer science and human factor to a same student at a time, because computer is always rigid and human factor is always flexible and no correct answer.

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This paper describes how to make products user-friendly and charming using 70 design items and processes of Human Design Technology (HDT). 70 design items are classified into 1) User interface design items (29 items), 2) Kansei (sensitivity) design items (9 items), 3) Universal design items (9 items), 4) Product liability (PL) design items (6 items), 5) Robust design items (5 items), 6) Maintenance items (2 items), 7) Ecological design items (5 items), 8) Other (5 items). HDT is consist of 6 steps: (1) Gathering user requirements, (2) Grasping current circumstances, (3) Formulating product concepts, (4) Designing (synthesizing), (5) Evaluating the design, (6) Surveying usage conditions. As one example, an alarm clock was designed based on HDT

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Microsoft PowerPoint® is one of the most popular business software. You can improve efficiency of prototyping in UCD by using PowerPoint® as a prototyping tool.

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This paper discusses a sensory analysis method used to determine variable requirements. In the initial stages of development, designers may have little or no direct experience or reference products to draw upon in developing a specific machine to meet exacting requirements. Given the initial lack of a specific requirement balance, designers must measure and evaluate the value of a user's comfort level while keeping in mind that users gradually and unconsciously evolve from a novice into an expert. This paper proposes that sensory analysis can guide perplexed designers in the initial and iterative development stages.

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This paper firstly summarizes current standards and laws related to Universal Design. Then OKI's activities in developing and utilizing Universal Design standards are explained.

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