Sharp Corporation has been working on the human resource development regarding “user-centered design”. The purpose of the human resource development is that those who have completed the training program should continue to practice user-centered design in the product development process so that products excellent in usability will be created. There are three levels (beginners, intermediate and advanced) in the program and the in-house qualification system has also been introduced. The program has received high evaluation from those who completed it and the number of cases where the user-centered design has been practiced is increasing. We are determined to work on the program continuously by improving the tools in order to vitalize the efforts in “user-centered design” further.

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This paper introduces an HCD educational program prepared specifically for ICT engineers of a system integrator. Framework of the program is described along with an assumed lifecycle of learned knowledge and methodologies. Three key findings for successful programs are: l) Techniques are ready to be implemented for real development; 2) Make engineers feel confident to employ the techniques; and 3) Program is described in the context of institution's management process. Necessity of institutionalization of HCD program is also emphasized. The future challenge is regarded as to include project, requirement and incident management areas into the program.

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This paper discusses a case study of Human Centered Design Process as educational framework. The paper proposes a multilayered leaning community model for management of learning design process and describes the social interaction effect in the models.

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Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology started a new department on “the ubiquitous and universal information environment” in October 2005 funded by MEXT. It has a purpose to give an education on the human characteristics to engineering students so that they may be able to design useful products in industry after graduation. Human Centered Design course was included in the program that is based on the notion of HCD in ISO13407 and the combination of the lecture and the exercise was given to students. The evaluation by students was quite positive.

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