User-centredness

The information services and systems at Monash are designed and provided with the needs of users in mind.

The third Information Management principle, user-centredness, focuses on how to design and provide information systems and services that satisfy users’ needs at Monash. That means everything from major university services and systems like CMS, SAP HR and Finance to writing the kitchen roster, enrolment information for students and the procedure for buying a Monash parking permit.

We write something with the aim of informing, educating or expecting our readers to respond or take some action. Putting yourself in the place of your readers means looking at why, where, when, how and what the user might understand about the information you need to convey. Meeting with users to confirm, test and retest as you develop the information is critical to meeting readers’ needs.

Here are the cornerstones for applying this Information Management principle.

1. User-centredness is a design principle.

2. Information can be designed.

3. Everybody creates, manages and uses information.

4. Everybody should consider a user-centred design approach when working with information.

So how can this user-centred design approach be applied to information?

Key ideas/concepts to implement

• Early and ongoing focus on users and their goals
• Measure how the system is being used
• Design cycle – research, design, evaluation activities

Putting it into practice

Step 1: Identify and profile your user or user group and find out how your information will affect them.

• Meet with people and find out what their needs are.
• Collaborate with them – this can be a quick, informal meeting with someone in the corridor about the kitchen roster or a planned session with a group of users.
• Review information currently developed for this purpose. Don’t ‘reinvent the wheel’.
• Search for any other data or reports that might be available to provide background information.

Step 2: Design your information based on how users work and think, and then test, review and test again.

• Get potential users to review and test – find out if your new process for buying a Monash parking permit works and make improvements based on feedback. Test again.
• Observe the context/environment (people, physical, practices, processes and technologies) in which your information will be used.
• Are there any factors that impact on how people will use the information you are preparing?
• Are there any problems that users or you can identify with the way that current information is used? Identify with users how the information can streamline their work and create efficiencies.
• Test your information by asking for comments and feedback from your workgroup and your users. Give users such as students a copy of the enrolment form to write on, run a test using a paper or online version of a workflow, system or application.

Step 3: Test the final document or major parts of it as these are completed.