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Marian Sweeney

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Publications by Marian Sweeney (bibliography)

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1993
 
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Dillon, Andrew, Sweeney, Marian and Maguire, Martin (1993): A Survey of Usability Engineering Within the European IT Industry -- Current Practice and Needs. In: Alty, James L., Diaper, Dan and Guest, D. (eds.) Proceedings of the Eighth Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers VIII August 7-10, 1993, Loughborough University, UK. pp. 81-94.

The present paper reports on a survey of current practices in usability engineering and requirements for support within European IT organisations. Responses were obtained from 84 individuals working in nine European countries. The data were analysed in terms of four themes; respondents' background, their interpretation and appreciation of the concept of usability, current practice with regard to usability evaluation, problems and requirements for support in conducting usability evaluation. Results suggest widespread awareness but only superficial application of Human Factors methods in Industry.

© All rights reserved Dillon et al. and/or Cambridge University Press

1988
 
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Dillon, Andrew and Sweeney, Marian (1988): The Application of Cognitive Psychology to CAD. In: Jones, Dylan M. and Winder, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers IV August 5-9, 1988, University of Manchester, UK. pp. 477-488.

The design of usable human-computer interfaces is one of the primary goals of the HCI specialist. To date however interest has focussed mainly on office or text based systems such as word processors or databases. Computer aided design (CAD) represents a major challenge to the human factors community to provide suitable input and expertise in an area where the users goals and requirements are cognitively distinct from more typical HCI. The present paper is based on psychological investigations of the engineering domain, involving an experimental comparison of designers using CAD and the more traditional drawing board. By employing protocol analytic techniques it is possible to shed light on the complex problem-solving nature of design and to demonstrate the crucial role of human factors in the development of interfaces which facilitate the designers in their task. A model of the cognition of design is proposed which indicates that available knowledge and guidelines alone are not sufficient to aid CAD developers and the distinct nature of the engineering designer's task merits specific attention.

© All rights reserved Dillon and Sweeney and/or Cambridge University Press

1987
 
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Sweeney, Marian and Dillon, Andrew (1987): Methodologies Employed in the Psychological Evaluation of H.C.I.. In: Bullinger, Hans-Jorg and Shackel, Brian (eds.) INTERACT 87 - 2nd IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 1-4, 1987, Stuttgart, Germany. pp. 367-373.

This paper presents a review of a range of techniques employed in a psychological evaluation of human performance and skill development in computer interaction. The format outlines the authors' experiences in applying methodologies appropriate to the nature of the task under investigation and to the experimental design. It is all too easy to find after extensive time and financial investment that the data is spurious and difficult to analyse, that in a complex evaluative situation you have lost sight of the issue or at the worst that the research has not even addressed the real issue. The central promise of the paper outlines why and how the research interest must be explicitly defined at the outset in order to design and apply the appropriate methodology before any data capture begins. While the studies reported investigate two quite distinct issues in H.C.I., (data base usage and development of programmer skill and knowledge), it was found that many of the techniques reviewed or employed could be as effectively applied to many of the issues of interest to human factors investigators.

© All rights reserved Sweeney and Dillon and/or North-Holland

 
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28 Apr 2003: Added

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URL: http://www.interaction-design.org/references/authors/marian_sweeney.html
Jun 19

... there are no simple 'right' answers for most web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need--carefully thought out, well executed, and tested.

-- Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think, p. 136

 
 

Featured chapter

Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

Latest books

The Social Design of Technical Systems: Building technologies for communities
by Brian Whitworth and Adnan Ahmad

 
Start reading

The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
by Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis Dam

 
Start reading
 
 

Help us help you!