Motivation
It has been noted by industry researchers that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have unintuitive user interfaces that hinder usability, frustrate users, and ultimately interfere with their successful adoption and utilization in organizations.
This project is aimed at formally and systematically addressing the issues of ERP system usability. At the same time, the Enterprise System domain is used as a testbed for the development of general-purpose system interface design and evaluation methods based on the human-computer collaboration paradigm of human-computer interaction. This is a multi-faceted project that involves field work as well as the development of a theoretical framework and laboratory/field exploration.
This site contains information on our project, publications and related resources.
Methodological approach
Achieving a breakthrough in usability of complex organizational systems requires that we address the problem from multiple perspectives:
- Field studies of ERP usage.
- Development of the design principles and their implementation in proof-of-concept prototypes
- Development of usability evaluation methods
- Theory - investigate the relationship between the collaborative strength of the system and its usability.
Human-computer collaboration
Many contemporary interfaces are equipped with a multitude
of features, which no single user can be expected to learn to operate on their own.
Thus, the system itself must assume a greater responsibility for helping the user
in their task. This leads us to adopting the Human-Computer Collaboration
approach to human-computer interaction.
Human-computer collaboration paradigm stipulates that the computer system should be designed
to work as a user's collaborative partner, rather than a mere tool.
Theory of collaboration is used as a unifying thread throughout the field investigations,
system design and implementation studies.
