Seminario Dr. Latzina - SAP SE

Designing for the Unpredictable? How (Transformative) User Experience Design Bears the Promise to Inform New Product Invention and Development

Venerdì 27 Marzo, ore 11.00, aula Hume, II piano Dipartimento di Informatica.

Abstract: For the domain of software design, usability and UI design methods have been regarded mostly as rather subordinate if not dispensable means to ensure that user interaction could occur in tune with some criteria as defined through respective norms or guidelines. With the advent of user-centered design processes (e.g., contextual design, design thinking), the contribution of UI design to the requirements gathering and product specification phases increased. Particularly in the domain of business software the pressure to deliver application UIs on a large scale which, on one hand, are targeted towards highly heterogeneous user roles and use scenarios, and, on the other side, need to ensure a consistent user experience, has led to the creation of UI design patterns. Making use of such patterns also in terms of reusable software components seems highly appropriate as far as the support of rather standardized, workflow-oriented types of work activities is concerned. The difficulties arise once the work activities become less predictable, once users need to actively make sense of their information and transform it according to their situational needs. Towards this goal, the approach of Transformative User Experience is presented, which aims not only at informing how particular applications should be designed, but moreover, how future platform architectures should be defined which are geared towards establishing the experiential quality of elasticity, i.e., the ability of users to dynamically interact with task objects according to self-defined task flows and, in a contextual manner. 

Short bio: Markus Latzina holds the position of User Experience Design Expert at SAP SE in Walldorf, Germany. As an Industrial & Organizational Psychologist he has devoted most of his professional life to the field of Human-Computer Interaction, in particular, applying the perspectives of activity theory and socio-technical systems analysis. Markus' current interest lies in establishing a novel user experience paradigm which is centered around the use quality of elasticity and has implications for common concepts in software engineering. By this, he is seeking to address some of the challenges which arise from demands on end users in the business domain to increasingly engage in knowledge-intensive, creative activities, in other words, activities which have non-routine character and defy standardization.