A new book, Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems has just been published by Springer. Written by Frank Ritter (Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State), Gordon Baxter (Systems Engineering Group, Computer Science, University of St Andrews) and Elizabeth Churchill (Director of HCI at eBay Research Labs), Foundations for DUCS was developed for people studying and practising human factors/HCI and software engineering.

Foundations for DUCS encapsulates the extensive experience of its co-authors in designing, developing and conducting research into interactive systems in domains as diverse as aviation, consumer Internet, health care, eCommerce, industrial process control, and enterprise systems. The book covers the fundamental information that system designers need in order to understand their users’ capabilities and limitations, the tasks those users will perform, and the context in which they perform them. It also considers the practical implications of this information for system design. Applying the lessons from Foundations for DUCS will help readers to design interactive systems that are more usable, more useful, and more effective.

Springer launched Foundations for DUCS at the end of April 2014 in Toronto at CHI, the pre-eminent conference in Human-Computer Interaction.

Dr Baxter said:

“It was a real challenge to produce a practical resource that would be useful to students of human factors/HCI and software engineering, as well as appealing to both academics and practitioners. The testimonials we’ve received from leading lights in all areas of our target audience suggest that we’ve met that challenge, with Ian Sommerville (author of Software Engineering) recommending it ‘to all engineers’, highly respected Human Factors expert Peter Hancock saying that ‘Even if only a proportion of designers and users read this book we will be so much better off.’ and IBM Distinguished Fellow and Chief Architect, Richard Hopkins noting that the book ‘has given me access to a variety of new techniques and an extended vocabulary that I look forward to introducing my design teams to.’”

The book is currently available via SpringerLink: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4471-5134-0 and from book stores.