User-centered evaluation of the CERO simulation tool

Sammanfattning: The proliferation of competitive systems in the market is constantly raising the bar for both usability and UX (hedonic & pragmatic view) in the field of HCI. However, many of today’s technologies lack the essence of usability and UX due to the gap between the practice and the literature. This study explores how the usability of an existing tool, namely the CERO simulation tool can be improved through user- centered design. A pre-study consisting of semi-structured interviews were executed to gather user requirements that gave a premise to base the design choices on. Thereafter, a redesign of the tool in the form of an interactive prototype was developed using the gathered information from the pre-study and literature review. Finally, the developed redesigned prototype was evaluated through a “think- aloud” exercise, together with semi-structured interviews. The result of this study indicates the usability of a product can be improved through a balance between focusing the user’s preferences and the organization’s vision. Further studies on a live version of the final design based on the recommendations from this thesis is proposed, as well as that the system takes the hedonic view of the UX into account.