Design-side considerations: a reaction to DUEM

Evaluation of a system's usability is a difficult task, but a new method, DUEM, addresses several of the issues. Any evaluation conducted after the fact however has limited effect, so further work is required at the design end of the lifecycle. Early-Phase elicitation tools, such as i*, may form the basis for new design tools which simplify software development, improve usability and ensure greater system success. Informing such design tools with the principles of the latest Activity Theory-based usability evaluation methods, such as DUEM should facilitate easier testing. As an added benefit, such a design method can form the first stage of an entire software development process where these complex evaluations serve to verify and validate the product.