Launchingthe Usability Approach Experience at Helsinki University of Technology Marja-Riitta Koivunen,Marko Nieminen& Sirpa Riihiaho This article describes how the usability approach was introduced into Finnish companies and to computer science students by combining teaching and real casesj~om companies. Two courses were developed where usability study projects werepart of the usability education. The coursesnot only taught the evaluation methods but also radically changed the students'attitudes towards usability. design team. Surprises occurred when a user interface developed according to user approved specifications turned out to be a total disappointment to the users, and it often failed in critical functions or tasks. This paper describes the approach taken at Helsinki University of Technology in teaching usability and utilizing real cases from industry. First we developed a usability study project for a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) course and later a seminar focusing on usability engineering. The organization of the H C I course study project is presented first, and the main differences between the study projects and the seminar are then described. The courses benefited both students and the companies. The students got interesting cases from the real world, and the companies got a cheap introduction to usability, results from the performed
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