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How Well Do the Users Think the System Works?

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User-Centred Design of Systems

Part of the book series: Applied Computing ((APPLCOMP))

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Abstract

The importance of User involvement throughout the life cycle has already been discussed. To be able to do this in a reliable and valid way, there are a number of methods available that allow us to measure User opinion. Reliability, validity and ethical considerations have important implications for the success of these subjective methods. Reliability refers to the internal consistency of a measure, i.e. its repeatability and the probability of obtaining the Same results if the measure was applied again and the study repeated. In contrast, validity is concerned with whether the method actually measures what it is purported to measure. It is possible to have a situation where a measure has high reliability and low validity, and vice versa. In the former, the overall outcome is not as good as when validity is high, whatever the level of reliability. Hence, some have argued that reliability is a precondition to validity (Noyes and Mills, 1998).

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag London

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Noyes, J., Baber, C. (1999). How Well Do the Users Think the System Works?. In: User-Centred Design of Systems. Applied Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0537-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0537-4_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76007-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0537-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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