Winning strategies for human-centred systems

The TRUMP project has successfully raised the usability maturity of two large organisations and is providing information to help other organisations achieve similar results.

Objectives of TRUMP

TRial	TRUMP has trialled a number of techniques to improve the human-centredness of two large organisations' IT development processes. The trial was part funded by the European Commission as ESPRIT project 28015 TRUMP.
Usability	Usability is the quality of a system in use, and is the ultimate objective of IT development. Truly usable IT systems are the result of a human-centred development process.
Maturity	Developing usable systems requires a human-centred approach by all those involved in design and development, as well as the integration of human-centred design and evaluation activities throughout the development methodology. TRUMP has raised the usability maturity of the trial organisations.
Process	TRUMP showed how user centred methods could be integrated into the development process of the two participating organisations. TRUMP will enable the organisations to adopt the techniques more widely.

The TRUMP project involved three partners and one subcontractor. Serco Usability Services co-ordinated the project and provided the usability expertise to the user partners, IR and IAI. Lloyd's Register provided independent assessment of the usability maturity before and after the application at IR.

Serco Usability Services	Serco Usability Services, previously at the National Physical Laboratory, has been developing and applying practical human-centred evaluation and design techniques for many years. It was the co-ordinating partner for TRUMP and was the project's source of expertise in human-centred techniques.
Inland Revenue	The Inland Revenue is the tax collection department of the UK Government. With over 60,000 staff, IR relies on IT for administrative support. Because they must implement Government tax policy, IR must be able to implement new business systems rapidly and correctly.
Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI)	Israel Aircraft Industries design and build aircraft and avionics equipment. IAI has a reputation for efficiency and quality, and the techniques introduced by TRUMP improved their development efficiency and the quality of the products.
Lloyd's Register	Lloyd's Register performed independent assessment of the usability maturity of the Inland Revenue, both before and after the introduction of the human-centred techniques.

Nigel Bevan
Serco Usability Services
22 Hand Court
London, WC1V 6JF, UK
nbevan@usability.serco.com

Jonathan Earthy
Lloyds Register of Shipping
71 Fenchurch Street
London, EC3M 4BS, UK
jonathan.earthy@lr.org

• TRUMP is part funded by the European Commission under ESPRIT project 28015.
• The web site was designed by Nigel Bevan and Ian Curson.