AKADAM - ELICITING USER KNOWLEDGE TO SUPPORT PARTICIPATORY ERGONOMICS

A participatory ergonomics approach to design requires knowledge of us ers, their tasks, and their task environments. User participation is a necessity because designers often misjudge the impact of design artif acts on users. As a consequence of misunderstanding their respective d omains of expertise, designers may generate inappropriate solutions, a nd users may formulate cryptic descriptions and specifications. Becaus e obtaining and incorporating users' knowledge is difficult, designers are increasingly emphasizing knowledge elicitation as a research issu e. This paper presents the Advanced Knowledge And Design Acquisition M ethodology (AKADAM), intended to elicit knowledge from domain experts (i.e., the users). Eight case studies applying AKADAM are described. T he implications of these applications and directions for future resear ch are discussed. The term ecography is introduced to highlight AKADAM 's unique aspects. Relevance to industry A user-centered approach to d esign can increase the prospects of design acceptance and worker satis faction through the incorporation of users'/workers' knowledge of the work domain in the design process. This paper describes the applicatio n of a methodology which facilitates the elicitation and communication of valuable domain knowledge.