CAN USERS PLAY AN EFFECTIVE ROLE IN PARALLEL TOOLS RESEARCH

Commercial experiences have shown that involving users in the software design cycle is a cost-effective way of improving both the quality an d the acceptability of tool products. This paper addresses the issue o f whether users also should be involved in the research activities tha t lay the foundation for parallel tool design. Integrating users chang es the basic nature of the software process in several ways, as illust rated with examples from recent Parallel Tools Consortium projects. To ol designers must invest additional lime to prepare example scenarios or prototypes for user discussions, identify alternatives that can ser ve as points of departure for user-derived metaphors or models, and an alyze user responses. By identifying user suggestions consistently thr oughout the design process, however, the development time for research prototypes is actually shortened.