Certified Usability Engineer

Upon successful completion of the course, the Certified Usability Engineer has at her/his disposal the essential tools for a well-founded consulting job in usability engineering.

S/he is familiar with usability engineering concepts, methods and procedures and can apply the methods compiled by Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle (DAkkS) for developing interactive products and for assessing if interactive products and their development processes conform to the international Usability standards ISO 9241-11, -110 and ISO 9241-210.

The usability experts at Fraunhofer FIT who designed this course were involved in the development of the DAkkS (formerly DATech) methodology and they use it in their design and consulting projects. Besides the DAkkS methodology, our experts discuss additional elicitation and evaluation methods as well as internationally accepted principles for the presentation of information and for user guidance.

A compact format for teaching what you really need to know

In the workshops, participants take the role of a usability consultant in a fictitious – though typical – IT company. Thus, they find out which interpretations of 'usability' are actually useful, and how they can succeed in balancing usability theory against the 'harsh realities' of running a project, while they work on introducing an effective company-wide usability engineering process.

Knowledge for a wide range of application fields

After successfully completing the course, the participants are able to carry out the user-oriented design activities to create ergonomic user interfaces. Furthermore, they know how to enhance a software development process by introducing the design activities of an effective usability engineering cycle. This competence is useful across a wide range of industries and media, e.g. for Web-based services, medical devices, mobile apps or desktop software.

Support after the course

After the end of the course, the usability experts at Fraunhofer FIT are available to answer your questions. In addition, you will gain access to a community of professional usability engineers that are prepared to share their expertise.

Module 1: Analyzing the context of use

• Definition of usability and dimensions of context of use according to ISO 9241-11
• Methods to analyze the context of use
• Interviewing techniques
• Elicitation and documentation of valid descriptions of context of use

Module 2: Developing user requirements

• DAkkS methods for deriving user needs and user requirements from a description of context of use
• Derivation, documentation and management

Module 3: (Prototypical) design

• Parts of standards relevant for design
• Gestalt laws, psychology of perception
• Low and high fidelity prototyping

Module 4: Testing

• Interpretation and application of ISO 9241-110
• Qualitative methods
  • Critical incident technique
  • Cognitive walkthrough
  • Heuristic evaluation by experts
• Quantitative methods
  • Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI)
  • Website Analysis and Measurement Inventory (WAMMI)

Module 5: Designing the usability process

• Roles and stakes in IT projects
• Cost / benefit considerations, legal questions
• Models of the usability engineering cycle
• IT development models
• How to establish an effective usability engineering process