Intelligent Information Management, 2011, 3, 32-41
doi:10.4236/iim.2011.31004 Published Online January 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/iim)
Feasibility Evaluation of Integrating Usability
Engineering Issues in a Design for Multi-X
Collaborative Framework
Stefano Filippi
DIEGM Department, University of Udine, Udine, Italy
Received December 18, 2010; revised January 4, 2011; accepted January 9, 2011
Abstract
Design for manufacturing, design for assembly, and, in general, design for X, are methods helping an effec-
tive generation of industrial products. In parallel with the development of these methods, the research about
usability engineering has generated many important results, both from the design, and the evaluation and
testing points of view. The research described in this paper aims at evaluating the feasibility of the integra-
tion of two new usability methods, the design for innovative usability - DFIU -, and the integrated method
for usability evaluation and testing - IMUET -, in an existing design for X named design guidelines collabo-
rative framework - DGLs-CF -. Indeed, the DGLs-CF is a design for multi-X method, given that it covers
both the manufacturing and the verification phases of the industrial product lifecycle. All these methods are
currently under development by the author’s research group. To evaluate this feasibility, the first task of the
research aims at describing and classifying the components of the three methods. Next, these components are
semantically related to each other. Finally, the last activity verifies the compatibility between the compo-
nents of the two usability methods and the data structures of the DGLs-CF to check the feasibility from the
implementation point of view. The result of this research will consist of precise indications both for the de-
velopment of a design for multi-X collaborative framework covering homogeneously the design, manufac-
turing, verification, and use phases of the industrial product lifecycle, and to be used as a reference for re-
searchers interested in considering the integration of usability issues in their design tools, methods, and
processes.
Keywords: Design for Multi-X, Usability Design, Usability Evaluation and Testing, Product Lifecycle,
Design Guidelines
1. Introduction
The first method for the usability evaluation and testing
of industrial products appeared in the research landscape
in the ‘80s, while some attempts to offer a real help to
the industrial designers and engineers in generating us-
able products took place in the ‘90s [1]. Meanwhile, and
unfortunately in parallel, with very few contact points,
all the phases of the industrial product lifecycle have
been analyzed, related to each other [2-5] and many de-
sign for X - DfX - methods have been developed and
applied successfully in the field [6,7] For example, de-
sign for manufacturing - DfM - actually helps in design-
ing industrial products for their optimum generation with
the available technologies, or design for assembly - DfA
- suggests effective guidelines to design industrial prod-
ucts for the best assembly procedures [5]. Hybrid meth-
ods exist as well, named design for multi-X; they cover
more than one phase of the lifecycle [8-10].
Even the usability field has kept evolving since the
‘80s, by developing always new methods both to gener-
ate guidelines to design the usability inside the industrial
products and to evaluate and test these products from the
usability point of view. Modern approaches to usability
design exploit analogies and metaphors; moreover, they
start to share with other research fields some logical me-
thods for product innovation, as the theory of inventive
problem solving - TRIZ -, or the axiomatic design
[11-13]. Regarding the usability evaluation and testing,
now the methods are based on hybrid interpretations of

S. FILIPPI
33
the classic pluralistic walkthrough, co-discovery learning,
etc., integrated by the modern technological solutions for
data capturing and processing.
The goal of the research described in this paper con-
sists in trying to eliminate the gap between the DfXs
commonly used in the industrial design and engineering
domains and the usability methods, by merging them
homogeneously in a collaborative framework. The start-
ing point is the design guidelines collaborative frame-
work - DGLs-CF -, a design for multi-X method for
product design and process reconfiguration, covering the
design, manufacturing, and verification phases of the
industrial product lifecycle, and developed in the last
years by the author’s research group. The DGLs-CF pre-
sents a well organized knowledge structure and some
modules for information processing. These are the best
conditions to organize the pieces of information regard-
ing the usability engineering, in order to map and inte-
grate them in the DGLs-CF. This could result in some
modifications of the DGLs-CF itself, but this is normal
and well accepted, because the tuning/update of the
DGLs-CF will be in any case a valuable enhancement. In
other words, the goal of the research is to enlarge the
coverage of the DGLs-CF by integrating it with a
state-of-the-art design for usability component.
2. Materials and Methods
Figure 1 summarizes the context where this research
takes place and highlights all the components involved.
The x-axis contains some phases of the industrial product
lifecycle, while the y-axis represents the development of
DfX and design for multi-X methods related to these
phases. Also these methods are ordered by time. In fact,
at the beginning, the design guidelines - DGLs - was a
method that simply suggested some actions to be per-
formed to the product model to get it compatible with the
available manufacturing technologies. The DGLs be-
came DGLs-CF when the issues related to the geometri-
cal verification of the physical representation of the
product were added to the framework. In the last year,
two new components have been developed: the inte-
grated method for usability evaluation and testing - IM-
UET - and the design for innovative usability - DFIU -,
covering respectively the evaluation and testing of the
industrial product usability after the production phase,
and the embedding of usability issues inside the product
since the design phase. As highlighted in Figure 1, all
these methods, except for the IMUET, cover the design
phase (the grayed areas represent this coverage); in fact,
this is exactly the role of the DfXs, to influence the prod-
uct design by looking forward at the next phases of the
product lifecycle. The biggest rectangle in Figure 1
represents the goal of the research, the design for multi-X
named DGLs-CF*, an integration between methods
coming from the industrial design and engineering and
the usability fields.
The elements shown in Figure 1 are described in the
Figure 1. The methods involved in this research, mapped on the phases of the industrial product lifecycle (x-axis) and ordered
by their development time (y-axis).

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34
following. The descriptions are quite short because the
classification of their components is the topic of the first
task of this research, together with the analysis of the
relationships and interactions among these components.
2.1. The DGLs-CF
The author’s research group has been developing the
DGLs-CF during the last five years. The DGLs-CF is an
articulated knowledge based framework used to structure,
manage, and generate many pieces of information related
to the industrial product during the design process
[14-17]. The DGLs-CF is an evolution of the previous
DGLs and it was obtained by adding the concerns about
the verification of the physical product. This enhance-
ment happened thanks to the adoption of the ISO geo-
metrical product specification - GPS – [15]; for this rea-
son it must be pointed out that in the DGLs-CF the scope
of the verification is limited to geometrical issues.
Figure 2 shows the main level (A-0 level) of the
IDEF0 diagram used to describe the DGLs-CF adoption,
named DGLs-CF roadmap. This diagram is valuable
because it shows all the interface components between
the DGLs-CF and its application domain.
Starting from collecting the information about the ap-
plication domain, expressed in terms of product features
and manufacturing/verification process characteristics,
the DGLs-CF generates some redesign/reconfiguration
packages; these are guidelines to maximize the compati-
bility between the product and the available technologies
to manufacture and verify it.
The DGLs-CF is really valuable here because its pre-
cise data structures, rational information flows, and clear
procedures, make it the best way to collect, classify, and
put into relationship all the knowledge involved in the
present research.
2.2. The Design for Innovative Usability – DFIU
The design for innovative usability - DFIU - is a DfX
method to generate usability design guidelines related to
specific industrial products. Its development started one
Figure 2. The main level (A-0 level) of the IDEF0 diagram describing the DGLs-CF adoption.

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35
year ago and, even if the application in the field has been
quite limited up to now, the results appear interesting and
very promising for the next steps.
Starting from the application domain - the context
where the product is developed - and from the descrip-
tion of the final users of the product, the DFIU generates
the result expressed as a set of guidelines, helping the
users in designing the usability inside the product.
The most interesting aspects of the DFIU are the high-
light of the contact points between usability issues and
the state-of-the-art methods currently used for the indus-
trial innovation [11-13], and the exploitation of these
methods in generating the usability design guidelines.
2.3. The Integrated Method for Usability
Evaluation and Testing – IMUET
IMUET is the acronym for integrated method for usabil-
ity evaluation and testing, another topic currently under
development by the author’s research group. It must be
pointed out that this is not a DfX, because it does not
suggest the generation of a product easy to evaluate or
test from the usability point of view. Instead, starting
from the description of an industrial product, the IMUET
generates a homogeneous collection of methods to meas-
ure its usability [16].
The IMUET is based on a collection of filters and ta-
bles that relate the several components involved in the
usability evaluation and testing activities: methods, di-
mensions, features, principles, etc. A sophisticated me-
chanism of weights allows generating the result, consist-
ing in the optimum set of dimensions and in the related
methods to measure the product usability in the best way.
Some hints about the application of the evaluation and
testing methods integrate this result, in order to allow its
application even for non-expert users.
The most interesting issues of the IMUET can be
identified in a clear and effective definition of the com-
ponents and of their relationships, and in the automatic
generation of the integrated evaluation and testing me-
thod.
3. Activities
The research activities develop as follows. First, the
components characterizing the DGLs-CF, the DFIU and
the IMUET, are clearly identified and classified. After
that, a mapping among them takes place, in trying to
answer to some important questions, as: what are the
corresponding components of the DFIU/IMUET in the
DGLs-CF? What is the current compatibility degree? Are
there missed components somewhere? Are there possible
big problems? If yes, what could be the actions to solve
these problems? Next, the attempt to really integrate the
DFIU/IMUET in the DGLs-CF takes place, by trying to
house some examples of pieces of information related to
the usability issues inside the DGLs-CF data structures.
Here, again, there could be some problems and the goal
of this phase is exactly to highlight, characterize and
classify them.
The three activities are described in the following.
3.1. Classification of the DGLs-CF/DFIU/
IMUET Components
The components of each method are collected and sum-
marized in the following, followed by the description of
their adoption. This will be the starting point for the next
activities.
DGLs-CF components
• (Class of) product features: this component allows
describing the products to be optimized using the
DGLs-CF.
• (Class of) technological characteristics: here there
is all the information related to the available man-
ufacturing and verification processes and technolo-
gies.
• ISO GPS standards: inside the DGLs-CF, the for-
malization, the management, and the generation of
knowledge, obey to the principles expressed by the
ISO GPS standards. This ensures homogeneity,
compatibility with other methods and tools, etc.
ISO GPS standards are considered as a reference,
as a guide.
• Actors: this component allows characterizing the
people involved in the DGLs-CF adoption: the de-
signers, the manufacturers, and the inspectors (ve-
rification experts). They are, as a matter of facts,
the users of the DGLs-CF; moreover, the experts
among them own the knowledge needed to develop
the following DGLs-CF sub-components.
• Rules: rules are the description of the conditions
used to check the compatibility between the prod-
uct and the processes used to manufacture and ver-
ify it. Rules are generated by crossing each fea-
ture/characteristic pair.
• Compatibility expressions: the compatibility cited
in the previous sentence needs to be quantified.
These expressions allow generating numeric values
representing how the product features answers to
the process characteristics (requirements).
• Actions: these are the hints suggested by the
DGLs-CF in order to maximize the compatibility
between the product and the processes.
Referring to Figure 3, where some simplifications
have been introduced in order to get the comprehension

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of what follows easier, the DGLs-CF works as follows.
First, designers, manufacturers, and inspectors, describe
the class of the available technologies, for example, the
rapid prototyping technology called fused deposition
modeling [17] - in terms of characteristics. After that,
they do the same with the class of products - for example,
car lights, in terms of features. This information allows
the generation of a knowledge base containing the rules
and the compatibility expressions to evaluate the com-
patibility between the class of the products and the
classes of the available manufacturing and verification
processes. After this setup phase, the DGLs-CF is con-
figured by focusing on a specific product - for example,
the headlight of a specific brand car - and on the specific
brand and model of the available manufacturing and
verification technologies. Thanks to all of this, the
DGLs-CF can collect and manage all the information to
generate some sets of actions, named redesign-recon-
figuration packages, to be adopted by the actors in re-
designing the product and/or reconfiguring the process-
es to get the best compatibility between them. All of this
happens obeying to the ISO GPS principles and it is per-
formed by seven specialized modules. Figure 3 shows
some empty spaces but this is intentional. They will be
filled thanks to the research described in this paper.
DFIU components
• Application domain: this component represents all
the information related to the domain where the
DFIU is adopted: product specifications, produc-
tion technology details, etc.
• Users: the final users of the product to be designed
are described here, from the points of view of per-
sonal data, skill, etc. This component describes al-
so the several ways the product is expected to be
used; it contains all the elements used to generate
the use case diagrams [1]
• Usability experts: this component allows charac-
terizing the people in charge of generating the use
case diagrams, etc.
• Knowledge base of analogies, metaphors, and logi-
cal methods: this collects some analogies and meta-
phors [18-22], together with the references to the
main tools that could help their generation or find-
ing [23,24].
• Usability principles: this is the knowledge needed
to design a product respecting the rules expressed
in the standards ISO 9241 - Ergonomic require-
ments for office work with visual display terminals
• -, ISO 13407 - Human-centered design processes
for interactive systems -, and ISO 20282 - Usabil-
ity of everyday products.
• Selection tools: these elements are embedded in the
DFIU and help the DFIU users in filtering all the
concepts and solutions found in the knowledge
base. Methods as the decision matrix, the go-no go
evaluation, etc. [5], are involved here, borrowed
again from the industrial design and engineering
domain.
• Guidelines: this component constitutes the output
of the DFIU. The guidelines suggest some design
solutions to embed usability issues inside the in-
dustrial product since the beginning of its lifecycle.
Briefly, the DFIU adoption comes in this way. The
usability experts, starting from the information about the
Figure 3. The graphical representation of the DGLs-CF adoption.

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37
application domain, the users, and the use scenarios of
the product to be designed, define some use case dia-
grams that lead the DFIU activities. Next, the DFIU
helps in finding innovative concepts by exploiting analo-
gies, metaphors, the TRIZ method, etc. Then, all the
generated and highlighted concepts are filtered, ordered,
and assembled homogeneously by the selection tools,
exploiting the usability principles. The result of all of
this is a set of guidelines.
IMUET components
• Features: they describe the product to be evaluated
and tested from the usability point of view.
• Methods: this component collects all the informa-
tion related to the methods considered by the IM-
UET for the usability evaluation and testing.
Among them, there are the pluralistic walkthrough,
the consistency inspection, the shadowing method,
the co-discovery learning, the coaching method, etc.
[25-27].
• Usability principles: of course, here the ISO stan-
dards are exploited again, together with other prin-
ciples as the Shneiderman’s eight golden rules of
interface design [16], the Nielsen’s heuristics [1],
and so on.
• Dimensions: the dimension concept is a key point
for the IMUET. Dimensions allow describing the
product features using a homogeneous and effec-
tive language, oriented to the usability issues. Di-
mensions are derived directly from the usability
principles as affordance, natural mapping, feed-
back, etc, and their elaboration, started in [26].
• Usability inspectors: this component describes the
users of the IMUET. Inspectors could be both us-
ability experts and simple users of the method; for
this reason some attention is paid on expressing the
result of the IMUET elaboration in a real usable
way.
• Weights: the relationships among the several
components of the IMUET, expressed by tables,
are driven and affected by a sophisticated system
of weights, allowing a fine tuning of the method
and a perfect customization of it, given the condi-
tions of the application domain.
• Users: this component allows describing the users
of the product. This information is used to set the
values of the weights in the tables that represent
the relationships between the components of the
IMUET.
• Integrated evaluation and testing method: this is
the result of the IMUET elaboration.
Regarding the adoption of these components, the IM-
UET starts by allowing the description of the product
features. These features are set not only thanks to the
information related to the product itself, but also consid-
ering the users - and this determines mainly the weights
associated to the components, and the dimensions, that
guarantee an uniform and effective description. After
that, the IMUET exploits the knowledge regarding the
usability principles and a wide set of evaluation and
testing methods. Then, the dimensions are used again as
the main indicator to weight quantitatively the usability
of the product under evaluation and/or testing. For this
reason, the dimensions drive the generation of a collec-
tion of forms to be filled by the usability inspectors dur-
ing the evaluation and testing activities. The collection of
these forms is the result of the IMUET elaboration, the
integrated method offered to the IMUET users in a us-
able way, enriched with all the hints for an easy applica-
tion in the field.
The considerations on how to highlight and evaluate
the relationships among all these components are the
subject of the next activity.
3.2. Mapping the DGLs-CF/DFIU/IMUET
Components to Each Other
The second activity consists in linking semantically the
several components of the three methods considered in
this research. Table 1 shows the outcomes of this activ-
ity. The first three columns correspond to the DGLs-CF,
the DFIU, and the IMUET respectively, while each row
contains a specific DGLs-CF component with the related
components present in the other two methods. The fourth
column contains some important notes clarifying the
details of this mapping.
The content of Table 1 sets and demonstrates the
strong affinity among the three methods considered here.
Almost all components relate to each other, except for
the last two - Users -, but the note in the table clarifies
that this result is as normal as expected.
3.3. Integrate the DFIU / IMUET inside the
DGLs-CF
Table 1 represents the required condition to go further with
the research. The next step is focused on the evaluation
of the compatibility between the DGLs-CF data struc-
tures and the components of the two methods related to
usability issues. The complex knowledge base of the
DGLs-CF, consisting in twelve tables, is not reported
here; it is described in detail in [14]. Nevertheless, a
simple way to check the compatibility exploits the ex-
amples of all the components, as shown in Table 2. This
table allows verifying that the components are semanti-
cally compatible and that they can be considered all to-
gether, homogeneously, sharing the same data structures,
in a design for multi-X method.

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Table 1. Mapping the DGLs-CF/DFIU/IMUET components to each other.
DGLs-CF DFIU IMUET Notes
(Class of) product features Application domain Features
No problems here. Except for the need for distinguishing
better the several pieces of information in the application
domain of the DFIU
(Class of) technological charac-
teristics
Knowledge base of
analogies, meta-
phors, and logical
methods
Methods
Here the DFIU component is, as a matter of facts, the
technology used to process the product. This is why this
relationship takes place. The IMUET methods are consid-
ered like the technologies of the DGLs-CF, because they
are the tools to process the product
Usability principles Usability principles This mapping is straightforward
ISO GPS standards
Dimensions
This mapping takes place because the dimensions are the
way to uniform the description language of the features
inside the IMUET. The ISO GPS standards have exactly
the same role in the DGLs-CF
Actors Usability experts Usability inspectors This mapping is straightforward
Rules
Compatibility expressions
Selection tools Weights
Rules and compatibility expressions measure mutually the
product and the processes. The same is done by the selec-
tion tools and by the weights in the DFIU and in the IM-
UET, respectively.
It must be pointed out that compatibility equal to zero in
the DGLs-CF means that something has to be necessarily
done to the product, because the available manufacturing
and verification technologies cannot be changed. Com-
patibility equal to zero in the DFIU and in the IMUET is
not so dramatic; the considered concept is simply dis-
carded by the selection tool in the DFIU, and the same
happens for an evaluation or testing method in the
IMUET
Actions Guidelines
Integrated evaluation
and testing method
This mapping is straightforward.
These three items represent the same thing, an usable tool
to be used by the users of the methods to design a product
for manufacturing and verification, to design the usability
inside a product, and to evaluate and test the usability of
an existing product respectively
Users Users
These components are not present in the DGLs-CF. This
is normal; the DGLs-CF does not consider usability issues
(otherwise this research would have no sense). The next
step of this research will have to find a place in the
DGLs-CF* data structures for these components.
Table 2 shows again that there are not big problems in
integrating the usability issues inside the DGLs-CF. All
the components of the usability methods considered here
are semantically compatible with the DGLs-CF ones, and
for this reason they can be easily housed in the current
DGLs-CF data structures.
4. Results
Figure 4 shows the logical structure of the DGLs-CF*, the
integrated design for multi-X method that may represent
a real help in managing homogeneously design, manu-
facturing, verification, and usability issues. This structure,
together with the content of Table 1 and Table 2, repre-
sents the result of this research, because it answers to the
questions about the feasibility of integrating the new
DFIU and the IMUET methods inside the existing design
for multi-X collaborative framework, the DGLs-CF. The
scheme shown in Figure 4 is complete; nevertheless, the
arrows are not present, for readability reasons. The in-
formation flow should be clear by considering the content
of Table 1 and Table 2, while the differences between the

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Table 2. Examples of all the DGLs-CF/DFIU/IMUET components.
DGLs-CF DFIU IMUET
(Class of product) features
Numbers of holes (if the product is a me-
chanical part)
Application domain
Weight measurement (if the product is a per-
sonal training system)
Features
Alert and feedback
(Class of technological) characteristics
Dimensions of the manufacturing workspace
Knowledge base of analogies, metaphors, and
logical methods
Metaphor scope, TRIZ principles of interest
Methods
Journaled session
Usability principles
ISO 9142, ISO 13407, Nielsen’s principles
Usability principles
Flexibility of the dialogue
ISO GPS standards
The features must be encoded using simple
geometrical entities like planes, angles, etc. Dimensions
Memorability
Actors
The manufacturer X has a 5-year experience
in using the RP-FDM technology
Usability experts
The usability engineer Y has a 3-year experi-
ence in usability evaluation techniques
Usability inspectors
The usability inspector Z has a 3-year experi-
ence in usability evaluation techniques
Rules
The maximum dimensions of the product
must fit the dimensions of the available
manufacturing technology workspace
Compatibility expressions
IF product_max_hole_depth < probe_lenght
THEN compatibility = 1
ELSE compatibility = 0
Selection tools
One of the criteria of the decision matrix is
the evaluation of the compatibility between
the weight measurement and the TRIZ princi-
ple “Universality”
Weights
The compatibility between the alert and feed-
back and the journaled session is measured
using weights associated to dimensions
Actions
Split the product model
Guidelines
The personal training system must explain the
exercises to the users aloud
Integrated evaluation and testing method
The journaled session method is used to meas-
ure the memorability of the product interface.
Users
The user P, a well trained athlete, determines
the requirements of the product to be evalu-
ated and tested.
Users
The user Q determines the weights associated
to the dimensions used to evaluate and test the
product.
current situation and the starting point appears straight-
forward when comparing Figure 4 with Figure 2.
Even if this structure clearly refers to the DGLs-CF*,
the analogies and the relationships present in it can be
used as a reference in other researches and domains. The
effort used here in analyzing, classifying and relating to
each other the several pieces of information may be po-
tentially exploited every time usability issues need to be
considered inside a design process.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, we have evaluated the feasibility of inte-
grating usability engineering issues inside a collaborative
framework for industrial product design. The architecture
and the knowledge management of the DGLs-CF - a de-
sign for multi-X method covering the manufacturing and
the verification of the industrial product lifecycle -, have
been exploited to indentify, classify, and put into relation-
ship the components of two new methods: the DFIU and
the IMUET, regarding the usability design and the us-
ability evaluation and testing respectively. The positive
outcomes of this evaluation allow widening the coverage
of the DGLs-CF, by adding the possibility to design the
usability inside the product since the beginning of its
lifecycle, and to redesign poorly-usable existing products.
Now the author’s research group knows for sure that
the DGLs-CF*, the integrated release of the DGLs-CF,
can be developed in full. This will be the future work
related to this research. Next to it, the DGLs-CF* will be
tested in the field and further publications will report the
results of these validation activities.
6. Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank dr. eng. Ilaria Cristofolini
Ph.D. for her invaluable contribution to the study and the
development of the DGLs-CF. Moreover, thanks go to

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40
Figure 4. The logical structure of the DGLs-CF*, the result of this research.
eng. Marco Dall’Armellina and eng. Eleonora Piva, who
worked on the DFIU and on the IMUET respectively.
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