Design and Evaluation Methodologies for Enhancing ERP System Usability

Bentley University, Waltham MA

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal Number 0819333 Title: Design and Evaluation Methodologies for Enhancing ERP System Usability PI: Wendy Lucas Co-PIs: Jennifer Xu, Heikki Topi, Tamara Babaian The effective adoption and use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are profoundly affected by their poor usability characteristics. The goal of this research is to improve the usability of ERP systems in order to lessen user training time and increase user performance and satisfaction. Using collaboration theory as a unifying framework, the proposed engineering processes and methods for analyzing human-computer interaction and performing system design and evaluation include (1) design principles and field studies for enhancing system usability, (2) concrete implementations that embody and illustrate the application of these design principles to ERP system interfaces, and (3) evaluation methodologies for measuring collaborative properties. This research will also investigate the validity of three scientific principles for creating and analyzing software for real-world systems: (1) Greater collaborative strength of software yields greater usability, (2) Embedding knowledge about the users, tasks, processes, domains, usage logs, and its own interface components into an ERP system strengthens its collaborative capabilities, and (3) Usage logs are the true reflection of reality. Outcomes from the project will include new methods and approaches for evaluating and enhancing collaborativeness and usability that are applicable to the design of large-scale real-world software systems.