Improvement of a computer-based surveyor-training tool using a user-centered approach

This paper presents the experiences of improving an existing surveyor-training tool, called SimuSurvey, using a user-centered approach. As few users were involved during the initial development of SimuSurvey, many instructors and students were skeptical about the innovative application of SimuSurvey in actual surveying classes. To address this problem, we proposed and applied an iterative and incremental user-centered design method to redevelop the tool. Three hundred and forty-six users including 5 instructors, 4 surveying experts, and 337 students, with different backgrounds were introduced at different stages of the redevelopment process. After two iterations of complete redevelopment cycles with five intermediate prototype systems generated, a much improved version of the tool, namely SimuSurvey R2, was developed. From the final interviews with students and the field observation on user groups, SimuSurvey R2 has been shown to be more practical for use in actual surveying classes. In addition, the proposed user-centered approach and several techniques it employs, such as storyboards and content diagrams, paper-based prototyping, high-fidelity prototyping, and usability tests, have been found to be effective for improvement (or redevelopment) of software systems.