Integrating systematic innovation, interaction design, usability evaluation and trends of evolution.

Day by day, more R&D divisions of modern industries start adopting inventive design tools and methods. Creativity needed in designing complex products cannot be left to subjective behavior; it must be helped and exploited by a systematic approach. The research described in this paper aims at developing a design framework focused on interaction issues, by exploiting the systematic approach of the theory of inventing problem solving TRIZ. The final result should integrate design, evaluation, and evolution issues. For this reason, the starting point consists in three tools already developed by the authors' research group: the interaction design guidelines-IDGL, the usability evaluation multi-methods- UEMM, and ITRE, a gatherer of interaction trends of evolution. All of them contain generic elements both of the TRIZ theory and the interaction design field; for this reason the proposed integrated approach could be exploited in completely different contexts. A first prototype of the framework has been developed as a Microsoft Access database. Its validation has started with two experiences in the field. Results are reported and discussed in the last section of the paper. © Springer-Verlag London 2013.