Tom Stewart

Tom Stewart is the founder of System Concepts. He was an original member of the Human Sciences and Advanced Technology (HUSAT) Research group at Loughborough University in 1970. In 1979, he joined the management consultancy Butler Cox and Partners and worked on assignments in Europe, North America and Australia where he was mainly concerned with making computer systems usable by and acceptable to non-computer staff at all levels.

He joined System Concepts in 1983, became Managing Director in 1986 and Executive Chairman in 2008 and has managed the growth of the company to become one of the largest independent ergonomics, usability and user experience consultancies in Europe. He is active in British, European and International ergonomics and usability standards and chairs the ISO committee responsible for the ergonomics of human-system interaction (including ISO 9241). Tom is a past President of the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors.

The iPad as a serious business tool for toddlers

The iPad is being promoted as a product for all the family, so how does it perform against standard usability criteria when the user is just 17 months old?

Having recently spent a fortnight with my young grandson, Finley, in the USA, we offered to share our experience of the iPad as a serious business tool for toddlers with the UK Usability Professionals Association at their recent PechaKucha Night.

by Tom Stewart 29 July 2010 09:08am 6 comments

Usability or interaction design: who does what

I was recently asked about the apparent confusion in the digital design community about who does what. I mainly talk about usability and user experience as I believe these best encapsulate what matters to users – the total experience with a product, system or service.

However, other agencies see interaction design as the core service, which only bothers me because I think it runs the risk of confusing clients. In my view, it’s really quite straightforward.

by Tom Stewart 10 May 2010 09:01am 9 comments

Tips for usability testing with children

Children represent a huge market for digital products yet most are designed by and for adults. Even those which are targeted at children often get it embarrassingly wrong – like dads trying to be ‘cool’. But all is not lost. We have found that user research and testing with children opens up a whole new perspective, helping adult designers to see the world through the eyes of a child.

Our user research with children has ranged from social networking and mobile phones to online games and websites targeted at everyone from toddlers to teens.

Here we share some of the lessons we have learnt in adapting our usability research and testing methods for children...

by Tom Stewart 11 March 2010 09:29am 0 comments

Usability, usability, usability: why the iPad will succeed

Like a staggeringly large number of people round the world, I have been eagerly awaiting the launch of what is now the Apple iPad. I even followed a live blog to get the latest blow by blow account of Steve Job’s presentation.

Of course tablets are not new but there are three reasons why I think Apple will succeed this time and they all link to usability. Not the ‘usability is just making it easy’ type of usability but the ISO 9241-11 version, where usability is defined as: effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction.

by Tom Stewart 29 January 2010 09:12am 15 comments

World Usability Day 2009 - OK It's my fault!

I was delighted when the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) chose sustainability as the theme for World Usability Day 2009 (WUD 2009). They even quoted the revised human-centred design standard, which I helped to draft, explaining how human-centred design can have a positive impact on sustainability.

Recently we have been talking to some key people working in design and usability about how sustainability might influence design in the future.

Here I summarise some of the main themes that have emerged. We will be sharing the highlights of the interviews as a podcast to celebrate World Usability Day.

by Tom Stewart 11 November 2009 09:04am 1 comment

Something else you can do with a spreadsheet

I recently visited Professor Ben Shneiderman at the University of Maryland, arguably the world’s leading expert on user interface design, and talked to him about human computer interaction, sustainability, social network analysis and spreadsheets.

Ben's most recent book, Designing the User Interface, with co-author Catherine Plaisant, is in its fifth edition and has lots of compelling new material especially in visualisation and social network technology.

by Tom Stewart 20 October 2009 11:27am 1 comment

Don’t blame social media for bad behaviour

One of the questions I often get asked by journalists, who know I’m interested in the psychology of technology, is how social media like Facebook and Twitter change the way we communicate. Being journalists, they usually want me to say that we can no longer interact properly with each other thanks to technology.

I know some brain researchers have made some scary claims about social media but all the evidence I have seen suggests that it is just another way of keeping in touch.

by Tom Stewart 30 September 2009 08:49am 0 comments

The workaround: technology strikes back

People have been finding workarounds for poorly designed systems for many years. Although both the technology and the workarounds have become more sophisticated, the problem, and its solution, remains the same.

Many years ago, before web-based interfaces, we were asked to investigate why an online ordering system wasn’t delivering the promised productivity benefits. Our research, which involved videoing staff dealing with telephone orders and then interviewing them about the process, soon revealed the problem.

by Tom Stewart 27 August 2009 10:00am 0 comments

Thinking outside the box and other bad advice

Earlier this month I opened CREATE 2009, a forum for academics and practitioners to share creative and innovative ideas for human computer interaction (HCI).

The conference's theme was ‘Creative inventions and innovations for everyday HCI’ so to start things off I outlined my four step approach to help designers find more creative solutions to their problems.

by Tom Stewart 24 July 2009 10:01am 6 comments

Socio-technical systems: a little theory goes a long way

From worrying if Twitter really is a useful business tool, to getting a pain in your neck from using your laptop in bed, we are all affected by socio-technical systems.

I recently contributed to the Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems, a book focusing on how we combine our knowledge of technology and society to improve both technical performance and personal wellbeing.

There are no easy answers to how you design socio-technical systems, and this book presents an invaluable and unique overview of a vast and confusing field. But one reason why I think it is particularly difficult nowadays is that social relationships are so much more complex than they appear on the surface. Arguably all behaviour is social, as we observe ourselves and form opinions about how others see us.

by Tom Stewart 16 June 2009 11:19am 0 comments