Varieties of user-centredness: an analysis of four systems development methods Juhani Iivari* & Netta Iivari † *Department of Information Processing Science, P.O. Box 3000, 90014 University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, email: juhani.iivari@oulu.fi, and † Department of Information Processing Science, P.O. Box 3000, 90014 University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, email: netta.iivari@oulu.fi Abstract. Based on an extensive literature analysis, this paper examines user- centredness in the context of systems development as a multidimensional concept composed of four aspects: user focus, work-centredness, user involvement and system personalization. Each dimension loads user-centredness with different meanings. The four dimensions can be used for evaluating systems development methods and approaches as to what extent and in what sense they adhere to the ideals of user-centredness. To illustrate this, the dimensions are applied to the analysis of four allegedly user-centred systems development methods: Goal Directed Interaction Design, Contextual Design, Scenario-Based Design and Human-Centred Systems Development Life Cycle. The analysis shows con- siderable variation in how these methods address the four dimensions of user-centredness. Keywords: user-centred design, human-centred design, work-centred design, user involvement, user participation, personalization 1. INTRODUCTION Since the early publications on user-centred design (UCD) (Knittle et al., 1986; Norman, 1986) user-centredness has aroused increasing attention in the context of information technology (IT) artefacts, leading, for example, to the ISO 13407 (1999) standard on the human-centred design of interactive systems. In this paper, we will use ‘user-centred’ and ‘human-centred’ as synonyms even though one can make a distinction between the first two (Gasson, 2003). Interestingly, the current focus on user-centredness has arisen at a time when UCD conditions have become challenging because of the market commodification of many IT systems and services and the increased use of application packages in organizational information systems (IS) development. Despite all this interest, the actual concept of user-centredness has remained unclear (Carroll, 1996; Karat, 1997; Gulliksen et al., 2003; Kujala, 2003), partly because of the evolu- doi:10.1111/j.1365-2575.2010.00351.x Info Systems J (2011) 21, 125–153 125 © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd