NEC Reinforces Human Interface Research and Development

NEC Corporation’s development of easy-to-use human interfaces, part of its Central Research Laboratories’ global “open innovation”, has taken an important step forward through strengthened cooperation with Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and Carnegie Mellon University.

This collaboration with leading human interface research centers provides additional support for NEC’s existing HI development designs, and incorporates “Usability modeling” as an important new tool for efficient, low-cost development of easy-to-use HI for a wide variety of products.

In July 2009, the establishment of Usability guidelines covering e-government related issues raised a great deal of attention towards improved Usability. In the HI development field, providing easy-to-use products that meet the demands of a diverse range of users is now taken for granted and assuring the effectiveness and validity of these products is increasingly important. However, the vast majority of conventional HI evaluation has taken place only after a product is delivered, not at an early stage of development when changes in HI are easier and cheaper to make.

Consequently, NEC has systematized the process of HI technology development into design and evaluation categories. NEC has decided to complement the strength of its existing system-based organization with an innovative human-based approach that analyzes user behavior models and psychological mechanisms. The globally renowned experts of PARC and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon in the cognitive psychology field are now contributing to this new human side of NEC’s HI research and development.

NEC, PARC and Carnegie Mellon announced the results from their partnership at the 2009 HCI International Conference in San Diego on July 24th.

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