Widgets internship: developing learners skills in a user-centered development process

  • Authors:

  • Eduardo A. Oliveira;Taciana Pontual Falcão;Victor Ximenes;Paulo Melo

  • Affiliations:

  • C.E.S.A.R -- Centro de Estudos e Sistemas Avançados do Recife, Bairro do Recife, Recife -- PE, Brazil;C.E.S.A.R -- Centro de Estudos e Sistemas Avançados do Recife, Bairro do Recife, Recife -- PE, Brazil;C.E.S.A.R -- Centro de Estudos e Sistemas Avançados do Recife, Bairro do Recife, Recife -- PE, Brazil;C.E.S.A.R -- Centro de Estudos e Sistemas Avançados do Recife, andar, Brooklin, São Paulo -- SP, Brazil

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 10th Brazilian Symposium on on Human Factors in Computing Systems and the 5th Latin American Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

This paper describes an internship program in design and computer programming, based on a user-centered development process to develop mobile applications for an industry partner. With the support of a team of professionals, and inspired by a problem-based learning approach, the interns followed a user-centered design cycle formed by research, ideation, prototyping and testing. They were involved in collecting and analyzing data from user research, generating concepts and implementing widgets for mobile phones. Within the program, where eighty-five widgets were expected, one hundred and eleven were produced, indicating that the process inspired and engaged the interns in applying the skills and knowledge acquired. Additionally, the high rate of downloads of the applications developed is a good indication that the user-centered process resulted in products that satisfied user and market demands.