Exploring the interrelationships between the design and evaluation of interactive systems

While much research has focused on the design of interactive systems and much research has focused on the evaluation of interactive systems, less work has addressed both the design and evaluation of interactive systems together. While having evaluation inform design and having design inform evaluation is a goal that few would disagree with, how this might be done has not been extensively addressed. The evaluation community (often labeled the usability community) focuses primarily on the evaluation of designed artifacts while the design community focuses primarily on the design of artifacts that will be evaluated later. Design and evaluation both share the common goal of usability but each takes a different path in trying to achieve it. Our goal is to further explore the relationships between design and evaluation in an attempt to understand how they can be brought together meaningfully.