A process model for interactive systems

Designing user interfaces and designing computational software are very different processes. The differences lead to late discovery of design conflicts, which drives up development costs. A unifying methodology that could provide early discovery and resolution of design conflicts must account for the governing principles of both processes. Disciplined long-term investigation of candidate methodologies requires that these governing principles be fixed and that evolving development methods comprising each process be accommodated. This article describes an application of general systems theory to integrate these principles, proposes a process model that fixes them as explicit elements of a process program, argues the feasibility of the model and its worthiness for further study, and describes its initial implementation.