Usability Evaluation of CADCAM: State of the Art

Today, for development of product and production, computer-aided design and manufacturing (CADCAM) maintain a significant role in interaction activities between human and computers. The major objective of computer-aided technology is to simplify engineer's work in collecting, using, and sharing information so that human can maximize the usage of their unique abilities, e.g. creativity and innovation. User experiences (UX) will substantially determine outcomes of such intellectual engineering activities during human computer interaction (HCI) with the CADCAM systems. Usability is a key feature of software ergonomic, and has been standardized as an important property of software quality. Concerns for usability of all kinds of ordinary software interface have been expressed by a lot of studies. Evaluation is always a central activity when practicing usability in an iterative product development process. It can be expected that employment of usability evaluation for CADCAM will be highly valued towards a better level of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Nevertheless, researches involving usability in this particular domain are very rare. This paper reviews a limited number of publications with such concerns and investigates the current context of use of CADCAM software. Then existing evaluation techniques are introduced and discussed for their feasibility in manufacturing industry based on previous studies.