SLOTH: A model about user’s unreasonable expectations of systems design

One of my favourite subjects during my MSc (also one of my top grades), was Human Factors in Systems Design. Therefore I shouldn’t act surprised that this subject is so present at my current work as the central focus in our process of designing and developing software.

While I consider having a user-centred design approach a fundamental aspect of successful software, involving users can also lead to problems. These problems can be easily managed though, as long as we recognise them. With that in mind, I came up with the SLOTH model, which aims to identify some fundamental issues of involving end-users in systems design.