A user-centered resources model for redesigning self-service check-in system based on distributed cognition

Part of self-service check-in systems in China are designed without taking user-centered design methods and guidelines into account. According to our research conducted at two airports in China, many users are not satisfied, some users even frustrated and give up using self-service check-in system. This significantly increases staff´s working load and leads to great waste of resources. Therefore, redesigning the current problematic self-service check-in system based on user-centered methods becomes crucial in order to improve the usability of self-service check-in system in China, and to enhance user experience. In this paper, distributed cognition theory is applied for studying how the information process between human and artifacts in a system. The paper provides a review of previous research based on different user-centered methods and adds a new concept into the extended resources model stemmed from distributed cognition for guiding the redesign process of the current self-service check-in system.