HCI2005 Feature: Alternative business Models for HCI

Usability News [6] reported that 'The UK market, worth £90m in 2004, will grow by a further 25% in 2005, to between £108m to £117m, driven by increased awareness of the benefits of improved website usability and accessibility'. As well as being a more sophisticated profession, clients are better educated in accessibility and usability and demand higher quality services and added value. This is a positive change from the struggles of advocating UCD in an economic downturn.

Rather than the dogmatic gurus of the past the profession is now made up of a diverse mix of sophisticated and media-savvy experts. It is easy to be complacent about the future in this climate and to forget the lessons of the dotcom crash of a few years ago. At that time, usability professionals struggled in a market that was dominated by cost-cutting. The problem then was that usability had a limited business offering that focused on optimisation. Critics [4] pointed to the commonsensical nature of usability research and its antipathy to design. They pointed to a profession that was dominated by a few vocal usability ‘gurus’ who echoed companies’ fears of risk and spending on research and development. Given the excesses of the boom, this made sense in the short term.

As a long term strategy for sustainability, optimisation has a limited shelf life: once a product or service is optimised the work is finished. In this light, it is worth considering how usability can be integrated with other business processes and services.

RISK MANAGEMENT
Though rarely made explicit, the traditional business model for UCD has been to minimise risk. User research, prototyping and testing are useful in managing cost (focusing development resources), assuring user acceptance (building to business and consumer needs) and managing risk (testing and prototyping). While useful, the focus is purely on usability. While this is important it underplays the often conflicting quality criteria (e.g. branding and accessibility) that companies need to balance in order be profitable. Developing risk management services requires being adept at balancing a number of business needs, not just usability but the gamut of risks that businesses face.

QUALITY ASSURANCE
Building on risk management another way the usability profession can evolve is to provide ongoing process and quality assurance. Some providers have started to move away from one off evaluations. On-going service agreements that combine a number of quality factors (e.g. accessibility and web stats) benefit from the multidisciplinary and independent nature of much usability research. The existence of legislation, process and quality standards [7] provides a business case for this approach as compelling as return on investment calculations. Testing has started to be augmented by other methods and tools including analytics to widen services beyond usability. An example of this [5] is the merger of The Usability Company’s with web analytics firm WebAbacus. This provides clients with ongoing independent and holistic quality assurance.

DESIGN AND DESIGN RESEARCH
A third way of creating new services is to look at design-led companies. These aim to deliver good user experiences rather than measure usability. Instead this approach uses design research that aims to help companies develop new products. Positioned between hard analysis and creative design this perspective has a business case based on risk management and innovation. There are some industry examples of this trend for example, Skybluepink’s [3] mobileUK project. The usability profession is in a good position to deliver such services. They just need to be a bit more design savvy. This means that they can position themselves between the wacky creatives and the hard nosed business analysts. This also raises the prospect of speculative projects: researching and developing new products and services and then selling them on to client. As well as more in-depth research, some usability companies are moving in this direction and using innovative research methods and communication tools. For example, Amberlight’s [3] has used video for prototyping.

INNOVATION FACILITATION
It naturally follows that usability could move closer to a business innovation model. It is understandable that companies rein back on new product development during a downturn. Indeed, some companies, especially new or small enterprises may have difficulties bringing new products to market. But in order for companies to survive they need to not just optimise their products but also innovate and create new ones.

Some companies [3] are already (e.g Nokia, Phillips, Braun and IDEO) using UCD methods to develop new products. Burns [1] suggests that companies can evolve through four phases from zero innovators to high innovators. Evidence [8] suggests that high innovators are companies that are the most sustainable and profitable. Burns describes the high innovators as having:
• marketing research capabilities;
• design capabilities;
• technology, process and materials knowledge;
• strategic partnerships and alliances and;
• new product development.

By combining analytical and innovation methods a new service offering could be developed based on traditional UCD methods augmented by:
• Brainstorming and synectics;
• Deconstruction;
• Decision making methods;
• Empathy techniques;
• Creativity and idea generating techniques;
• Materials and technology analysis and;
• Product semantics and semiology.

CONCLUSION
HCI's move toward a value-centred design [2] requires a wider the focus on the user experience that would include a holistic set of user needs, including accessibility, usability, engagement and benefit. As a commercial offering the evolution of HCI services increases the sustainability of the profession. Such an offering would widen the business case of HCI and immediately opens up a new range of services including:
• Risk management,
• Design Management,
• New Product Development
• Standards and Quality Assurance.
• Service agreements


John Knight
User-Lab
Birmingham Institute of Art & Design

REFERENCES.
[1] Burns, K. (2005). Centre for High Value-added Products Final Project Report. 12th May 2005.Reference BGHV3060
[2] Cockton, G. (2004). Value-Centred HCI. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. Proceedings of the third Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction Tampere, Finland. ISBN:1-58113-857-1
[3] Cited in: Knight, J. (2004). How to design successful services. Electronic Public Information Magazine, Autumn Issue, 2004.
[4] Knight, J and Jefsioutine, M. (2003). The Persistence of Usability Myths Usability News, 8 May, 2003.
[5] Light, A (2005) The Usability Company and WebAbacus announce Merger Usability News 18 April 2005.
[6] Light, A (2005) Usability and Accessibility Market will grow by 25% this Year, claims Research Usability News 30 March 2005.
[7] International Organization for Standardization, 1999. ISO/IEC 13407 Human-Centred Design Processes for Interactive Systems. ISO
[8] Press, M and Cooper, R. (2003). The Design Experience: The Role of Design and Designers in the Twenty- First Century. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0-566-07891-0

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