EUPA/HCI2002: Usability Managers talk Promotion from Within

Led by Simon Tyler of Orange, David Followell of Nationwide and Eric Geelhoed of Hewlett Packard with an introduction to their facilities and working styles, the Usability Managers' Forum at HCI2002/EUPA swiftly became a lively debate, taking promoting usability within an organisation as a particular theme.

A feature of the session was an innovative voting mechanism that allowed those seated in the 'audience' to indicate their priorities from questions offered by the panellists and also to submit their own. The most popular questions proved to be around promotion:
* How do usability teams convince the organisations in which they work that HCI and usability is not only worthwhile but also essential for commercial success?
* What are the most important messages that usability managers need to convey to their organisations?
* How do Usability teams work? Are they reactive (projects ask for usability input) or proactive (a business policy or strategy dictates which projects the usability team will work on)? Which is best?
* What types of work do usability team members do? Should they do design and development?
* How do usability teams decide when to get outside help from commercial usability companies?

More methodological questions about validity and demonstrating measurable improvements never reached debate, showing, as elsewhere in the conference, a preoccupation with communicating the value of usability rather than a desire to dwell on techniques. This belies increasing opinion that the role of usability evangelist is outdated. The concerns of participants in this session showed that proseletysing is still very much part of everyday work. Outside the usability department, interest is arbitrary and cannot be taken for granted.

Participants revealed very different set-ups for their usability work: from the in-house approach of Orange to the external contractors of Nationwide and the Royal Bank of Scotland, creating a variety of constraints. How services were charged back also had an effect on how other departments viewed their activities. Response, even within one organisation, might vary from tick-box people who would describe five minutes in the corridor with someone from usability as sufficient, to real user-centred design enthusiasts. Most usability teams found themselves reactive though, coming in when summoned. Delegates agreed that having a senior champion within the organisation was of enormous benefit.

Participants then shared strategies for drawing attention to usability work and particularly the findings produced, since there was a commonly recognised tendency for work to be commissioned and then not acted upon. Mechanisms included describing weaknesses as 'bugs', using visual representations of usability reports to ensure at least some data gets communicated, and using facilities such as labs as a means of involving other staff in the analysis process. Usability 'branding' was found to be useful in creating a profile at large.

Tyler pointed out that one problem in getting the support needed is that managements have a tendency to reward the marketing team for a usable product, rather than the team that developed it. This does not win over software engineers.

In all, there was clearly benefit for delegates in sharing concerns and remedies, and in finding that problems were common and often a result of an organisation's systemic business choices. However, it made depressing listening for anyone thinking that usability is now considered a central design component in British corporate life.

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