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Tue, 10 Jun 2003 11:39:30 -0700
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From the responses, the common theme seems to be that
usability testing is under-appreciated. My question
then becomes how much do your clients value usability?
What is the ROI metrics? What action/information would
convince them to put usability on a high priority?

In the original message, I asked:

I'm doing a study to understand the road-blocks that
hamper the work of web professionals. For example, if
you are an interface designer, do you find it hard to
make engineers implement your design? Do you find the
tools you're using insufficient? If you are a project
manager, do you find it hard to make members of your
team understand each other's goals? If you are an
usabilty consultant, do you find your clients only
contact you when its already too late? If you are an
engineer, do you find yourself always under a crunch
to deliver an insufficiently defined user interface?

I would appreciate if you send me:
- Your job title/function/role
- A prioritized list of major road-blocks you're
facing

======================================================

I am a usability engineer just starting out on my job.


The main problems I've seen so far is that people want
my input but don't have enough time or money for
usability testing, and don't seem to think
it's useful.  They just want to know what I think.  I
am currently in a campaign to convince my coworkers
that testing is more useful than just my opinion.

Hialry

======================================================

My job title is Project Manager and the biggest road
block I run into is trying to keep meeting everyone's
goals from giving a bad user-experience; the window
design everyone agrees too initially will (over the
course of implementation) get details added to it that
make it harder to use or understand but are
technically accurate descriptions of what the
window will do. I have yet to convince anyone that
usability testing is worth trying.
        -sunny

======================================================

My job title is officially 'user interface designer',
which includes information architecture, visual design
(my background), HTML, changes to the visual aspect of
ASP, ASPX pages and controls, client and project
management.

I work with two other designers in an engineering
environment on the cutting edge of technology. We work
closely together with our developers and make quite an
effort to achieve the most efficient collaboration and
communication.

However in an engineering driven environment it is,
especially in the current economical situation,
difficult to put an emphasis on the discovery phase,
participatory design session and user & task analysis.
Customers are often not willing to invest in any kind
of "design" work and we have to rely increasingly on
our developers to "sell" proper user research before
starting to code. Therefore our engineers have to
understand the importance of usability and design.
They need to integrate the designers from the
beginning and not at the end of the development phase
to do some make-up and now hard to fix user interface.

With some of our developers it is a continuous battle
to have them focus on a usable quality product rather
than supposedly getting client satisfaction by
integrating additional features. To change their way
of
thinking to a truly user centered approach is a
challenge - once we are successful, the result however
is quite rewarding.

The challenge:

- Convincing customers and engineers to take a user
centered approach and integrating the design
department early enough in the process.
- It can take time to change mind frames, habits and
communication patterns in order for the whole team and
the client to be on the same page.
- Maintaining a constant flow of communication and
feedback between customers, designers and engineers.
- As a designer, getting the opportunity for feedback
and a last visual sign-off after implementation often
due to time constraints.
- Sometimes developers have their own pride about
"their" UI or are oblivious to usability and design
issues -> roles and responsibilities
need to be clearly defined in the beginning of a
project and respected by everyone which is often being
neglected.


Hope this helps and I am looking forward to your
summary.

Thanks, Verena

======================================================

Take a look at this:
http://www.uiweb.com/issues/issue22.htm. I think
this is what you're looking for.

-Scott

======================================================

I'd like a good drawing tool, for drawing GUIs.  I
usually end up using pencil and paper because I
haven't found a good computer based tool.

- Mitch

======================================================

As aked:

drs. Bart Schutz
Senior Research Consultant/ Manager qualitative
(Usability) research at MetrixLab, The Netherlands.
1. Convincing clients to implement iterative testing
(caused by: costs and time span).
2. Clients webbuilder starts 'helping' the client to
interpret our results...
3. MetrixLab offers a very helpfull quantitative
usability test. Having used this test, clients prefer
this method, while in our opinion the qualitative
iterative usability test is still of major importance
during a redesign process.

Success!
Bart


-------------------------------
Drs. B. Schutz
Senior Research Consultant

MetrixLab Nederland
Eendrachtsweg 36
3012 LC Rotterdam
The Netherlands

www.MetrixLab.com
tel. +31-10-2827468
fax  +31-10-2927469
e-mail [log in to unmask]
--------------------------------



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