The Politics of Usability

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxii

   PDF

2. The Politics of Funding: Justifying Your Existence

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Making a Business Case for Usability and Beyond — the Fight for Survival

      • Chris Nodder

      Pages 3-19

   3. Selling Usability Services

      • Dermot Browne

      Pages 21-31

3. The Politics of Set Up: What to Do with the Money once You Have Got it

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 33-33

      PDF

   2. Overcoming Inertia within a Large Organization

      • Tasnim Kaderbhai

      Pages 35-48

   3. Integrating Usability into Systems Development

      • Alison Crerar, David Benyon

      Pages 49-60

   4. A Structured Approach to User Interface Design

      • Dermot Browne, John Friend

      Pages 61-68

   5. Making Usability Part of the Culture

      • Janet Saunders, Alan Arnfeld

      Pages 69-82

4. The Politics of Survival: Keeping Usability on the Political Map

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83

      PDF

   2. A Change is as Good as a Test

      • Maggie Williams

      Pages 85-97

   3. Consultants with Clout

      • Cathy Thomas

      Pages 99-110

   4. Cultivating an Effective Client Relationship to Promote a User-Centred Culture

      • Nichole Simpson

      Pages 111-124

5. The Politics of Expansion: How to Work Effectively on an International, Multi-Cultural Level

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 125-125

      PDF

   2. “Oh, so That’s the Way You Do it over There!”

      • Ingrid K. Towey

      Pages 127-142

   3. Spreading the Word: Introducing Usability Evaluation on an International Scale

      • Joanna Bawa

      Pages 143-155

   4. Standards and Style Guides — a Cross-Cultural Perspective

      • Tom Stewart

      Pages 157-167

   5. Usability Practice in the United States: Perception versus Reality

      • Patricia Dorazio

      Pages 169-181

   6. Round the World in 18 Days

      • Susan M. Dray, Lawrence R. Rowland

      Pages 183-190

6. Back Matter

   Pages 191-194

   PDF

Why This Book, Why Now? It is now widely recognized that in the development of IT systems, the technology­ driven focus of the past has been eclipsed by a concern for user satisfaction and user productivity. It is well known that usability engineering helps make systems easier to use and more relevant to business needs. The benefits of producing usable computer systems have been proven in careful dollar or pound calculations and any computer user who has interacted with a system designed for usability will enthuse about the benefits and refuse to go back to the bad old days. More and more organizations are starting to take usability seriously. Along with Microsoft and Apple and other IT organizations, we now find banks, insur­ ance companies, multi-national pharmaceuticals and many other non-IT corpora­ tions starting to "do something about usability". It seems as if there is plenty of material explaining how to do it. HCI (Human Computer Interaction - or CHI, Computer Human Interaction in the USA) has been studied in academia for several years and there are a range of books on usability engineering for practi­ tioners from systems engineering and user interface design to usability evaluation. However, as many practitioners have found, although you do need to understand the theories and be familiar with the techniques, applying them in a commercial context is not a straightforward matter.

• design
• organization
• testing
• usability
• user interface

• IT Strategic Planning, Glaxo Wellcome Medicines Research Centre, Stevenage, UK

  Lesley Trenner

• Watford, UK

  Joanna Bawa

Policies and ethics