Institutionalizing Usability
We have experience of building usability teams, and we know how to integrate usability into a design process, and how to “sell” it within an organization.
We do not believe that organizations should become consultant-dependent, and we can help you grow your own usability discipline.
Specifically, we can help you to:
- Develop your usability design strategy
- Raise awareness within your company
- Demonstrate usability ROI
- Develop tools and templates
- Ensure adherence to usability standards
- Hire the right people
- Get the right usability training
- Climb the usability maturity ladder (see right)
Usability Impact Audit
Is usability making a difference in your organization? We can audit your usability process and help you see what your process-partners and other stakeholders in your organization expect from their usability commitment.
Our audit will uncover the strengths and weaknesses of the service currently provided by your usability endeavors, as perceived by your practitioners and their internal “clients”; identify opportunities for expanding usability services in your organization; and carry out an analysis of the organization’s usability awareness and training needs.
Building your own Usability Lab
A usability testing lab can be created at very low cost using technology that is readily available.
Whether you develop consumer products or other physical systems, software applications or web sites, your designs, prototypes, and competitor’s systems can be usability tested quickly and effectively without major expense.
We can show you how to get started using recording equipment and data logging tools that are readily available off the shelf, and some that are even free!
How customer-centered are you?
Discover what it means for a design process to be customer-centered by taking this quick and thought-provoking test.
Take the test (Downloads as an Excel file: 45k)
The Usability Maturity Ladder
Where is your company in terms of usability maturity? This maturity scale is a useful way of getting a fix on where your company is with respect to institutionalizing its usability proficiency:
Level 0: Clueless
The organization is unaware of usability as a discipline. Design decisions are based on intuition and political arguments.
Level 1: Piecemeal
Individuals are trying to apply usability techniques to some projects but there is no commitment by the organization, and usability is not managed.
Level 2: Managed
The organization recognizes that usability must be a core competency. An executive champion has been identified and usability is part of a plan.
Level 3: Implemented
Design is following a user-centered methodology. Templates and tools are in place. Usability industry standards are followed.
Level 4: Staffing
The organization has staffed up - though a mix of internal staff and consultants - to give usability support to all major projects.
Level 5: Routine
Usability is a routine practice in the organization. The usability practitioners have a strong and mature voice and lead design from the front. Projects do not proceed without usability being involved.
Based on Earthy, J. (1998). Usability maturity model: Human centredness scale. Telematics Applications Project IER 2016. WP5. Deliverable D5.1.4(s); and on Schaffer, E. (2004). Institutionalization of Usability: A step-by-step guide. (Addison-Wesley).