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It is widely accepted that users should be involved in the development of interactive systems. However, involving users in interactive systems development is challenging, especially in product development. The organizational culture is a key factor affecting the successes and failures of organizational change and development efforts. This paper shows how user involvement is intertwined with the organizational cultures in a case study offive software development organizations. User involvement is indirect in the case organizations, and labeled as usability work. Using cross case analysis, four 'cultures of usability work' are identified. The cultures have distinct cultural characteristics, employ different approaches to usability work, and have different preferences and strategies for the prospective facilitation of usability work. Sensitivity to the cultural context is identified as an important consideration in the facilitation of usability work, and culturally compatible strategies for usability work in different cultural settings are identified. The paper concludes that there might not be one 'best, universally valid, context free way' of introducing and carrying out usability work in software product development organizations. q

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Based on an extensive literature analysis, this paper examines usercentredness in the context of systems development as a multidimensional concept composed of four aspects: user focus, work-centredness, user involvement and system personalization. Each dimension loads user-centredness with different meanings. The four dimensions can be used for evaluating systems development methods and approaches as to what extent and in what sense they adhere to the ideals of user-centredness. To illustrate this, the dimensions are applied to the analysis of four allegedly user-centred systems development methods: Goal Directed Interaction Design, Contextual Design, Scenario-Based Design and Human-Centred Systems Development Life Cycle. The analysis shows considerable variation in how these methods address the four dimensions of user-centredness.