Driving user centered design into IT organizations

Abstract

In many organizations, actively engaging in user-centered design (UCD) techniques is standard practice when delivering products into the commercial marketplace or to external customers. But in these same organizations -or in organizations not delivering products to an external customer -the creation of systems for use by employees is a conversation between IT and the business unit. UCD professionals are either not participating, or they have very limited influence. This SIG creates a forum for people with real-world experience and challenges to discuss how -and whether it is even possible -to bring UCD into the IT organization.

Information visualization evaluation in large companies: Challenges, experiences and recommendations

“…While novel requirements and challenges applying UCD for in-house tools, such as platform and application buying concerns, change management, or the IT life cycle, have been previously discussed 26,27 related work in this specific area is still rare. In particular, the challenges of information visualization evaluation-as opposed to general usability evaluation-have not received much attention in this context.…”

“…While much of the previous work was concerned with employing UCD to develop tools for expert users on the outside, we are interested in designing information visualization tools for use within a large company to improve the work processes of its employees. While novel requirements and challenges applying UCD for in-house tools, such as platform and application buying concerns, change management, or the IT life cycle, have been previously discussed 26,27 related work in this specific area is still rare. In particular, the challenges of information visualization evaluation – as opposed to general usability evaluation – have not received much attention in this context.…”

“…The value of usability and aesthetics in visualization should never be underestimated. In-house tools often neglect these aspects, 27 so they can become important distinctive features to be used to gain acceptance of novel tools and to convince stakeholders. During the development of MostVis, for example, we intensively focused on usability engineering aided by several usability studies.…”