We Are Not Alone: Usability Practitioners' Role in the Optimal Design Team
Wednesday, August 16, 10:45-11:30 PM
by Jared Spool
In most organizations, design is not a solo activity. Different individuals, each with their own set of skills, come together to create an ideal user experience. Yet, we know very little about how to form these groups, and, more specifically, how to best do our jobs within them.
By studying several dozen design teams, the UIE research team has spent the last few years looking at how different compositions lead to the most effective results. How do you build a team to produce the best possible designs?
In this presentation, Jared will discuss the three approaches of design team organization: Consulting, Review & Approve, and Educate & Administrate. He'll talk about the different approaches that teams take, where they succeed, and where they run into trouble.
Jared will also discuss the differences UIE has found between the approach of a centralized user experience team and distributed approaches that put skilled individuals within each of the development teams. He'll talk about the issues of scaling design to meet the needs of the enterprise once its value becomes realized and the pitfalls of specialization.
About Jared Spool
A software developer and programmer, Jared founded User Interface Engineering in 1988. He has more than 15 years of experience conducting usability evaluations on a variety of products, and is an expert in low-fidelity prototyping techniques.
Jared is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute and teaches seminars on product usability. He is a member of SIGCHI, the Usability Professionals Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the IEEE. Jared is a recognized authority on user interface design and human factors in computing. He is a regular tutorial speaker at the annual CHI conference and Society for Technical Communications conferences around the country.