Ignite User Centered Design Thinking!

Embrace User-Centered Design

Do you remember the first time you looked at your website through the eyes of a customer?  It can be haunting to watch someone struggle to accomplish a critical task, and finally declare they’d give up in frustration.  This is the defining moment when some organizations decide it’s time to embrace user-centered design (UCD) and build a culture that will nourish and sustain it.

How to get started:

But what’s the best way to go about institutionalizing UCD?  Organizations with the best of intentions wrestle with this, and many revert to their old ways because they fail to put a process in place that will lead to cultural change.  However, other organizations successfully embed a culture of usability into their organizational fiber – and for many, the secret to success is hiring a user experience consultant, a practitioner who can help them make that transition.

Any good UX consultant can show you how to conduct a successful usability study – but that’s not enough when you are trying to institutionalize UCD.  Great UX consultants will also help you build the organizational support you’ll need for UCD to flourish.

Look for a UX consultant who can:

• Help you determine the best way to institutionalize UCD at your organization.  Consultants add immense value when they  help you figure out who might be the best internal champions; how to use return-on-investment to make a successful case to management for resources; the most effective ways to introduce your organization to UCD; and what standards, processes, and training you’ll need to ensure long-lasting cultural change.
• Help you carry out a “wake-up call.”  In my experience, you need a catalyst to open people’s eyes to the need for and benefits of usability work.  This “wake-up call” could be a usability study where people watch users struggle to complete key tasks, or it could be as simple as using a product like Crazy Egg to show a heat map of where customers click (or don’t!) when visiting your site.  The right consultant can help you choose a catalyst, carry it out, and frame the results for best effect.
• Provide templates, standards, and training.  Once you have organizational support for UCD, the best consultant will provide the templates, standards, governance processes, and training your organization will need to ensure that everyone is following the same methodology.
• Help with overflow work.  While building your in-house expertise, it can be useful to have consultants available to do overflow usability work when resources are maxed out.  This also provides the opportunity to observe experts plying their craft, which is an invaluable learning experience for in-house teams.

To learn more about institutionalizing UCD, see Eric Schaffer’s book Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice.

TecEd has a staff of experienced UX consultants who love to help organizations “see the light”!  Contact us to learn how we can help you make user centered design the heart of your organization’s Web culture.