Collaborative Design for Strategic UXD Impact and Global Product Value

Experts in the field of HCI have spoken at length about how to increase the strategic influence of User Experience Design (UXD) teams in industry [2] [5]. Others have talked about how to build a usability or user experience team in industry [3], and others have offered courses in managing HCI organizations [1] [7]. At the same time, other experts have spoken about the importance of making products usable and desirable for international audiences [9] and the value of “offshoring” their usability efforts [8]. Few though have discussed the value and process for an embedded UXD Group functioning as an internal consultancy to different product teams within their organizations. This paper presents both how the consultancy model can increase the strategic effectiveness of UXD inside a company, and how, by leveraging partners internationally, such groups can broaden the usefulness, usability, and desirability of their products to a more global audience.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: HCI
• Authors: James E. Nieters, David Williams
• Keywords: HCI 2007, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, User Experience Design, User Experience Team