Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice

“This book is a great how-to manual for people who want to bring the benefits of improved user experience to their companies. It’s thorough yet still accessible for the smart businessperson. I’ve been working with user-centered design for over twenty years, and I found myself circling tips and tricks.”

–Harley Manning, vice president & research director, customer experience, Forrester Research

 

”Some argue that the big advances in our impact on user experience will come from better methods or new technologies. Some argue that they will come from earlier involvement in the design and development process. The biggest impact, however, will come as more and more companies realize the benefits of user-centered design and build cultures that embrace it. Eric offers a practical roadmap to get there.”

–Arnie Lund, connected experience labs technology leader and human—systems interaction lab manager, GE Global Research

 

“User experience issues are a key challenge for development of increasingly complex products and services. This book provides much-needed insights to help managers achieve their key objectives and to develop more successful solutions.”

–Aaron Marcus, president, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.

 

“This handy book should be required reading for any executive champions of change in any development organization making products that demand a compelling user experience. It does an excellent job in laying the foundation for incorporating user experience engineering concepts and best practices into these corporations. In today’s competitive economy, business success will greatly depend on instituting the changes in design methods and thinking that are so clearly and simply put forth in this most practical and useful book.”

–Ed Israelski, director, human factors, AbbVie

 

“If you’re tasked with building a user-experience practice in a large organization, this book is for you (and your boss). Informed by years of case studies and consulting experience, Eric Schaffer provides the long view, clearly describing what to expect, what to avoid, and how to succeed in establishing user-centered principles at your company.”

–Pat Malecek, former user experience manager, AVP, CUA, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.

 

”For those of us who have evangelized user experience for so many years, we finally have a book that offers meaningful insights that can only come from years of practical experience in the real world. Here is a wonderful guide for all who wish to make user experience a ‘way of life’ for their companies.”

–Feliça Selenko, Ph.D., former principal technical staff member, AT&T

 

“Dr. Schaffer’s mantra is that the main differentiator for companies of the future will be the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying user experiences. This is a book that provides the road map necessary to allow your organization to achieve these goals.”

–Colin Hynes, president, UX Inc.

 

Computer hardware no longer provides a competitive edge. Software has become a broadly shared commodity. A new differentiator has emerged in information technology: user experience (UX). Executives recognize that the customer satisfaction that applications and websites provide directly impacts a company’s stock price.

 

While UX practitioners know how to design usable, engaging applications that create good user experiences, establishing that process on an industrial scale poses critical IT challenges for an organization.

 

• How do you build user-centered design into your culture?
• What infrastructure do you need in order to make UX design faster, cheaper, and better?
• How do you create the organizational structure and staffing solution that will support UX design over time?

Institutionalization of UX shows how to develop a mature, user-centered design practice within an enterprise. Eric Schaffer guides readers step by step through a solid methodology for institutionalizing UX, providing practical advice on the organizational change, milestones, toolsets, infrastructure, staffing, governance, and long-term operations needed to achieve fully mature UX engineering.

 

First published in 2004 as Institutionalization of Usability, this new, expanded edition looks beyond the science of usability to the broader, deeper implications of UX: Once customers can use your applications and websites easily, how does your organization ensure that those engagements are satisfying, engaging, and relevant? Contextual innovation expert Apala Lahiri contributes a new chapter on managing cultural differences for international organizations.

 

Whether you are an executive leading the institutional-ization process, a manager supporting the transition of your organization’s UX practice, or an engineer working on UX issues, this guide will help you build a mature and sustainable practice in UX design.

 

Dr. Eric Schaffer’s prediction that the most profound differentiator for corporate computing would be a positive online user experience has made him a visionary of the “Third Wave of the Information Age.” Dr. Schaffer saw that differentiation would come from getting the user experience design job done efficiently, easily, and without frustration. Founder and CEO of Human Factors International, Dr. Schaffer has been in the field since 1977 and has run consulting and training operations worldwide.

 

Apala Lahiri, global chief of technical staff at Human Factors International and CEO of Institute of Customer Experience, is one of the world’s top experts in cross-cultural design and contextual innovation. The Bollywood Method, Bizarre Bazaar, and Funky Facilitator are just a few of the creative techniques she has developed to help companies understand user experience in diverse cultural and economic environments.