A failure to communicate

Responding to Ralph Lord's comments -

I have always found that old adage 'a picture is worth a thousand words' to
be true in working with users as well as developers.   In the past project I
worked on, in which the domain was  partiularly complex, and the domain
knowledge hard to get out of the users' organisation, because a lot of it was
'custom and practice' stuff,  we found it helpful to do screen mock-ups in
parallel with use cases - this enabled us all to progress a lot more quickly
through the design stages and discover where the gaps were in our
understanding.

In a workshop I helped facilitate at HCI 2001 on 'User-Centred Design' , we
tried to define what was necessary to constitute a 'UCD' project.  Involving
real users (not just the client's analysts etc.), and doing some element of
usability testing seemed to be the bottom line.  However, this doesn't sound
too radical an approach when you're trying to sell the idea.  Perhaps the
communication through easy to understand 'artifacts' could be the 'missing
link'.


Janet Saunders
Userwyse Ltd



During recent work to "sell" the need for incorporating user/usage centered
design activities and the accompanying resources (people to do the
activities)into CDC development projects, a higher-level argument was made
which I'd like to share with the group.
...........
You and I may know that these roles, activities and artifacts will result in
a more useful and usable application.  But the way we have sold it here is
to stress the enhanced communications that these elements promote.  And, by
increasing communication we're promising: earlier stabilization of
requirements, fewer changes later in the process, faster construction,
increased visibility of high-risk/high-importance areas, a clearer path for
investigating different designs, increased user/client confidence in signing
off, etc.

We've so far had good success in getting management interested in the same
old UCD methods (with a few of our own tweaks) by packaging them in language
promising to make the projects run more smoothly by increasing team
communications.

Anyone else out there done something similar? Thoughts, criticisms, need for
more clarity?





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