Re: starting human factors work

I found Alan Cooper's book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum an
interesting read on the subject of advocating usability within an
organization that's not already sold on its value. Though I didn't
agree with every word of it by any means, and I don't know what
engineers think of the way they're portrayed in it, you might consider
checking it out.

I'm always a fan of having stakeholders of all kinds watch usability
tests, though I don't know if it's the best way to dispel the myth
that "users aren't stupid." I've observed and administered some tests
where we'd get at least one or two users who appeared unable to do the
most "obvious" tasks (some just related to operating system). On the
other hand, if someone believes that users -- or, more importantly,
your customers specifically -- are "stupid," that's all the more
reason to take the time to make the UI simple enough for them to use.
After all, the engineers are not paying their own salaries (one
hopes).

I've been very lucky in that most of the time I've worked with
engineers who were at least interested in usability and receptive to
working with me. This doesn't mean they took every recommendation I
provided (especially on their pet projects), but it helped. Do
anything you can to build a rapport, even with just a few key members
of the engineering team. Once they trust you and you have a
cooperative relationship (as opposed to a judicial one -- they send
over a UI and you declare certain aspects of it "unusable"), you can
often slip in small but crucial changes even close to deadline.

- Drew
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