INTERACT 2003 - Bringing the Bits together
Workshop 4
#4 - The Business Case of HCI
Workshop Results
- Introduction Slides (PDF, 36 KByte)
- Participants & Agenda
- Flip Charts:
- Usability Job Descriptions in the US
If you have any feedback or further input, please contact Patrick Steiger.
Patrick Steiger
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Stampfenbachstr. 73, CH-8035 Zurich, Switzerland
steiger@userexperience.ch
Gitte Lindgaard
Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
KIS 5B6
gitte_lindgaard@carleton.ca
Daniel Felix
ergonomie & technologie ETH, Technoparkstrasse 1, CH-8005 Zurich,
Switzerland
felix@iha.bepr.ethz.ch
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has been in existence almost as long
as the discipline of software engineering. Yet HCI is still perceived
in industry as a cost factor or a "nice to have" and more
marginal than other software engineering activities. Companies often
look for an HCI "rubber stamp" to assure themselves that their product
is usable but are still resistant to involving HCI at all stages of
development. This has been the same throughout the history of HCI. Why
is it that HCI has matured as a discipline but has made little in roads
into being accepted as mainstream in the industrial process of development?
Why is it so easy to ignore or sideline HCI as something that is nice
to have if the budget can stretch to it? In a time where products are
developed in web time, is HCI actually fit for purpose? Can we, as HCI
practitioners, justify our existence in the commercial business model
of a company? Accounting and project management practices are over 100
years old – how can we influence the way
that companies look at their bottom line by providing examples where
HCI has made a difference? It would appear that, as a discipline HCI
still lacks a way of marketing itself as an essential asset for the
business community.
A successful 1-day workshop on this topic was conducted at CHI 2002.
We want to build on its results and move forward to produce effective
material that helps HCI practitioners to convince their employer/clients
that HCI is a must for every technology company and that usability engineers
are a necessary part of every product development team. In this workshop
we want to come up with a business case and associated messages
that persuades the product planner, the CEO, and the head of development
of a company that HCI is essential to their business.
Here is a more detailed description of this workshop.
Call for Participation
We are convinced that there are many HCI folks out there who have data,
thoughts, experiences, successes, disasters, and models to share. We
also believe that by putting it all together, your input can help strengthen
our collective business case. If your story is any of the above and
you are interested in furthering HCI at the business level, please send
your position paper to Patrick
Steiger.
The workshop is aimed at HCI practitioners, although academics with
relevant experience are welcome to apply as well. Participants should
fulfil one or more of the following criteria:
- Bring their own HCI success stories that have probably not reached the HCI literature
- Bring their own major HCI disaster stories
- Work in companies in which HCI is integrated into development procedures
- Work in companies in which the integration of HCI into development procedures is progressing
- Are successfully applying HCI cost/benefit/business value models to their work already
- Have developed and applied one or more quantitative cost/benefit/business value models that are not written up
- Have insight to share on the topic
In addition, we will aim to select participants who represent companies varying in purpose (e.g. manufacturing, telco, services) size, and type of product (internal systems, consumer products).