The Politics of Usability: A Practical Guide to Designing Usable Systems in Industry (Practitioner Series)

The Politics of Usability is written by Usability professionals from a variety of non–IT organisations, who have dealt with the issues involved in getting started: how do you get started, how do you secure funding, how do you sell your message, what resources are available to help you? once you have convinced your colleagues of the benefits, what methods should you use in your environment, how do you work with applications developers? what happens when your department expands – how do you build a functional team, can you work effectively across international borders? The authors take you through the process of starting and running a Usability Group, alert you to the political problems you may encounter in getting off the ground and suggest some solutions. They also discuss ways to manage Usability once the idea has taken off, including ideas about where Usability should ‘sit‘within the organisation, how to set up a Usability Lab and how to manage an expanding, international function.