I just want to put out a quick call for participation to everyone. I am going to be posting my thoughts about design and business to this site periodically, in hopes of starting a conversation about the topics in the book.
But the beauty of a blog is that it needn't be one-sided. I hope you'll post your own comments and thoughts here, too. After all, the book is just a starting point. Let's continue the discussion.
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Does not sound too compelling of a book. Seems that what I have read here is common knowledge and usability is and should be standard practice among sophisticated IT shops.
Thanks for kicking off the discussion.
Here are some things to consider before discounting the book.
You say, “usability is and should be standard practice.” I agree that it “should be” and I believe that most IT shops would claim that usability is a desired outcome.
However, vast usability departments exist within the largest and most “sophisticated IT shops,” yet the business systems they are producing are still profoundly ineffective in the hands of end users.
I believe firmly that for twenty years the business software industry has behaved as if “usability” can come into existence without design, when, in truth, usability is one of many outcomes from the practice of design. Sadly, a design process that takes human requirements as seriously as business and technical requirements is still lacking in the world of business software development.
My book suggests that usability is achieved only when a true design process guides software development. This process is led by a designer and informed by the people who will use the product.
Acott, as my students have seen in the “Managing Information Systems” course I’ve developed and taught and in the case studies they have done – usability is often neglected. A key issue, like Harold points out, is to get all stakeholders and users involved, understand business processes (how they are, how they should be), users’ thought processes (and those differ across users), users’ interaction processes with the software, and what good design mean.
Most software developers are not designers, do not understand users, and often do not really understand the process (business or otherwise) they are encoding. As most people who interact with software would say, “if only they were”…