About the Author

Karen is the Manager of the STC Usability and User Experience Community.

STC UUX Community Newsletter
Usability Interface

A Question of Process

By Karen Bachmann

When we consider the right questions to ask in usability, we first think of the questions we should ask our users and stakeholders. This line of questioning is a necessary part of our jobs. However, I have seen few articles outside of the ROI of usability discussions where usability professionals ask questions about the usability of our own processes and approaches—that is, the actual integration of usability within a development team. On the other hand, I have met many technology and business professionals who point out that while usability is a wonderful idea, it does not fit into their processes. The list of excuses includes the time it takes, resources, and others that you have probably encountered. Considering the deeper implications of this response could lead to the conclusion that some of our colleagues view usability itself as unusable: inefficient, hard to learn and integrate, and burdensome.

What questions do we need to ask of ourselves and our clients to understand what their needs are? If we accept that many of them really do consider usability a great idea, than why do they so quickly dismiss its practice? How do they define satisfaction with the usability process? What other questions are we not asking or are we asking wrong?

The ROI discussion mentioned above is a start along this path. Successfully tying usability to ROI requires speaking the language of our “users,” establishing benefits in terms of their value propositions. We have to understand the business drivers and context of use—all the types of questions we ask our users for our projects.

Still, much more is needed for companies to make the cultural shift to valuing usability and making the time and budgetary trade-offs. As technical communicators, we tend to document our processes through content plans, style guides, and a host of other tools. We are, therefore, already used to applying our own skills to improve our success and integration with our projects. As usability advocates, however formal that role is, we can apply these communication lessons.

This assertion is based on actual experience. A previous employer was in the process of formally documenting their development processes as I was moving into the usability role from a more traditional technical communication role. I made a point to document my usability tasks meshed within the emerging processes. Juxtaposing the two processes, their familiar daily practice with my unfamiliar “wonderful idea” of usability, removed the option to dismiss usability as too time consuming or burdensome. Some projects may have had other objections, but the idea that usability could not be implemented in a usable fashion was no longer one of them.

As I was relatively new to usability, the usability practices I documented were a mix of what I had done that worked in that environment as well as an exploration of the practices I had learned about from other sources but had been unable to implement fully. Having some successes to highlight helped build a case for expanding the role and application of usability. Showing a clear understanding of the existing development practices within my documented processes built credibility around my assertions that usability did not have to be burdensome. Another useful activity was to circulate my ideas and drafts among friendly project leads, effectively networking to build grass-roots support.

Of course, good timing and a receptive corporate culture contributed as well. I was certainly fortunate that the company had defined processes, they valued documenting them for repeatability, and they were willing to embrace new practices that added value without too much time or cost. However, even in companies where well-defined processes did not exist, being willing to document what I could do and relate it to the de facto processes familiar to the company has yielded results. Other usability professionals have shared similar success stories, but far fewer of us than have expressed frustration when an organization falls back into bad usability habits or just never seems to get it.