The Role of Organizational Strategy in the User-centered Design of Mobile Applications

Gathering insights on users and their usage context is at the core of the User-Centered Design (UCD) approach. The efficient and effective usage of these insights is strategically important to organizations. With the proliferation of mobile applications, gaining timely and relevant insights is increasingly challenging due to the heterogeneous and dynamic context of use, the abundant availability of information on usage behaviour as well as the intense time constraints imposed by the highly competitive mobile market. This paper develops a research model that considers strategy foci as motivators affecting the efficient and effective usage of insights on users and context. Mediating effects of UCD resources, like time and financial constraints, organizational practices, as well as UCD competences are examined. To test the model a survey was conducted with 100 mobile practitioners and PLS was used to estimate the model. The model shows that focus on an innovation strategy greatly affects data usage on user and their context, directly and indirectly, i.e. mediated by organizational practices and UCD competences. Strategies with a focus on cost have no direct effect on the usage of user insights, but lead to negative impacts on UCD competences and organizational practices.