doc Things Take Time - Establishing Usability Work in a University Context

This short paper present a project spanning over two years with the goal of establishing usability work in a university context. The project was a collaborative project where members from the university administrations planning division worked together with action researchers in order to reach the project goals. During the first year the project members educated almost 200 of the IT professionals working at the university, and organised seminars and workshops. The second year the project did two studies on the work environment and usability issues of the people working with financial administration, which were well received within the organisation. To summarize one can say that the project was successful, and that the collaboration within the project worked well despite the fact that it is difficult to measure organisational changes of this nature. Usability work is now an integrated part of the development plans at the university, and usability work will be catered for by a the establishment of a knowledge center to enable continuous development in this field. However, one can conclude that a sustainable work environment requires sustainable change process regarding usability. There are surely no quick fixes, and things take time.