Working Together to Improve Usability: Challenges and Best Practices

In theory, usability work is an important and wellintegrated activity in developing software. In practice, however, collaboration on improving usability is ridden with challenges relating to conflicting professional goals, tight project schedules, and unclear usability findings. We study those challenges through 16 interviews with software developers, usability experts, and project managers. Four key challenges to successful interaction between stakeholders are identified: poor timing when delivering usability results, results lacking relevance, little respect for other disciplines, and difficulties sharing important information. We discuss practices that address these challenges, and present four guidelines to support the collaboration and professional relationship among developers, usability experts, and project managers. Our observations are further discussed as encompassing multiple perspectives and as a collaborative crossprofessional learning process.