KAREL VREDENBURG Increasing Ease of Use

67 team design a total solution starting with the externals of a product—everything the user sees and touches—and then gather user input via UCD user feedback methods that attempt to understand users, evaluate design, and assess competitiveness. This article outlines the approach with particular emphasis on organizational transformation, process integration , and UCD method optimization. Origins A human-factors organization was first established at IBM over four decades ago and various usability and human-factors methods have been used over the years. A new approach, IBM's version of UCD, was developed in the early 1990s. Based initially on Norman and Draper's seminal work on user-centered system design [3], IBM's UCD approach also incorporated key ideas from Hamel and Prehalad's work on Strategic Intent [1], Wiklund's sum-Ease of use is a strategic focus within IBM and our User-Centered Design approach is the prime vehicle for achieving it. IBM UCD is targeted at designing competitive ease of use into the total user experience with hardware, software, and services offerings. It ensures that products are easy to buy, easy to unpack, easy to set up, easy to upgrade, easy to learn, easy to use, engaging, intuitive, and integrated. The IBM approach essentially involves having a multidisciplinary Emphasizing organizational transformation, process integration, and method optimization. Challenges in a large and mature UCD organization like IBM are clearly different from those in a small pioneering group like ours at Danfoss. For us it is interesting but also difficult to understand how the widespread UCD employees are able to keep in contact and learn from each other. How do you nurture a continuous learning process? IBMÕs way of making UCD visible in the organization by using the company intranet seems to work very well. The idea of minimizing the physical distance between UCD employees and users by using the Web is very interesting and looks like it has succeeded at IBM. At Danfoss we should improve communication to the rest of the organization too, but until now we have been reluctant to develop computer-based tools out of fear that the effort will shift our focus from continuous competence building to premature methods standardization.