Improving the design of business and interactive system concepts in a digital business consultancy

ABSTRACT

Often, the multidisciplinary design of business and interactive system concepts is not particularly collaborative nor nearly as "user-centered" as the organization doing the design claims. This paper describes efforts at changing that within a high speed and low resource environment by involving all disciplines in early user research and in the synthesis of the findings and their application to design activities. The focus is on two high-profile design projects, one involving personal media management and the other involving organizational knowledge management. We describe what we did and why, and how well what we did worked, with particular attention to the affects of organizational culture and politics on success.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: User-centered design

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.7 Organization and Design
          Subjects: Interactive systems

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Organizational design

  J. Computer Applications
  J.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DATA PROCESSING
      Subjects: Business

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
business concept design, interactive system concept design, multidisciplinary collaboration, organizational culture, process improvement, rapid ethnography, user-centered design