Anderson, R. Moving UX into a position of corporate influence: Whose advice really works? uiGarden, October 2007.
"...be sure to not make the mistake of thinking that what you learn worked in another company is without question what you should be doing and what will work in yours.."
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Anderson, R. Check your disciplines at the door UX Magazine, May 2007.
"as stated by Bill (Moggridge): 'it is easy to sit around the table and argue the different case from the different discipline point of view; the big challenge is to work across disciplines fluently.'
That might be the most important thing teams need to learn how to do."
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Anderson, R. What is holding user experience back where you work? UX Magazine, May 2007.
"During our recently completed Managing User Experience Groups course, I used a (speed boat) metaphor to learn about some of what is holding User Experience back or propelling User Experience forward in the rather wide range of companies represented by the students. For one exercise, I drew a speed boat and several anchors hanging from it on the whiteboard, and asked everyone to write onto post-its whatever has been holding User Experience back where they work and then place those post-its on the several anchors. To learn what the students believe has been key to propelling User Experience forward where they work (to the extent that it has been propelled or is being propelled forward), I shifted the focus of the Speed Boat exercise from the anchors to -- you guessed it -- the engine propellers."
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Anderson, R. [featuring Ashley, J., Miller, J., Nieters, J., Sampson Eves, S., Tscheligi, M. (for Herrmann, T.), & Watson, S. T.] Moving UX into a position of corporate influence: Whose advice really works? (PDF 140K) Longer version of paper appearing in the CHI 2007 Extended Abstracts.
"Professionals working to move user experience (UX) into a position of corporate influence are impeded by conflicting recommendations, including those regarding the roles of documenting and evangelizing UX work, ownership of UX, organizational positioning, calculating return on investment, and conducting "ethnographic" research. In [the CHI 2007 session described in this paper], a group of senior UX management personnel who have moved UX into positions of rapidly increasing influence in their varied places of work debate their different perspectives and approaches to help resolve the conflicting recommendations and generate some new and improved guidance."
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Anderson, R., Instone, K., Knemeyer, D., Mazur, B., & Quesenbery, W. User Experience network: A passion for collaboration. (PDF 1.39MB) interactions, May+June 2005, pp. 40-41.
"WHO OWNS USER EXPERIENCE (UX)? This is the wrong question to ask. We don't
believe that any single group can own UX.
What's the alternative? In our view, a useful focus is collaboration, not ownership. The
best successes come from collaboration. Whatever type of product, service, or document
you are creating, whether it's a Web site, an application program, an MP3 player, or a financial
form, user experience encompasses so many diverse aspects of your product that
'ownership' just isn't a useful perspective. UX is about providing value to your customer
and the business serving that customer. The best user experience is the product of many
different disciplines working together."
"If 'Who owns user experience?' is the wrong question, what's the right question?
What about 'How do you manage the kind of collaboration that leads to real change?'"
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Quesenbery, W., Anderson, R., & Mazur, B. UXnet: Making connections. (PDF 320K) CHI 2005 Extended Abstracts, pp. 1098-1099.
"The User Experience network (UXnet) starts from the principle that
facilitating connections is key to increased value: for the
profession, for organizations, for businesses and for
individuals."
"One of the goals for UXnet is to provide a "home" for the big picture or strategic discussions that, by their very nature, require cross-disciplinary communications. ... Where current organizations are focused on a single aspect of UX, and on the critical goal of serving their members, UXnet is focused on the overview and the relationships between the disciplines."
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Anderson, R., Crakow, J., & Joichi, J. Improving the design of business and interactive system concepts.... (PDF 12.7MB) DIS 2002, 'Serious Reflection on Designing Interactive Systems', The British Museum, London, 25-28 June 2002.
"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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Anderson, R. 1996-2001 CHI Local SIGs Column Sampler. SIGCHI Bulletin, November+December 2001.
Konstan, J. A. Parting Thoughts. SIGCHI Bulletin, May+June 2003.
"Richard Anderson, as SIGCHI's adjunct chair for local SIGs, delivered a powerful mix of case studies, advice, and support through the local SIGs column. His columns still serve as a useful reference as ever-renewed generations of local SIG leadership face the same challenges anew."
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Anderson, R. & Braiterman, J. Strategies for making e-business more customer-centred. In J. Bawa, P. Dorazio, & L. Trenner (Editors), The Usability Business: Making the Web Work. Springer-Verlag London Ltd, November 2001.
"Building user-centered business and experience design practices in the world of digital business requires diplomacy, flexibility, and above all, creativity."
"...some of our most valuable work extends beyond usability -- including using customer-centered activities early so that we contribute to business strategy and plans, and extending concept and design research to attend to brand experience and self-directed exploration."
"Successfully 'evolving' established work practices requires ongoing learning of other participants' perspectives, ongoing tailoring of activities in view of these perspectives, and ongoing education of all involved."
"To really know how to handle [your organization's] political issues, you must understand what drives your organization, its values and goals. Just as important as gathering a full understanding of customers for experience design and business strategy, you need to conduct research in your own organization and understand how your work can contribute to its business objectives."
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Anderson, R. Organizational limits to HCI: A conversation with Don Norman & Janice Rohn. (PDF 1.8MB) interactions, May+June 2000, pp. 36-60.
"Don Norman: ...the real important decisions are made at the top. Those are the people who will decide what direction you're moving in, what the time frame is, what the budget will be, where the emphasis is, ..., and we need more people from the CHI community to be those executives...to be making those decisions which will eventually empower this profession. Look, this field should not be about usability; that's a silly thing. This field should be about empowering users, and that decision is made at the executive level.
...Companies are not in the business of making usable products; they're in the business of making money. So what we have to do is learn how to understand what motivates a company and speak that language. We shouldn't say, 'Hey, you've got to make your stuff more usable.' We should say, 'Hey, I can teach you how to make more profit.'
...Why do you think [marketing has] so much of a role determining the products? It's not because they're brighter, and it's not because they have any more truths. It's because they know how to play the game better. What I suggest is that it's time we learn how to play the game."
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Anderson, R. Conversations with Clement Mok & Jakob Nielsen on web and web design limits to HCI, and with Bill Buxton & Clifford Nass on human limits to HCI. (PDF 964K) interactions, January+February 2000, pp. 46-80.
"Clement Mok: Graphic designers as well as software designers are trained and genetically engineered to be solo pilots. They sort of meet and get the brief; then they go off and do their magic. And I think engineers are that way, too. Inherently, and given the training that people have had, it is about being stars-about individually creating great experiences. The Web is so complicated with its many interdependencies that it's important to not only nurture the great creative individuals, but to also create the great squadrons and the squadron leaders."
"Bill Buxton: Since the skill of design is not well understood, everybody is an expert, and they all have an equal vote. There's no other discipline that I'm aware of where everybody has an equal vote, regardless of their skill or expertise. So, one of the ingredients that will bring us better design within companies and other organizations is getting to the essence of what the core elements of design are that we have to put into place...in terms of the organizational structure of our teams and so on."
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Anderson, R. Modeling system evolution: A means of cutting through obstacles to desirable change to large business (information) systems, their many computer-human interfaces, and user/operator responsibilities. CHI '92 Interactive Poster, Monterey, CA.
"Too often, attempted change and change planning suffers from inadequate insight, coordination, and involvement. Decision makers frequently get caught up in political contests, utilize and are affected by cognitive or organizational structures and procedures that hinder beneficial cooperation/participation, and focus excessively on visible technology end-states and inadequately on business and human processes, underlying infrastructure, and enabling intermediate-states."
