I've been in different orgs where usability/interface design/interaction design/information architecture was aligned with various other departments and each alignment had it's issues:
Align with Business, (BA's) - functional requirements usurp user centric requirements Align with Marketing - marketing requirements usurp user centric requirements Align with Engineering - development issues usurp user centric requirements Align with QA - Isn't this team focused on "after the fact/this are already built" issues? (what benefit would this have, possibly in user testing?) In my experience, by far the ABSOLUTE best placement of "usability/interface design/interaction design/information architecture" was in it's own department, where UCD issues could be evaluated on their own, not competing with other depts goals. As well, having UCD dept as an agency is great as you can swap teams in and out of projects, making for a more interesting work environment. UCD dept can also include other Creative depts like graphics, and copy, which work very well together. This is my experience at least. The larger the org, the easier it should be to assemble this team. ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
