Re: Vendor management support for user-centered design (was " Our Workflow Works against us Was: user-centered design")

From: Casey Bisson <cbisson_at_nyob>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 10:49:59 -0400
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Mark,

your question gets to the center of the very problem we face.

To vendors, the customer is the user, and the customer generally gets
what s/he pays for. But that doesn't mean we get what we want or need.

Our purchasing processes, limited R&D investments, and stagnant
marketplace are among the real problems perturbing us today, but we
have to remember that we're living with a beast that we created.
Fortunately, I think _we_ can solve it (and this list is rich with
people rushing to do just that).

Related: two blog posts about a purchasing process here that led to
big ticket spending on a software suite that still has yet to serve
the users we bought it for:

http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11291/
http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11298/


Casey Bisson
__________________________________________

Information Architect
Plymouth State University
Plymouth, New Hampshire
http://oz.plymouth.edu/~cbisson/
ph: 603-535-2256



On May 4, 2007, at 9:57 AM, Andrews, Mark J. wrote:

> I wonder if some of the software developers working for our vendor
> partners, lurking on this list, could share some of their experiences
> with user-centered design on the list?
>
> I am particularly interested in how much support developers get from
> management in supporting (with people, time and money) user-centered
> design.  I understand that this is a difficult question to answer
> frankly - if that is not possible, that is okay.
>
> Mark Andrews, Creighton University
Received on Fri May 04 2007 - 08:41:29 EDT