HF/E Managers Speak Out

One suggestion offered for creating advocacy for HF/E at higher
management levels is to encourage senior HF/E personnel and
consultants to take positions as product managers, development
managers, and marketing directors within the organization. This
could grow a culture in which designers, programmers, engineers,
and marketing managers understand that good usability solutions
do not “just happen” and are not just “common sense.” Today,
effective HF/E leaders seek support for their projects by identifying
and educating middle- and upper-level managers who will
campaign for human-centered products, thereby creating an environment
poised for success when adequate human and financial
resources are available.
In addition, HF/E-friendly organizations have an infrastructure
that encourages the tracking of problems and their solutions. This
type of infrastructure provides a mechanism for capturing the
input of HF/E professionals and the value added by their early
involvement in a project. A critical aspect of this procedure is to
quantitatively assess and document the performance of all contributors
during the development process, thereby preserving information
that is generally not available at the end of the project.