User interfaces should provide great user experiences in order to be successful. Organizations often make use of the services of external agencies, such as Centigrade, to support them with the creation of outstanding user experiences. In the long run, however, it should be the goal to create the soil, on which successful UX design projects can thrive, within an organization. This does not necessarily mean that an organization must do all UX related activities on its own without relying on outside help – there should, however, be an organization-wide awareness and appreciation of UX and basic knowledge and capabilities should exist in-house. The following article describes some aspects that should be taken into account when trying to create such a “UX culture” within an organization.

It is still a common complaint uttered by usability professionals that organizations in general and software developers in particular “just don’t get” usability engineering. They are frustrated because they have all good intentions to provide support for creating user-friendly systems but the reactions they get are reserved at best and developers simply don’t buy into the whole usability engineering process.

So, whose fault is it? Who is it that is just not getting it?

As often in life, it takes two and an occasion to create a problem. Let’s have a closer look.

These days, clients often mention the iPhone when describing their thoughts and goals concerning usability and user interface design, e.g. during project kickoffs.

On the one hand it’s nice to see user interface design and usability getting a good rap through the iPhone and more people realizing that the user interface is more than just the topping on the cake, but still, whenever those “Make it like the iPhone” statements are uttered, there are some things to discuss to set expectations appropriately.

First, it should be clarified that such a statement can be interpreted in two different ways. For one, it can mean “Make the user interface as easy to use and aesthetical as the iPhone’s”, which usually is the intended meaning. But it can also be interpreted as “Conduct the user interface design project in a way similar to the iPhone creation”, which is usually not the intended meaning, even though those two aspects are intimately intertwined.

Let’s have a look at both aspects.