My colleague Yulia Nemchinova and I have had a significant breakthrough that will begin to make user centered design a common practice at UMUC. We have found an ally in our department who just happens to be the newly hired director. We had a meeting with him yesterday, and we did not need to sell the idea of user centered design to him at ALL. He is already a believer, and is willing to support us in our efforts. I see exciting times ahead. I am now in a position to change UMUC for the better. Only time will tell how implementing user centered design at UMUC will impact the organization as a whole. I think that it has the potential to take what is now a poor user experience and turn it into an excellent one.

Corporate Usability Steps 1-4
Corporate Usability Steps 5-8

These two links outline the typical cycle of the acceptance of usability practices within an organization. I believe that UMUC is currently in Step 2: Developer Centered Usability. The next logical step is Step 3: Skunkworks Usability, which was discussed yesterday. Yet, even though, as the article outlines, there is typically no ‘official’ recognition of the practice and no budget for the activities, this level of usability acceptance is the point where the practice actually shows RESULTS. It is these results that can allow me and my colleagues to move UMUC through the next steps of the usability life cycle. I believe a goal of moving to Step 4, having dedicated budget usability, by the start the next fiscal year will be necessary to be successful in this Endeavour. To accomplish this, we need to make sure we can begin to show the results of our efforts SOON so that this can be justified when budget proposals come around next year.

I am excited about this project.