Intervening for ICT usability : position paper presented at the Second national workshop om development and use of Enterprise Resource Planning systems in the privat and public sectors

• When procuring software, many studies point to the benefits from involving prospective users and reviewing experiences gained by others. Yet focus often is exclusively on price and promised (technical) functionality. What can be done to encourage and assist a greater attention to usability? UsersAward in Sweden has been promoting attention to usability during procurement and revision of software since the late 1990s. In this article, these efforts are seen as attempts to intervene in the functioning of the market for software and how it is deployed in organisations. We report on an initial questionnaire study, which aimed to prioritise among such interventions through collecting views on procurement and revision of software. Although the study only covered usability supporters, our results provide some indications about what may be lacking in today's procurement. We reflect on how methods for studying usability, and promote awareness of usability, could be linked to management tools and concepts such as strategy maps, satisfaction surveys, and risk management in order to achieve increased awareness of its importance for successful and effective ICT use.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Människa-datorinteraktion (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Human Computer Interaction (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)