I think the answer to this depends largely on what the company is trying to do with usability? Do they consider it critical to products or a sort of decoration -- the latest buzzword that everyone wants them to incorporate even though no one wants it to inconvenience them or change the process that's in place.
In the latter case, it really doesn't matter where you put it. You're making it subservient to a "real" part of the process. In the former case, it doesn't go *in* anything else. It is its own department that reports at the same level as marketing, IT, customer care, etc. The only exception to that may be if the customer experience department is sufficiently independent, you can make usability a piece of that. I realize that sounds very didactic but to me the answer is obvious given the fact that the question keeps coming up. If you can't decide what place is belongs in, then it doesn't belong in an existing place. This issue keeps coming up everywhere, and that's the only successful solution I've ever seen. Good luck. Katie At 3:12 PM +0100 11/12/07, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Hi all, > >In a big company (more than 15.000 employees) with lots of departments, >divisions and sections, where do you put the usability team? In the >marketing department or IT-department or customer care or customer >experience or R&D or ... ? > >Thanks in advance. > >Johan > >________________________________________________________________ >*Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* >February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA >Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ > >________________________________________________________________ >Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! >To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe >List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines >List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ---------------- Katie Albers [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
