To truly become a user-centred organization, companies almost always progress through the same sequence of steps, gradually increasing their levels of commitment to usability.
Jakob Nielsen outlines this process in eight stages of maturity:
Stage 1: Hostility Toward Usability
Stage 2: Developer-Centered Usability
Stage 3: Skunkworks Usability
Stage 4: Dedicated Usability Budget
Stage 5: Managed Usability
Stage 6: Systematic Usability Process
Stage 7: Integrated User-Centered Design
Stage 8: User-Driven Corporation
According to Jakob Nielsen, it takes about twenty years to move from stage 2 to 7 and another twenty years to reach the last stage.
Links:
Henrik Olsen
- May 01, 2006
See also: Implementing user-centred design (8)
