The importance of the Management Perspective in the HCI Field Special Interest Group, CHI 2008 organized by Ping Zhang, Syracuse University Roberto Polillo, University of Milano Bicocca

Why Today’s goal Exploring the roles and importance of having a management community inside the CHI community Motivation HCI issues very important to the success of business, management and organization… …but still many challenges to really make HCI an integral part of success factors for business and organizations

Some general problems HCI professionals are often in marginal roles Human centeredness normally not a management focus Training of HCI professionals is technical and not strategic or management oriented Relationships between HCI professionals and developers / project managers not always smooth …

Some personal experiences On creative vs usability vs engineering people: Very difficult to have them working smootly together Creative vs usability: “we need some cool ideas to get the contract, we’re wasting time” On understanding usability: Sw engineers: “Obviously we have a user centered approach!” – then start designing system functions in UML On web prototyping: Project managers: “of course we’re doing prototypes, but do not show them to the customer – or they would change everything. We are on a fixed price contract” On web design: Web designers: “The customer want to see our look & feel proposal before giving us the contract. But how can we do it before knowing the IA?. Please, explain to him that this is not the right way to proceed.” On usability testing: Customers: “Of course I want an easy-to-use system. If you have good designers, they will design a good system. I do not want to pay an extra for usability testing. If you designers aren’t good, this is your problem.”

Expected outcomes A list of ideas and actionable suggestions for the management community to continue in future years – at CHI conferences – in research projects – in practice projects – …

Some issues Making top management understand and incorporate the HCI perspective into corporate strategies and management Strategies and tactics for investment in HCI Integrating HCI in product innovation, definition, development, deployment, and management. Investigating HCI issues and concerns in the business, managerial and organizational contexts Managing HCI research and practice, especially in a global environment Training future managers, CEOs and CIOs to be human- centered and HCI competent

How we will proceed N discussion groups to agree on position statements from “homogeneous” perspectives (30 minutes) A spokesperson for each group will present a (5 minutes) summary of the group position A general discussion will follow (30 minutes) At the end, we will [try to] summarize the positions

Different point of views – possible groups Mngtm HCI Practicioners MarketingDevelopers HCI Researchers

Suggested schema for position WHAT - the specific problem and need, or goal WHY - the importance of the above WHERE - context of the above problems and needs WHO - whose perspective is described HOW - suggested solution / action [WHEN] - timing (short, medium, long)

Timing Now - 12, 20Individual group discussions 12, ,35Spokespersons presents groups positions 12, ,55General discussion 12, Conclusion

Group position statements

General discussion

Conclusions and next steps

Thank you!

Academy Practice Development Management Marketing [Suggested] classes of participants

Individual group discussions

Academy Practice Development Management Marketing Group spokepersons

AcadPractDevelopMngmtMktg Acad Pract Develop Mngmt Mktg with Have problems Temperature of problems Low 1 – 2 – High

Suggested next steps Group spokepersons me their group position statements, edited (if necessary) after general discussion I will integrate everything and send it back to all of you