I took my first CHI course today, and it was on the politics of usability - not to be confused with the usability of politics, which could always use improvement:

Anyway, right, politics of usability, Rolf Molich. I liked this session, but at the same time, I think I was hoping for something a little extra. The format was cool - we were presented with a business case, and we worked individually to come up with some recommendations for Mary, our hypothetical usability professional.

Without discussing the hypothetical at length, let’s just say that Mary is ambitious, and wants developers at her company to embrace usability. She thinks a full day, mandatory conference about generic usability is the way to accomplish it.

What was interesting, and also disappointing, was that a majority of the recommendations that Molich gave involved Mary incorporating usability practices in every aspect of her job, including this seminar. Suggestions included pilot testing the seminar, evaluating its usability, etc. Ok, as usability professionals, it definitely sets a good example if we promote usability in our daily lives beyond just the user testing that we do with whatever software we work with.

But how is that at political, even in the corporate sense?

Nielsen came out with an Alertbox today describing attitudes that various companies have toward usability, and grouping them on a scale. If you are at a company on the lower end (discussed by Nielsen today and also by Molich in this seminar), there needs to be something oriented toward the dissenters to really try to sway them. Speaking in concrete business terms with a clear cost-benefit scenario is a good way to start.

But what I really wanted to see was something that would shake things up: Sometimes, you need to make concessions in the short term to win out in the long term. It stops being about usability at this point, but about how you manage change in an organization and how you approach a group in general. I think this angle is just as important. I’ve always been a firm believer that winning someone over involves starting from their point of view and moving gradually over to yours - not stomping your foot where you are until they begrudgingly come to you (or worse, harden their resolve to the point that you lose them entirely).

But that’s probably not as easy to fit into a 90 minute course at the CHI conference. Plus, it’s easy to pass on the idea of bringing usability into everything you do. It’s something different all together to teach someone to be solid as a change agent. But that’s the course I’m looking for next year!