The Where of UX

Our last discussion (some time ago now, my apologies) was around where in an organisation User Experience work best fits.

Many people experience geographical issues. People don't sit together; sometimes, they sit in different countries. This obviously makes things difficult in any team.

For others, the issue is around who has budget and institutional power. In one example, development teams drove the development of new applications, from the conception of the idea to the final implementation. The development team also managed all the budget. This means that the design of the user experience is entirely defined by developers, and doesn't necessarily meet the needs of users; the organisation is trying to develop touch points to get user experience teams involved earlier in the process.

Business Analysts were identified as one such touch point. There was a strong feeling that BAs need to have a sense of ownership over questions such as 'what do users want?' and 'what problems are we trying to solve?'. Where BAs are aware of user experience issues and are involved in user testing, we believe results will be better.

Where i work, we recently completed some training in interaction design. Most of the group was from outside the user experience team, mainly project managers and BAs. One of the most valuable things we got out of the session was a common language for talking about these issues. So far, it seems to be working.

If you have thoughts on how organisational structure supports or complicates your work, we'd love to hear your comments.