innovation in user interface development: obstacles and opportunities
Case studies of two software development organizations suggest that common practices of these organizations pose obstacles to innovation. Although software development organizations have good reasons to be conservative and resist innovation, they recognize the importance of innovations to the competitiveness of their products. But organizations experienced at development of regularly scheduled releases are not well suited to development of innovations. In this research investigators worked with the user interface teams in two organizations while interviewing people throughout the organizations. Both organizations developed prototypes, but only small design changes were prototyped and tested early in development. Innovative changes were evaluated late, when resistance to iteration was great. User interface designs and prototypes were often not shown to users. Mechanisms for coordinating development were another conservative influence. Both organizations successfully overcame these obstacles by departing from established practices.
innovating users user interface developer software development organization practical reasoning competition product scheduling research teams interviews prototype design change iter user interface design coordination influence