Institutionalizing Usability – Overcoming Organizational and Individual Resistance Elina Eriksson KTH, CSC, HCI Lindstedtsvägen 5, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden [email protected] +46 72 23 55 220 ABSTRACT

Usability methods and theories are developed in order to work in practice. However, the problem of adopting the methods in organizations still exits, and the factors contributing to the problem are numerous. Some hindrances are easily recognized and open to the naked eye, however often the resistance is unanticipated. It is difficult to know where in an organization the change process must start and how to introduce the methods. The problem resides both at a micro level, where the different individuals’ sensemaking is the main obstacle, as well as at a macro level, in the routines, formal documents and culture of the organization. My research aims at combining micro level theories with macro level theories and thus informing the HCI-field on how to successfully introduce a higher focus on usability. Author Keywords

Usability, user-centred systems design, sensemaking, institutional theory, organizational change. ACM Classification Keywords

H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. INTRODUCTION

My research interest resides in the introduction of a higher focus on usability issues and user-centred systems design [12] in organizations. We have within the field of HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) numerous methods and activities that aim at helping developers to develop usable computer systems. However, the methods and activities must be used in practice in order to be beneficial, not only within research, thus the methods must make sense to the developers, as well as the organization in which they shall be applied. Furthermore, the organization must change in Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. NordiCHI 2010, October 16–20, 2010, Reykjavik, Iceland. Copyright 2010 ACM ISBN: 978-1-60558-934-3...$5.00.

order to incorporate these methods and activities, and this change must impact a larger part of the organization than just the IT-department. However introducing usability issues in public authorities and organizations often meet unanticipated resistance. Some of the hindrances are on an individual level, different stakeholder’s behaviour and responses to the introduction affect the outcome, as with the hindrances of involvement of user participation in the study by Wilson et al [22] or the managements perspectives on usability in the study by Cajander et al [4]. The creation of meaning and subsequently the actions of individual stakeholders can be analyzed by the sensemaking theory [20]. However, though the sensemaking theory give explanations on a micro level, the level of the organizational members and how their situated action affects the organization, it is less useful in describing how the organization affects the organizational members. In order to understand the intrinsic difficulties in introducing usability issues in organizations we must have an understanding of what goes on at both micro as well as a macro level. Hence my aim in my dissertation thesis is to incorporate a macro level theory in my work and combine it with the sensemaking theory. In this particular case I am interested in looking into institutional theory [18], which is something Weick has expressed as one future direction for studies within sensemaking [21]. There are also examples of this approach in the adjacent field of Information Systems, as in the article by Jensen et al. where they have combined sensemaking and institutional theory in order to see how electronic patient record systems are adopted in hospital ward [13]. Research problem

Hence, in order to summarize my research problem, I am interested in the introduction of a higher focus of usability in systems development. This introduction often meets hindrances, were some are on a micro level and some are on a macro level. My research aims at understanding both micro and macro level and thus inform the HCI-field of better approaches to introduce usability and user-centred systems design, where hindrances in both micro and macro level are addressed.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I have presented some of the theories of concern in my research above in the introduction; hence I will take the opportunity to use this section to describe my theoretical perspective, the philosophical stance that is informing my research. I consider myself positioned within social constructionism [5], which can be found somewhere between subjectivism and objectivism. In constructionism there is no objective truth, but still there are objects in the world with which we interact and create meaning. The social refers to that our meaning is socially constructed, and can be meaning about social phenomena or natural phenomena. I would argue that my theoretical perspective

resides in the interpretive stance, which in the HCI-field has been called Science 2.0 [16]. But I am also moving away from the interpretive approach, since one of my interest lies in change, and not just studying change, but rather to impact change, which could be described as a critical stance. RESEARCH APPROACH

According to Crotty [5], a research methodology is “a strategy, plan of action process or design lying behind the choice and use of particular methods and linking the choice and use of methods to the desired outcomes”. In my research, my methodology has (mostly) been action research, which implies there are two desired outcomes from my research [14], one research goal and solving a problem in practice. Action research is suitable for the complex and fuzzy reality of real life, since an intrinsic part of action research is its iterative design [1], and thus is a flexible research approach. The research is closely tied to practice, where the practitioner’s knowledge [17] is as valuable as the researcher’s knowledge, and together they can combine their different perspectives in order to reach better results. Hence the research is collaborative [15] and the participants in the research project should take part in the analysis of the research. However, it is not always possible to do action research depending on the organization in which the research is being conducted. Hence my research has been action research in one case, and more or less a case study in the other case. The empirical data in my dissertation thesis will mainly stem from two research projects. The first was a 3-year action research project at CSN, the public authority in Sweden that handles financial aid for students. I started my PhD studies halfway through the project. The purpose of the project was to increase awareness and knowledge about usability and a healthy computerized work environment. The aim was to introduce and develop usability work practice and the project consisted of a wide variety of activities. Moreover we as researchers had the aim of doing research and enhance knowledge about the introduction of user-centred systems design in public authorities. Further information about CSN and the research project can be found [10]. The empirical data from this project consists of interviews, with open-ended questions from an interview

guide. The interviews were in most cases audio recorded. Furthermore, I have at all times, at work, been carrying around a research diary, in which I have written down thoughts, comments, conversations etc, in the course of my research, as well as more structured field notes when I have been doing for example participant observations. Moreover there is also an extensive amount of written documents and presentations from the organization. The second empirical resource is an ongoing research project at FMV (Swedish Defence Materiel Administration) and FM (Swedish Armed Forces). FMV is the public authority that provides FM with materiel and methods. FMV do not as such develop materiel, rather they can be viewed as a procurement support organization to FM. My research group is working together with a group in FMV with the aim of enhancing the human-centredness in the early procurement processes at FM and FMV. At the moment there is a large interest in enterprise architecture at FM, and at FMV there are several projects aiming at introducing enterprise architecture in FM by different means. The focus for our research group is whether it is possible to include human-centredness in enterprise architecture, and in general to include usability methods and activities when a major organizational change is underway. My current research group has been doing research at FM for several years, mainly research on procurement see for example [19]. Even though the organization wants a change the research is not purely an action research project. The data collection methods are similar to the ones in the previous project, mainly interviews, research diary, field notes and observations as well as written documents and presentations from the organization. In my dissertation thesis (which naturally is in my focus since within a half year or so I have to start earnestly writing it) I will analyze the data from the both empirical findings with the application of both sensemaking and institutional theory. I have more possibilities to find usable data from the FMV-project, since there I can still form the data collection methods to the purpose of my research; however, the data from the CSN-project is so rich that I still believe it will be usable for my purposes. WORK SO FAR

My work in the CSN-project (described above) has so far led to several workshop participation papers [2, 3, 9, 11]. Furthermore, based on one of the activities in the project, I have two published conference papers with me as the first author. The first paper is about developers and their experiences of doing field studies for the first time, both in an educational as well as in a practical context [8]. The paper discusses the implications these field studies might have on system development. The second paper explores the usability role, by interviews with 9 usability professionals at 5 public authorities [7]. The main focus is on the introduction of usability and the usability role. I did

all the interviews in the study. The whole CSN-project is summarized in [10]. Finally my work has been summarized and extended in my licentiate thesis (a halfway to dissertation thesis): Making Sense of Usability Organizational Change and Sensemaking when Introducing User-Centred Systems Design in Public Authorities [6]. ABOUT ME

I have a master of science degree in Computer Science from KTH in Stockholm, with a major in Human-Computer Interaction. After graduation I worked for over year as a system developer in a small firm. Since the firm was small, I had to take part in all the work associated with system development, from formulating requirments, to coding databases and handling user manuals. I began my PhD-studies at Uppsala University in 2006, where I presented my licentiate thesis in october 2009. From october 2009 I am affiliated with KTH in Stockholm. I’m planning to defend my dissertation thesis in the spring of 2013, and the late date is due to an upcoming parental leave. My area of research is the introduction of user-centred system design and usability issues in public authority with a focus on the organizational change needed in order for success. REFERENCES

1. Avison, D., F. Lau, M. Myers, and P.A. Nielsen, Action Research. Communications of the ACM, 1999. 42(1): p. 94-97. 2. Cajander, Å. and E. Eriksson, Automation and Egovernment Services: A Widened Perspective, in The 1st International Workshop on Design & Evaluation of eGovernment Applications and Services: DEGAS. 2007: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 3. Cajander, Å., E. Eriksson, and J. Gulliksen, Evaluating Procurement, Usability and Off-the-Shelf Office Software, in COST294-MAUSE Workshop Downstream Utility: The Good, the Bad, and the Utterly Useless, E. L-C Law, M.K. Lárusdóttir, and M. Nørgaard, Editors. 2007, Institute of Research in Informatics of Toulouse (IRIT), Toulouse: Toulouse, France. p. 22-29. 4. Cajander, Å., J. Gulliksen, and I. Boivie, Management perspectives on usability in a public authority: a case study, in 4th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: changing roles. 2006. p. 38-47. 5. Crotty, M., The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. 1998, London, UK: Sage. 6. Eriksson, E., Making Sense of Usability Organizational Change and Sensemaking when Introducing User-Centred Systems Design in Public Authorities, 2009, Licentiate of Technology, 2009-002, Uppsala University, Uppsala

7. Eriksson, E., Å. Cajander, and J. Gulliksen, Introducing Usability Roles in Public Authorities, in 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction, NordiCHI2008 : Using Bridges. 2008, ACM, New York, USA: Lund, Sweden. p. 113-122. 8. Eriksson, E., Å. Cajander, and J. Gulliksen, Hello World! – Experiencing Usability Methods Without Usability Expertise, (Forthcoming), in INTERACT2009. 2009. 9. Gulliksen, J., Å. Cajander, and E. Eriksson, Only Figures Matter?: If Measuring Usability and User Experience in Practice is Insanity or a Necessity, in Proceedings of the International Workshop on Meaningful Measures: Valid Useful User Experience Measurement (VUUM). 2008, Institute of Research in Informatics of Toulouse (IRIT), Toulouse, France: Reykjavik, Iceland. p. 91-96. 10. Gulliksen, J., Å. Cajander, B. Sandblad, E. Eriksson, and I. Kavathatzopoulos, User-Centred Systems Design as Organizational Change : A Longitudinal Action Research Project to Improve Usability and the Computerized Work Environment in a Public Authority. International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, 2009. 5(3): p. 13-53. 11. Gulliksen, J. and E. Eriksson, Understanding and Developing User Involvement at a Public Authority, in User involvement and representation in e-Government projects. Workshop at NordiCHI 2006, A. Følstad, H. Artman, and J. Krogstie, Editors. 2006: Oslo, Norway. 12. Gulliksen, J., B. Göransson, I. Boivie, S. Blomkvist, J. Persson, and Å. Cajander, Key principles for usercentred systems design. Behaviour & Information Technology, 2003. 22(6): p. 397-409. 13. Jensen, T., A. Kjærgaard, and P. Svejvig, Using institutional theory with sensemaking theory: a case study of information system implementation in healthcare. Journal of Information Technology, 2009. 24(4): p. 343-353. 14. McKay, J. and P. Marshall, The dual imperatives of action research. Information Technology and People, 2001. 14(1): p. 46-59. 15. Reason, P. and H. Bradbury, Introduction: Inquiry and participation in search of a world worthy of human aspiration, in Handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice - Concise paperback edition, P. Reason and H. Bradbury, Editors. 2001, Sage. p. 1–14. 16. Schneiderman, B., Human Values for Shaping the Made World. 2007. 17. Schön, D.A., The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action. 1983: Ashgate Pub Co. 18. Scott, W., Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests, 3d ed. 2008: Sage Publications, Inc.

19. Swartling, A., The Good Person in Information Systems Development : A Reflexive Investigation of HCI in the Acquisition Process, 2008 20. Weick, K.E., Sensemaking in Organizations. 1995, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 21. Weick, K.E., K.M. Sutcliffe, and D. Obstfeld, Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking. Organization Science, 2005. 16(4): p. 409-421.

22. Wilson, S., M. Bekker, P. Johnson, and H. Johnson, Helping and hindering user involvement—a tale of everyday design, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. 1997. p. 178-185.