Usability Work in Professional Website Design: Insights from Practitioners’ Perspectives

Abstract

This exploratory study aims to gain insight into how usability practitioners work in professional web design. This is done through interviews and a grounded analysis. The description reported here refers to the wider influence of the commercial context on usability work. This brings to the fore such issues as: the client?s influence on work, negotiation between clients and practitioners, the adaptation and use of methods, practitioner expertise and the consideration of ?people? in the usability process. It is believed that this research focus, which moves toward wider issues in practice, is best conceptualised from a system level perspective where the goal is to coordinate resources to add value to the design process.