IS 214: Needs Assessment and Evaluation of Information Systems

Bio for Kevin McBride

I have over fourteen years of experience gathering user feedback on software. For the last four years, I have been leading the User-Centered Design (UCD) team for one of IBM's most successful software products. Though the product has a 30-year history, I introduced UCD to its 200-member development team and have successfully applied the process to both the main product and new, related Java-based Internet tools.

The responsibilities of the UCD team that I lead include needs assessments, task analysis, design walk-throughs, iterative prototype testing, and beta surveys. The team includes technical staff, marketing, testing, user support, writers, and visual designers. I have led the team through thousands of user hours of both individual and group feedback activites.

I also teach a short overview in UCD to all new hires at IBM's Silicon Valley Laboratory (over 100 per year), and a longer introduction to all new hires in the User Technology organization (20-40 per year). I have taught UCD courses to most of my development organization. I also served as an industry consultant in designing the coursework for a graduate Human Computer Interaction certificate at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

For the past six years, I have also managed the Silicon Valley Lab usability studios where we perform usability tests and other feedback activities. I have been responsible for two redesigns of the studios as we have moved from a research orientation to a product development focus. I have been the SVL expert on the technology and methodologies used in the studios and have served as consultant in many user studies.

I work in a User Technology organization of over 120 employees, including 80 writers, 15 visual designers, and 25 human factors engineers. This large community of UCD professionals provides a great environment for learning new assessment and evaluation techniques. I have been able to observe what works and what doesn't in dozens of user studies, including contextual inquiry, participatory design, co-discovery, expert reviews, and so on. I have also pioneered new techniques in IBM, such as remote studies using software and methods that allow us to observe users at work in their own offices and enable them to interact with prototypes in our offices without the need for travel.

In addition to being responsible for evaluation, the UCD organization is also responsible for user interface design. It is our philosophy that evaluation and design skills go hand-in-hand in the development process, and an individual practitioner must have both. In the process of my evaluation experience, I have designed several online tutorials, wizards, web sites, and complete product user interfaces.