From rssfeeds@jmason.org Thu Sep 26 16:34:05 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: yyyy@localhost.spamassassin.taint.org Received: from localhost (jalapeno [127.0.0.1]) by jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B954916F03 for ; Thu, 26 Sep 2002 16:34:02 +0100 (IST) Received: from jalapeno [127.0.0.1] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for jm@localhost (single-drop); Thu, 26 Sep 2002 16:34:02 +0100 (IST) Received: from dogma.slashnull.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g8QFSQg24429 for ; Thu, 26 Sep 2002 16:28:26 +0100 Message-Id: <200209261528.g8QFSQg24429@dogma.slashnull.org> To: yyyy@spamassassin.taint.org From: joelonsoftware Subject: Jakob Nielsen on Offshore Usability: "To save costs, some companies are ou Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 15:28:26 -0000 Content-Type: text/plain; encoding=utf-8 URL: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20020917.html Date: Not supplied Jakob Nielsen on Offshore Usability[1]: "To save costs, some companies are outsourcing Web projects to countries with cheap labor. Unfortunately, these countries lack strong usability traditions and their developers have limited access -- if any -- to good usability data from the target users." Offshore usability is a specific case of the general "offshore design" problem. Put simply, software teams are not successful when design or management are done in a different physical location than programming. Once I actually had a job where I was in New York, my direct manager was in Singapore, _his_ manager was in Hyderabad, and if I needed any management input I had literally no choice but to go to the CEO because at least he was awake during the same hours as I was. You can't get things done like this. A good project team relies on hundreds of small interactions a day. Here in the Fog Creek offices, we have 10 small conversations about FogBUGZ 3.0 development every day. What I don't understand is people who think it's OK to move the developers ten time zones away from their managers and expect good results. Those same people would scream bloody murder if you told them that you were going to send the whole _management_ team to Bangalore or Beijing. [1] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020916.html