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There are many serious studies of the relationship between usability and productivity, as well as the related question of usability versus ROI. I believe that companies such as SAP (the modern one, run by real designers, not the older one, run by engineers) work on these issues. And of course academics love it. But I have worked in several consumer electronic companies, to be specific Apple, HP, and Microsoft. I was a senior executive in the first two and a consultant for the last. None of these companies ever worried about productivity in their design efforts. Apple didn't because it's marketplace was homes and schools (and design companies). Productivity was not an important factor for these markers: price and pleasure and ease of use were important. For design companies, the productivity came from software develops, e.g., Adobe's suite of tools, but none of the many people I know who worked there studied productivity. Productivity is of major concern for large companies. That is why the Bell Labs and Telephone companies did look at this. Those are the folks who tried to cut seconds off each task. Consumers don;t give a damn about seconds. Note that a secondary reason was the firm belief that simply adding computers enhanced productivity. The belief is difficult to justify, and in some cases adding computers makes people less productive, but nonetheless, that nonetheless also made it unnecessary to design differently. And today, there is a push against the economists' measures of productivity as neglecting the important parts of life. I had a friend who did extensive work on the productivity of call centers, his goal being to reduce the length of each service call. At one of his talks I economists asked him where his model included customer satisfaction, and perhaps return purchases by the complaining c customer instead of a decision never to buy that company's product again. Not only did he not understand the question, he stopped talking to me for awhile. There are more important things in life than what important measure -- even for the success and profitability of a company. Yet all the studies I have seen hue to the way economists define the issue. That is why I don't economists with the literature in this topic. i find it disgusting. Don On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:33 AM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the breadth of information in the > general area already available hence my specific question. Perhaps I didn't > ask it as clearly as I might have. > Don Norman Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego: Think Observe Make [log in to unmask] www.jnd.org <http://www.jnd.org> ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------