Usability Meets the Real World: A Case Study of Usability-Oriented Method Development in Industrial Software Production Pär Carlshamre a , Jonas Löwgren a , Martin Rantzer b a Department of Computer and Information Science Linköping University, S-581 83 Linköping, Sweden b Programatic Sweden AB, Datalinjen 3, S-583 30 Linköping, Sweden Abstract This paper gives an overview of the Delta project, where usability-oriented method exten- sions were developed together with and introduced in a systems development company. The steps of the method development work are described with particular emphasis on a case study where the proposed method was used by Programatic in a customer project. Results are pre- sented on the project outcome from Programatic’s point of view, and on a participatory obser- vation study of the customer project. The conclusions are that the project was successful and that method development can be usefully described as a process of knowledge construction. 1. Introduction Usability is an increasingly important concept in the software industry. The trend towards usability is most visible in software product marketing, but the interest is growing accordingly in consulting companies. This paper is a first report from the Delta project where usability-ori- ented development methods were developed in collaboration with and introduced in the sys- tems development company Programatic. Programatic is a consultancy specializing in the development of telecommunication appli- cations. The company has roughly 400 employees in four offices throughout Sweden. It is organized in three business areas: system technology, technical information, and communica- tion systems. The systems development methodologies used in the company can be character- ized as modern versions of waterfall development; they generally emphasize software engineering and software quality aspects but up to now have not explicitly addressed usability. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Delta project, and to point to some of the conclusions from the project. Space does not permit an exhaustive presentation of Carlshamre, P., Löwgren, J, and Rantzer, M. (1994) Usability meats the real world: A case study of usability- oriented method development in industrial software pro- duction. In Bradley, G. and Hendrick, H. (eds.) Proc. 4th Int. Symp. Human Factors in Organization Design and Management (ODAM), Amsterdam: Elsevier