[IxDA Discuss] six sigma vs. ucd?

[Alexander Baxevanis]

I work (not for much longer) for the company that "invented" Six-Sigma
and to the best of my knowledge it's not being used for anything
related to user experience.

Basically, six-sigma started off as a quality improvement process for
manufacturing & project execution in general. You can check wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma) for more details, but the
main goal is to reduce "defects", where defects can be defined as
"anything that could lead to customer dissatisfaction".

I guess you could say that this is one of the goals of design as well,
but then again Six-Sigma is also focused on "achieving measurable and
quantifiable financial returns" & "making decisions on the basis of
verifiable data, rather than assumptions and guesswork".
Unfortunately, you can't always measure the impact of good interaction
design to the last dollar, and you can't reduce user needs to
"verifiable data".

Cheers,
Alex

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 7:47 AM, Zayera Khan <zayera.khan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have recently come across Six Sigma methodology (also Design for Six
> Sigma), and was wondering if anyone on the mailinglist has experience
> applying this methodology when it comes to "design, user experience and
> innovation"?
> Do you think it can substitute or perhaps even promote user-centered design
> approach in a business context?
> I would be glad to get some tips about best practices and case studies
> regarding this topic, thanks.
>
> Regards,
> Zayera
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