When designing and developing products, companies consider a wide variety of factors and tradeoffs, and these factors may differ from those that end users value. In the conceptual stage, two critical factors that product teams first consider are whether a product is technically feasible and the business case for how it can be marketed. A third category that consumers value (but that product design teams may overlook) is that products are useful, usable, effective, and aesthetically pleasing. As products become more technically complex, the differentiating factor for consumers has increasingly become ease of use. Quite simply, people prefer using products that are easy to use and that allow them to complete activities efficiently [1, 2].

In the consumer market, if end users cannot utilize a product to accomplish a desired goal with relative ease, they are not likely to adopt a product, or if they do, they are likely to abandon it. However, for many individuals, the most complicated products they interact with are those provided by the IT departments where they work, where use may not be optional. In these cases, the desire for easy to use tools is still present, but the ability to choose between different options is limited or nonexistent. While it is generally believed that the use of IT-provided applications is not voluntary, these mandates are not always effective at forcing employees to utilize capabilities that do not meet their needs.

If IT capabilities do not allow employees to complete activities quickly and meet their work goals effectively, a wide array of negative effects can result. At the most rudimentary level, users will simply not be able to work as effectively as possible, reducing corporate productivity. In cases where applications are truly not valuable, users may take active steps to increase their productivity through developing local solutions or alternative procedures that bypass the capability entirely. These situations breed a host of potential issues ranging from poor data quality to compromised corporate security. On the positive side, by providing capabilities that give employees more time to problem solve and meet objectives in innovative ways, the employees' potential to contribute to the company's success can be fully realized. For example, by providing capabilities that minimize manual data entry and automate analytics, sales personnel will have more time to establish and foster positive relationships with customers.

As IT departments are increasingly responsible for providing and maintaining the capabilities that enable employees to compete in rapidly changing business environments, many are concurrently faced with the reality of flat or shrinking budgets. In addition to budget constraints, many other factors, such as changes to business strategy or increasing complexity in the business environment continue to accelerate the need for new IT capabilities. Given the number of competing factors, it is easy for management to overlook or downplay user considerations in the decision-making process. User research practitioners within Intel IT have increasingly utilized Intel's "Three-Circle" model [3] to convey the importance of evenly balancing user considerations with business and technical factors. As shown in Figure 1, the model indicates that successful products balance business, usage, and technology. Although originally designed to enhance Intel's customer focus throughout the shift to a platform company, the model has proved to be a powerful way to represent the importance of the end user in the traditionally tech-centric world of Intel IT.

Figure 1: The Three-Circle model
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At a more applied level, Human Factors Engineers (HFE) have traditionally employed User-Centered Design (UCD) techniques, which place user needs at the center of technology development and deployment [4]. Typical UCD activities consist of working with end users throughout the design lifecycle to evaluate and test the User Interface (UI) of a capability prior to deployment. While these activities have been successful in improving tool usability, it has become more and more apparent that many factors beyond usability are important to ensure the successful introduction of new business solutions. For example, if installing a capability requires the user to perform several manual steps, the probability of an unsuccessful install increases, potentially hindering employee productivity and resulting in technical support calls. In addition, without adequate self-help functionality, users may experience ongoing difficulties with completing activities despite interacting with a UI that meets accepted design principles. Therefore, although direct interaction with the capability may be efficient, other activities associated with the product, such as the initial install and ongoing help mechanisms, can lead to an overall negative impression of the solution.

To address these challenges, Intel IT user research practitioners have begun utilizing a more comprehensive User Experience Design (UED) perspective. As shown in Figure 2, this comprehensive approach incorporates the entire User Experience (UX) with IT products, including product awareness, acquisition, use, support, and end of life [5]. By understanding and optimizing each of the components of UX, Intel IT is better enabled to deploy capabilities that immediately and continually provide business value.

Figure 2: The IT User Experience lifecycle
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Outside the context of a specific capability, Intel IT has also begun utilizing ethnography and other qualitative research techniques, facilitating a broader understanding of the context in which IT products are deployed. Ethnography offers a window into the employees' world by providing a holistic understanding of how and why employees work the way they do. Ethnography provides a deeper analysis of context, such as user's values and motivations (the "why" behind what they do) than other techniques. Whereas UCD and UED are useful to optimize design and deployment decisions, ethnographic and other qualitative techniques can be used to understand the social and organizational factors that may hinder the effective deployment and adoption of IT products.