Who Owns Product Quality?

When everyone has responsibility for product quality, nobody is responsible for product quality. It is far too easy to assume that your colleague will solve the quality problem while you work on something else. The programmers are solely responsible for eliminating all bugs from the code. The sales staff is solely responsible for closing deals. The marketers are solely responsible for packaging and positioning. At the present time, though, no one is responsible solely for the quality and appropriateness of the product. Sometimes they lack the tools to locate and solve the problem. Sometimes they lack the skills to communicate the solution. Sometimes they lack the authority to have their solutions implemented.

As we have seen in the previous chapters, coding compromises the programmers' ability to address users' goals. Product managers already have plenty of work to do, and they cannot focus on the details of a product's behavior. Marketers' lack of a technical background weakens their ability to communicate technically, which undermines their credibility with the programmers. Without a thoroughly documented design, there is little hope of getting it implemented properly and effectively.

The central recommendation of this book is that the interaction designer should be the ultimate owner of product quality. He must be allowed to determine the content and behavior of the program. He must own the feature list and, in large part, the schedule. This person is the advocate for the user and should have the authority to control all external aspects of the product.

In return for all of this authority, the interaction designers have some very significant responsibilities. Unless designers have a combination of authority and responsibility, programmers will not respect the designers and will retake control of the product. Designers must have skin in the game. The interaction-design team's mandate includes designing a feasible-to-build, easy-to-use, attractive product that allows the user to achieve her practical goals without violating her personal goals. What's more, the interaction designers must describe in exhaustive detail, in writing, a narrative description from which the programmers can reasonably be expected to build the design. The interaction designers must provide marketing with a clear, written description of the users and how the product will satisfy their needs. Most important, the designers accept responsibility for the quality of the final product.