Usability, or as it is sometimes called ease of use, has established its presence in product development processes during the past decade. Usability typically means ensuring that the design fits the intended customers and users, their characteristics and tasks. The focus has been on the user interface.

In order to tackle the broader perspective of users in their natural context of activity, the concept of user experience has been introduced. User experience design pays attention to the total experience of the user (or customer) in acquiring and deploying a software system. Design starts from understanding the purpose for which individual users and customer organizations wish to use a system and what activities and tasks users need to perform. Only after understanding the business processes of the customer and the expected behavior of the users of the new system, the design focuses on the behavior of the new solution and the specific features of the user interface.

The user experience approach to solutions design, be they applications or web sites or services, gives the vendor an opportunity to address vital customer needs of either supporting existing business processes or faciliting adoption of new, improved ways of working. User experience should be considered in every phase of product or solution development. This means that both R&D projects and customer delivery projects should include user experience and usability.

Teamware Group has a great track record in user experience. Teamware was a pioneer in Finland in adopting usability into the product development and establishing a usability lab. For more than ten years Teamware has had a user experience team with members specialized in usability, interaction design, graphical and interface design. The members of the team participate in product development projects and consult customer delivery projects when customizations are designed for specific customers.

In product development requirements management and feedback from customers form a basis for specifications of new releases. User experience specialists have a key role in understanding the requirements and defining new features. New designs are based on an analysed and consolidated understanding of the users needs.

Teamware's business consultants are skilled in gathering and analysing customer requirements and specify the customer-specific solution (typically an intranet, extranet and/or Internet site) based on an understanding of the customers goals for the site and user needs.

User experience is in focus in all development and implementation activities in Teamware. Combining business consultation and user experience skills Teamware is able to offer its customers services and products that provide the customers with solutions that empower their users and increase profitability of the customers' operations.