Austin Henderson and Jeff Johnson
This Special Interest Group had three purposes:
- to provide CHI professionals with insight into the challenges and rewards of being a CHI consultant,
- to provide consultants with an opportunity to discuss issues, and
- to explore what role SIGCHI might play in supporting the consultants as a subcommunity within SIGCHI.
About 200 people attended this session, with many having to stand. Austin Henderson introduced the session, and took public notes. The format was to be general discussion, with people introducing themselves when they first spoke, giving name, organization, why they were present, and if they were in a consultancy, what services they offered, where they were in business, how big were they, and how long had they been in business.
Jeff Johnson started the discussion by giving a short presentation indicating why he had become a consultant and what the main issues for him were. Key members of the SIGCHI consulting community, particularly Aaron Marcus, continued to provide insight into running consulting businesses. These included folk describing their services as visual design, industrial design, interaction design, conceptual design, strategic design, and usability. There was a balance of discussion between those already consulting and those considering it.
A significant clarification of the notion of consultant also emerged: in addition to those involved in independent consulting businesses, individual, small and large, there was a large group of HCI experts within large businesses who saw their primary role as providing internal consulting to others within their institutions.
From the discussion, a collection of issues that were of interest and concern to consultants were captured, and actions that SIGCHI could take to support the subcommunity of consultants were proposed.
The following issues were among those raised during the discussion:
- How do we categorize what we do as consultants (by services offered, by client product/service domain)?
- Are we as consultants competing or cooperating? How competitive is the market for UI consultants? Do clients comparison shop for consultants? What would it mean for us to cooperate, e.g. cross-referral, sub-contracting?
- How do we manage clients' expectations (work schedule, need for our services, payment).
- Social impact: Is more UI consultants good if it transfers jobs from in-house UI people to consultants and contractors? Sub-issues: the industry trend to "downsize" and use temp workers; need for both insider specialized knowledge and outsider breadth; differentiating between contractors and consultants.
- Questions about life as a consultant: Why did we become consultants? What skills are needed to be a successful UI consultant? What's good/bad about being a consultant? Sharing lessons we've learned as consultants. Controlling your time: is it easier/harder as a consultant? Handling uncertainty.
- Questions about mechanics of operating a consulting business: running a business; managing distributed offices; business licenses; incorporation; special requirements of international consulting; tax consequences of various possible business structures; working as a network of independents; mentoring.
- Questions about getting clients: marketing consulting services effectively; establishing the value of HCI consulting services; business relationships: contracts, deliverables; trust vs. "Get it in writing"; getting "qualified" by clients; relying on repeat business vs. expanding clientele.
- Intellectual property: to what extent do clients own your ideas? Publishing your work publicly; can one have a portfolio to show prospective clients?
- Consulting ethics.
The following actions were among those suggested during the discussion for SIGCHI to engage in to support the consultant subcommunity:
- Directory: provide means for consultants to make their services known to those in need of them.
- Materials collections: provide for the collection and dissemination of materials that would aid consultants in their work, particularly, materials addressing the issues above: business materials including forms and contracts; pricing and ethical guidelines, government material (Small Business Administration, Chamber of Commerce); marketing white papers; cross-national processes.
- Support e-mail discussions.
- Develop policy concerning consulting in the HCI field (e.g., copyright by artist).
- Develop educational means for consultants: tutorials, mentoring.
- Create a leaflet on HCI consulting and disseminate it through SIGCHI and ACM channels.
This Special Interest Group produced two major conclusions and corresponding recommendations:
- There is a large group of SIGCHI people involved with consulting in one way or another, and that SIGCHI should recognize this subcommunity and support it; initially, it was agreed to create an e-mail list, and develop a proposal for SIGCHI's consideration. [Note: chi-consultants@acm.org has been set up for this purpose; it is open to all who would like to subscribe. To subscribe, send a message to listserv@acm.org with the content "subscribe chi-consultants Jan Smith", where "Jan Smith" should be replaced by your name. The subject field of the message is ignored.]
- This SIG was of significant interest to those attending, and that events for this subcommunity be submitted to CHI 99. In particular, a "the consultant is in" booth, a workshop for developing an HCI consulting leaflet, and a live design activity (e.g. designing, deploying and better support the message and bulletin boards at CHI).
Austin Henderson
Rivendel Consulting
PO Box 334
La Honda, CA 94020 USA
+1 650-747-9201
henderson@rivcons.com
Jeff Johnson
UI Wizards, Inc.
231 Moscow St.
San Francisco, CA 94112 USA
+1-415-586-5285
jjohnson@uiwizards.com
