Establishing Client Assurance
If you were in the role of a manager, and you brought an ergonomist to your workplace or contracted a usability professional to evaluate your product, one of the questions that may cross your mind could be "Is it worth it?" and after an assessment has been done, "Are they right?"
The value of incorporating user centered design in is well established (see productivity & Improved Design) however, the decision to follow your contracted professional's recommendations can be somewhat less certain.
Things to keep in mind are that they're part of a larger organization that monitors their progress. They have also followed legal and industry standards. But above all, look at the very nature of the work they do. Both ergonomists and usability professionals are focusing on users. Their user testing ensures that at least some of the potential users of your workplace or product will be satisfied. Further still, the entire user centered concept is based on a reiterative model. This means that the professional you've hired will conduct repeated tests (if you accomodate them) throughout several stages of design & operation in order to get things right.
The job lends itself towards client satisfaction
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