Driving usability improvement in a company with over 100 different remotely-located software development organizations, each using independent development processes, presents specific Software Quality challenges. This paper describes the usability acceptance testing and usability risk assessment approaches that one organization instituted within this complex development environment, from the ground up.

The steps taken are outlined, along with charts presenting results data. The data show a 100% increase in customer satisfaction, a reduction in customer-reported usability problems, and order-of-magnitude improvements in testing cost reduction and turn-around time over a three-year period. Key success factors are highlighted.