Wouldn’t you rather…?
Another bump I’ve hit on the road to usability is the question, “Would development team X prefer another developer or a usability engineer?” The person asking this question generally answers, “Probably a developer.” After all, a developer can add more stuff quicker.
I’m coming to see that the question is fallacious. Why don’t people ask, “Would team X prefer another developer or a tester/doc writer/name-your-well-accepted-role?” The obvious answer is because those roles are recognized as being crucial to product development. An extra developer will create more code, maybe get an additional feature in, but at the expense of a more usable product. The counter-question when usability is challenged is to ask, “Is usability an important part of our development process?” If not, you either have to prove its worth or move along as you won’t make any progress in that environment.
However, if you think you’ve proven the benefits of usability and the question still comes up, you need to squash it early. Do not let it fester. If usability is seen as an important development component, the logical thing to do is ensure there are enough resources to cover the entire company’s development effort. Anything else means usability is only getting lip service and you haven’t made the progress you’ve thought.