In the mid-90s, Alan Cooper’s About Face introduced a compelling narrative on product design, one that placed the end-user experience at the heart of software development.

For me, that book was pivotal, galvanizing my early views on how products should bridge the gap between technology and human experience.

As someone fortunate enough to lead within Reuters’ Usability Group from 1993 to 1997, I experienced a formative period of experimentation and boundary-pushing, which, looking back (now two-decades later), has profoundly influenced my approach to product design.

“Reuters is the world’s largest news agency and provider of information to the global financial markets. This information is brought to traders, analysts and others through Reuter applications which include market monitoring, analytical and transaction products. The increasing complexity of the financial markets during the 1980’s generated demand for ever more sophisticated systems. Products needed to present large quantities of complex information in an immediately useful form.” CHI 96 : Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 13-18, 1996

Our team at Reuters was something rare and ambitious for its time: a consortium of over 100 specialists from renowned consultancies, like Logica, PA Consulting, Microsoft, Admiral.

An article published in 1997, “Beyond the Final Frontier: Usability at Reuters” discussed how Reuters’ Usability Group and its Customer-Centered Design process have been pivotal in creating competitive advantage. The focus is on building an evolutionary, self-perpetuating life cycle of products that are continuously relevant and responsive to customer needs. Essentially, everything revolves around the customer, creating energy and synergy that drives product development into the future.

We were united by a mission to make products not only functional but genuinely customer-centric. As the software industry grappled with rapid change, we were also rethinking our processes, questioning assumptions, experimenting and exploring uncharted terrain in usability, design, and product thinking.

At the time, Greg Garrison, Director – Usability Group, Reuters stated “Reuter’s usability group created a ‘network of champions’ to promote Customer-Centered Design throughout the organization”. But Greg created something more than customer-centered design, it encompassed usability, usability testing, globalization, virtual teams. The future of work was subsequently covered by editorial articles in publications including The Financial Times, and explored by top management thinkers, like Tom Peters.

In retrospect, that period was foundational not only for my own career but also, I believe, for the industry at large, as we set early benchmarks for what customer-centered software could achieve.