Usability: Making the case
Creating actual return on investment calculations for usability projects can prove very complex, due to the nature of the metrics taking place. There are some very tangible benefits to be seen, such as increase in sales and decrease in support costs, but there are also much less measurable benefits to be gained.
For example usability projects frequently involve less rework and redesign, and finish much closer to time and within budget. But how do you measure how much rework, how long overdue and how much overspend there would have been without it?
There are some very good books that will assist with this process, including "Cost-Justifying Usability" by Randolf G Bias. Here are a few facts that we've found to be true in most projects:
- Return on investment for a typical project of ours is between 200% and 800%.
- Average % of development budget required for usability is just 2.2%.
- Key cost metrics (such as support calls, use of help features, etc.) fall by at least 10%.
- Conversion ratios increase by an average of 16%
However, don't just take our word for it - the points below have been gathered from multiple authoritative sources and are based on numerous research projects:
- Cost justifying usability on the Internet
- Cost justifying usability in client/server environments
- See the case studies in the Customers section
Cost justifying usability on the Internet
The benefits of good web design
Usability by Design
- On the Caterer web site (www.caterer.com), job applications and associated advertising revenue were key to success. After usability testing and and evaluation, the team implemented findings and found an immediate 35% increase in the number of applications received.
- On the Novatech web site (www.novatech.co.uk) the team saw a 40% increase in website revenue after a site design evaluated and approved by our consultants, with no increase in marketing or spend. Novatech now report that a culture and awareness of usability has quickly spread through the organisation.
- 79% of survey respondents rated the Bankers Almanac site (www.bankersalmanac.com) as 'Very Good' or 'Excellent' after it was usability improved.
- The XpertHR site (www.xperthr.co.uk) was launched on time and within budget, after applying a usability approach to design and development.
- XpertHR also saw a 100% intention to renew with first time subscribers.
Creative Good
- To hammer home its point, Creative Good offered the striking revelation that a dollar spent on advertising during the 1998 holiday season produced $5 in total revenue, while a dollar spent on customer experience improvements yielded more than $60.
IBM
- On IBM's website, the most popular feature was the search function, because the site was difficult to navigate. The second most popular feature was the 'help' button, because the search technology was so ineffective. IBM's solution was a 10-week effort to redesign the site, which involved more than 100 employees at a cost estimated 'in the millions.' The result: In the first week after the redesign, use of the 'help' button decreased 84 per cent, while sales increased 400 per cent.
Jakob Nielsen
- Alert Box, November 1999
On a corporate intranet, poor usability means poor employee productivity; usability guru Jakob Nielsen estimates that any investment in making an intranet easier to use can pay off by a factor of 10 or more, especially at large companies. - Alert Box, June 2000
It's quite normal for e-commerce sites to increase sales by 100% or more as a result of usability, but configurator-driven sites can probably increase sales by at least 500% by emphasizing usability. More important, they can probably avoid 9 of 10 returns by eliminating most mis-designed items ( a 1000% improvement of the error rate metric) (The expected increase in e-commerce sales from usability is based on a good deal of data. The best recorded case so far of increasing sales as a result of following my principles is 2,500%, but that is far from typical: a few hundred percent is more normal. Unfortunately, I don't have credible data for the sales impact of improved configurator usability, so the numbers stated above are my rough projections based on how much one can usually improve the approachability and error rate of complex designs.)
The cost of bad web design
Usability by Design
- One website we tested was on the third full rebuild after very low take-up and usage figures. Testing had to be halted due to the fact that it was testing so badly users were practically walking out. The site had been designed three times, and still had to be thrown away to start again. No user testing or usability input had been taken into consideration.
- An e-commerce store we tested was losing 13% of sales at a busy time of year, due to two small (and easily corrected) usability issues that nobody within the store was aware of. An inexpensive evaluation identified the losses, which were corrected and measured within 24 hours.
Creative Good
- Poor customer experiences will have a devastating effect on holiday revenues, even with the most conservative estimates. Given an estimated $9.5 billion in holiday spending despite a 39 per cent failure rate, the industry stands to lose over $6 billion.
Cyber Dialogue
- Although the absolute number of online bankers grew 100,000 to a total
of 6.3 million in the past 12 months, 3.1 million U.S. adults have discontinued
their use of online banking according to Cybercitizen Finance from Cyber
Dialogue. The study also found that only 35 per cent of online bankers
that discontinued their service were inclined to try it again.
"Although Cybercitizens begin banking online to save time, more than 50 per cent have discontinued use because they find the service too complicated or were dissatisfied with the level of customer service," said Michael Weiksner, Manager of Finance Strategies at Cyber Dialogue.
Forrester Research
- Forrester Research audited 20 major sites, finding 51 per cent compliance with simple web usability principles such as "is the site organized by user goals?" and "does a search list retrievals in order of relevance?" (in other words, the average site violated half of these simple design principles).
- From a study of 25 sites: Half the time we couldn't find enough information to make a purchase decision. For example, a service company claimed to be affordable but did not provide prices. We didn't know whether to believe the company and couldn't compare it with others. The result? Frustrated customers move on.
- Most sites will waste between $1.5million and $2.1million on redesigns next year (1999). Why? Designers are engaged in an endless cycle of overhauls that don't fix their problems. Their goals of achieving fast performance and consistent look and feel are directionally correct but miss out on at least 20 other more specific usability objectives. And since ease of use is not measured, flaws go undetected.
- A report by Creative Good showed that 39 per cent of test shoppers failed in their buying attempts because sites were too difficult to navigate. Additionally, 56 per cent of search attempts failed.
Jakob Nielsen
- Alertbox column: 42 per cent of sites either didn't have an e-mail response system, or took longer than 5 days to respond.
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Usability metric from real life: across six corporate websites, the measured success rate was only 26 per cent when prospective job applicants were asked to find a job opening that was suitable for them and apply for it on the site.
Jared Spool
- In Jared Spool's study of 15 large commercial sites users could only find information 42 per cent of the time even though they were taken to the correct home page before they were given the test tasks.
JS Online
- While internet sales continue to soar, recent surveys from companies that advise e-commerce merchants put the number of 'abandoned shopping carts' at between 27 per cent and 66 per cent.
Jupiter research
Estimates of cost of bad web design:
- Loss of approximately 50 per cent of the potential sales from the site as people can't find stuff.
- Losing repeat visits form 40 per cent of the users who do not return to a site when their first visit resulted in a negative experience.
Zona Research
- A study from Zona Research found that 62 per cent of web shoppers have given up looking for the item they wanted to buy online (and 20 per cent had given up more than three times during a two-month period).
- A study by internet research firm Zona Research Inc. found that even the most loyal internet users are having a hard time shopping online, with 28 per cent of the 239 internet savvy users reporting difficulties in finding products and services. Zona also found that 20 per cent said they had given up at least three different times while shopping on the web, with 39 per cent reporting they have decided either not to buy online or to do their shopping elsewhere - with catalogs and bricks and mortar stores the big winners.
Cost justifying usability in client/server environments
The benefits of good system design
Cited in Gibbs, W W (1997) Taking Computers To Task. Scientific American, July 1997 issue
- After the New York Stock Exchange upgraded its core trading systems using user-centered design techniques, productivity rose dramatically and users' error rates fell by a factor of 10 even though workloads more than doubled.
Gartner Group (1992) Selecting and Implementing a Systems Development Methodology
- The 'hold a joint application development and prototype approach' with an iterative development methodology will increase productivity by 25 per cent and increase quality by 30 per cent.
Landauer, T K (1995) The Trouble with Computers
- Systems designed with usability engineering have typically reduced the time needed for training by around 25 per cent.
- User-centered design typically cuts errors in user-system interaction from five per cent down to one per cent.
Norwich Rethinks Customer Service. Computer World, 24 November 1995
- Norwich Union, an insurance company in Australia, found that calls to its help desk reduced dramatically by two thirds after one of its core applications was improved using user-centered design techniques.
Wixon, D & Jones, S (1995) Usability for Fun and Profit: A Case Study of the Design of DEC Rally Version 2
- Revenues for one DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) product that was developed using user-centered design techniques increased 80 per cent for the new version of the software, and usability was cited by customers as the second most significant improvement.
The cost of bad system design
From Usability by Design
- Analysis of sales feedback information for a software client identified that approximately 17% of lost sales were due to 'perceived poor usability' within the interface.
Boehm, B W (1981) Software Engineering Economics
- It is about 40-100 times more expensive to fix problems in the maintenance phase of a program than in the design phase.
Karat, C (1993) Usability Engineering in Dollars and Cents
- Eighty percent of software lifecycle costs occur after the product is released, in the maintenance phase. Of that work, 80 per cent is due to unmet or unseen user requirements, only 20 per cent of this is due to bugs or reliability problems.
Ko, C & Hurley, M (1995) Managing End-user Computing
- A study into the cost of end-user computing across 18 major companies
in Australia found that the average cost of supporting a single workstation
is $10,000 (Australian dollars), of which at least 50 per cent is the
cost of 'hidden' support (that is, productivity lost through users stopping
work to help each other with computer problems). This study also found
that the single most important factor affecting the cost of hidden support
is the quality of the user interface
Landauer, T K (1995) The Trouble with Computers
- Without user-centered design, a user interface typically has around 40 flaws that can slow users and lead to errors.
Lederer, A L & Prasad, J (1992) Nine Management Guidelines for Better Cost Estimating
- Around 63 per cent of software projects exceed their cost estimates.
The top four reasons for this are:
- Frequent requests for changes from users.
- Overlooked tasks.
- Users' lack of understanding of their own requirements.
- Insufficient user-analyst communication and understanding.
Pressman, R S (1992) Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
- If it costs $10 to make a program change during development, it will
probably cost $400 to do it after the system is in the field.
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