The Benefits of Usability
"With no increase in marketing spend, our website revenues jumped 40% specifically as a result of recommendations from Usability by Design. A new focus on usability by everyone from marketing to design to programming has already provided previously unimaginable financial returns."Luke Ashworth, Online Marketing Manager, Novatech
(view www.novatech.co.uk in a new window)
When you take a user-centric approach to designing and building your product, there are direct and indirect benefits to be realised at several levels in addition to increasing your return on investment (ROI):
- Benefits for your business
- Benefits for your customers
- Benefits for the users
- Return on investment/business case facts
To see the kind of companies we have been bringing these benefits to, take a look at our customer list. Alternatively, if you're interested in what kind of financial benefits usability can bring to you, then take a look at cost justifying usability.
Case studies of usability
Due to the sensitive nature of the work we perform it is not always possible for us to include full details on the work we performed, or on the benefits realised.
However, to see case studies on the work we've performed, visit the Customers section of our site. The case studies there will provide an insight into how we work and what we have managed to achieve for some of our customers.
Benefits for your business
"Job applications through Caterer.com jumped by 35% when changes recommended by Usability By Design were implemented."Gary Crossley, Publisher, The Caterer
(view www.caterer.com in a new window)
Applying a user-centric approach to the design of any product can radically improve the performance of the project as a whole. Our services help your business in the following ways:
Business as a whole
- Cheaper - decreases costs of design/development
- Faster - shortens development timelines
- Safer - decreases risk of project slippage, and radically improved chances of success in the marketplace
- Increases sales - products look better, demo better
and sell better, as they are more intuitive to use, faster and more
effective
Project management
- Improves risk management - lets you test designs and decide which should proceed, long before coding begins
- Simplifies planning - allows you to calculate required build times and eliminates the need for rework due to incorrect design and miscommunication
- Provides evidence of success early on - detailed reports, ratings, recordings and video confirm the validity of the design at the earliest stages of the project
Design team
- Proof that your designs work - actual users validate your designs long before they are built, so you know the designs will work
- Test out multiple concepts quickly - makes it easier and cheaper to try out multiple design approaches, to see which fits best
- No more 'last minute' changes - designs are tested and completed before coding begins, so no more last minute panic to implement changes
- Less stress at user acceptance testing (UAT) - since designs are tested before they are built, acceptance testing becomes a much smoother process with far fewer, if any, changes
Development team
- More accurate designs - with every aspect of the interaction modelled and documented, you get a more accurate picture of what needs building
- No more 'last minute changes' - designs are tested and completed before you start to build them
- Provides accurate picture of how users work - no more guessing how users might use the interface: you know before you start and can code accordingly
- Less stress at user acceptance testing (UAT) - since designs are tested before they are built, acceptance testing becomes a much smoother process with far fewer, if any, changes
Documentation team
- Start documenting much sooner - documented designs at the start of the project give you much more time to react and produce documentation, help and training
- Less to document - decreases the amount of performance support material required, as the interface is far more intuitive
Quality Assurance team
- Identify faults before they are coded - allows you to apply your QA knowledge to designs and identify potential flaws before they get built in
- Start scripting much sooner - documented designs at the start of the project give you much more time to write test scripts and prepare test plans
- Easier to identify bugs - since all possible interactions
and their results are recorded, it's much easier to identify when the
design isn't working as it should
Benefits for your customers
When you're selling a usable product, your customers realise benefits too:
- More faith in your product - provides evidence that the product works and that it has been designed with the user in mind
- Faster and more efficient work force - increases the effectiveness of your employees as the product is faster to use and requires fewer navigations and interactions
- Decreased total cost of ownership - decreases the training time and brings employees up to speed much faster, as the product is more intuitive to use. Also decreases the load on your support mechanisms
- Decreased risk of having to change products - your
customers can chose your product knowing that it's going to work for
their staff, and won't need replacing
Benefits for your users
The people who use your product may not buy it, but they can have a huge impact on whether your product is bought again in the future - If the end users of your product find it difficult to use, your sales can suffer... Your users can find the following benefits if you make your product usable:
- Easier to use - products are more intuitive and use terms, images, structure and concepts familiar to the user
- Faster to learn - makes products easier to understand and learn, and decreases training time (both formal and informal)
- Work faster and more efficiently - since products are designed around the way people need them to work, they are faster to use and require fewer navigations and interactions
- Less 'down time' - less time reading manuals, scanning help files and calling support desks means more time being effective, and more time to be productive
- Less stress - makes products less stressful to use, as they have been built around users needs, and using users terminology and concepts
Want to know more about the benefits of usability? Click here to contact us.