Re: Making the Case for Usability (Jared Spool)

I don't know if anyone has mentioned John Rhodes new book "Selling Usability." It's basically a handbook of Guerilla tactics for "usability infiltration tactics." I'm reading it now and I'm sure you would find lots of helpful insight there. He takes a practical, yet political approach. One of his primary messages is not to try to sell it head-on, but to adopt the language of your company's culture. For instance, don't use the term "users" but instead "customers" -- people the decision makers and influencers really care about. Also, figure out how usability contributed to the results of successful projects to usability, (even if it wasn't called that) and promote it vigorously. 

 Laura Malone





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   1. Re: Making the Case for Usability (Jared Spool)

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Message: 1
Cc: <[email protected]>
From: Jared Spool <[email protected]>
To: RH <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [BayCHI Discussions] Making the Case for Usability
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:49:44 -0700

On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:29 AM, RH wrote:

> Can anyone share any thoughts or studies around justifying usability
> research within a large corporate environment? If so, it would be  
> greatly
> appreciated. Specifically, I9m interested in ROI for performing  
> usability
> and user experience work for Web sites or applications versus not  
> doing so.

In my experience, ROI arguments never work. They are only  
justifications for already-made-decisions. If someone doesn't want to  
do something, the most persuasive ROI argument still won't convince  
them.

The real trick is to follow the money. When there's poor usability or  
user experiences, it usually impacts the organization on its bottom  
line. (Lost sales, increased support costs, or extra development work  
from rework, for example.)

When there's money that's being lost on the bottom line, there's  
usually someone in the organization already charged with recovering  
those losses. Find that person and you've got your champion.

I wrote about this in more depth here:
The Cost of Frustration
http://www.uie.com/articles/cost_of_frustration/

and here:
A Recession Strategy for Web Apps
http://www.uie.com/articles/recession_strategy_webapps/

Hope that helps,

Jared

Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: [email protected] p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com  Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks  Twitter: @jmspool
UIE Roadshow: Seattle, Denver, DC in June: http://is.gd/gxwe


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