uevision presents: how usability can help you get more customers

Usability Webinar Series

Why Product Usability Can Help You Win More Customers –

Even in a Down Economy

© Copyright 2008 UEVision. All rights reserved. - CONFIDENTIAL © Copyright 2008 UEVision. All rights reserved. - CONFIDENTIAL

About Sarah KlingAbout Sarah Kling

Sarah is the CEO of UEVision, Inc.Sarah is the CEO of UEVision, Inc.With over 12 years of experience designing software systems and web applications, Sarah is a leading authority on user-experience enhancement. Prior to founding UEVision, Sarah served as user experience consultant, usability evangelist, and team leader for a number of enterprise and business-to-business software companies, p p ,including Saba, E-Stamp, and Inxight Software.

Sarah specializes in designing the enterprise user experience by adapting user-focused design practices to the specific requirements of enterprise software systemsfocused design practices to the specific requirements of enterprise software systems and the needs of their users. She has led a variety of successful initiatives to integrate usability "best practices" with the product development process to produce enterprise products that are practical, efficient, visually appealing, and highly usable.

Sarah holds an AB from Stanford University and has studied usability and human factors at the University of California and UC-Santa Cruz. She is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Usability Professionals Association (UPA), and the Bay Area special interest group in user interface (BayCHI).

© Copyright 2008 UEVision. All rights reserved. - CONFIDENTIAL

About UEVisionAbout UEVision

UEVision is the only user experience design company ith th b dth f ti t d li tti dwith the breadth of expertise to deliver cutting-edge

business, enterprise, and consumer product user experiences. Based in San Francisco, UEVision designs and delivers the perfect product user experience. UEVision's customers have typically experienced higher profitability custo e s a e typ ca y e pe e ced g e p o tab tyon their product launches and the ROI on UI investment typically is up 1000%. For more information please visit www UEVision comFor more information, please visit www.UEVision.com.


Our ExperienceOur Experience55 product launches34 UI redesign projects

Specializing in UI design of web-based applications and portals:

IT Monitoring Systems- IT Monitoring Systems- IT Hardware and Software Configuration- CRM Systems- Business AnalyticsBusiness Analytics

Web-based application feature design:Role-based dashboards and scorecardsRole based dashboards and scorecardsContent management systems and repositoriesData analytics and visualization

© Copyright 2008 UEVision. All rights reserved. - CONFIDENTIAL 4

Experience with multiple web technologies and platforms (portlets, AJAX, JSP, JSF, etc.)

AgendaAgenda

IntroductionOverviewHow Product Usability Can Help You Win More y pCustomers….

Lower Support, Maintenance, and Development CostIncrease Customer SatisfactionIncrease Profitability

Q & AQ & A


IntroductionIntroductionWelcome to the first in a series of usability webinars from UEVision.

This first webinar in a series from UEVision will address why usability projects can be even more critical during tougher economic conditions.

Learn how companies today can use their usability projects to lower their support costs, and keep existing p j pp , p gcustomers and attract new customers, and increase profitability.


Overview: Why Companies Cut Usabilityy p y

When the economy is in a downturn, companies are frequently tempted to put product usability and user interface (UI) projects p p p y ( ) p jon the budgetary chopping block as a means of belt-tightening.

Usability is too frequently viewed as a “nice to have” or a checklist feature, rather than a core aspect of the product d l t l th t t ib t t t i ddevelopment cycle that can contribute to cost savings and profitability. This perception can stem from several sources, including a lack of:of:

Metrics and methods for measuring the impact and influence of usability on the product; andAn understanding of the real impact that usability has on costsAn understanding of the real impact that usability has on costs, customer satisfaction, and profitability.


Overview: The Cost and ROI of UsabilityOverview: The Cost and ROI of UsabilityInadequate use of usability engineering methods in software development projects have been estimated to cost the US economy about $30 billion per year in lost productivity.2

Bad design on the Internet is estimated to cost a few billion dollars more.1

B t b f t di h h th t ROI UI i t t iBut, a number of studies have shown that ROI on a UI investment is typically up 1000%.3

This method was first published by an IBM usability researcher, who showed that spending $60 000 on usability engineering throughoutshowed that spending $60,000 on usability engineering throughout development resulted in savings of $6,000,000 in the first year alone.

A reduced number of product design iterations provides significant cost savings to the organization. Once an application feature is coded, it can cost up to 10 times as much as it does to correct a UI problem during the design process.

The standard cost-benefit ratio for usability is $1:$10-$100, so for every $1 spent on usability you can expect to save $10 to $100 later


every $1 spent on usability, you can expect to save $10 to $100 later in the product lifecycle.1

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Overview: Integrating Usability Into the Product Lifecycleg g y y

Usability techniques integrated into the product lifecycle can be used to:lifecycle can be used to:

Lower product support, maintenance, and development costsKeep existing customers and attract new customers; andIncrease overall profitability.

Usability techniques and projects do not need to be large-scale multi-million $$ investments that requirelarge-scale, multi-million $$ investments that require months of intensive work.

Targeting low-hanging fruit and making incremental changes can net as many or more returns especially if suchchanges can net as many or more returns, especially if such changes are done in a thoughtful and ongoing manner.

Let’s learn more about these usability techniques.


Lower Support, Maintenance, and Development Why Product Usability Can Help You Win More Customers:

Costs


Lowered Support, Maintenance, and D l t C tDevelopment Costs

Products with excellent usability often see significantly lower support maintenance and development costs than other lesssupport, maintenance and development costs than other less usable products, giving companies an immediate and substantial cost savings.

Frustrated users who can’t complete their transactions or figure out the next step call into customer service and support, driving costs up unnecessarily.

Or worse, they return the product, drop off the website, or find workarounds so the product becomes shelfware.

In this section, we’ll share facts and tips on how toIn this section, we ll share facts and tips on how to make your product more user-friendly so you can avoid these mistakes.


Fun Usability Facts: Support Costsy pp

A certain printer manufacturer released a major printer driver that many users had difficulty installing – the driver had undergone no user testingbefore its release O er 50 000 sers called s pport for assistance at abefore its release. Over 50,000 users called support for assistance, at a cost to the company of nearly $500,000 a month.

To correct the situation, the manufacturer sent out letters of apology and patches discs (at a cost of $3 each) to users; they ended up spending $900,000 on the

blproblem.According to the printer manufacturer: “The problem could have been identified and corrected at a fraction of the cost if the product had been subjected to even the simplest of usability testing”.9

At Microsoft several years ago, Word’s print merge feature was so confusing that it generated numerous support calls that averaged 45 minutes per callsper calls.

As a result of usability testing and other related usability techniques, the UI for the feature was adjusted. In the next release, support calls 'dropped dramatically'; Microsoft recognized 'significant cost savings’ as a result of this feature design adjustment 6


feature design adjustment.

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Fun Usability Facts: Maintenance Costsy

One study found that 80% of software life-cycle costs occur during the maintenance phase Most maintenance costs are associated with "unmet ormaintenance phase. Most maintenance costs are associated with unmet or unforeseen" user requirements and other usability problems.4

Usability researchers Martin and McClure found that $20-30 billion was y $spent worldwide on software maintenance. Studying backlogs of maintenance work shows that the "invisible” usability backlog is 167% the size of the declared backlog.

Additional case study data also shows that internal development organizationsAdditional case study data also shows that internal development organizations are spending the majority of their resources on maintenance activities and thus cannot initiate development of strategic new systems.5

As a result of usability improvements at AT&T, the company saved $2,500,000 in training and maintenance expenses.8


Fun Usability Facts: Development Costs

Savings from earlier vs. later changes: Changes cost less when made earlier in the development life cycle. Twenty changes in a project at 32 hours per change and [a minimal] hourly rate of $35project, at 32 hours per change and [a minimal] hourly rate of $35, would cost $22,400.

Reducing this to 8 hours per change would reduce the cost to $5,600. Savings = $16,800.10g

A financial services company had to scrap an application it had developed, when, shortly before implementation, developers doing a p , , y p , p guser acceptance test found a fatal flaw in their assumptions about how data would be entered.

By this time, it was too late to change the underlying structure, and the li ti i l t d 11application never implemented.11

At one well-known enterprise software company, usability techniques h l d t d l t ti b 33 50% 13


helped cut development time by 33-50%.13

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A Real-World Vignette….A Real World Vignette….One of the largest cost savings can be realized by a significant reduction in the support the product requires when it reaches the market 16market. 16

In 2004, McAfee® reported a 90% reduction in the expected support of their product by implementing an innovative method of user interaction (i.e. a dashboard-type management console). When McAfee Inc. introduced its ProtectionPilot software—a "dashboard"-type management console for two of its Active VirusScan suites.In the first 10 weeks after release, more than 20,000 users went online to get a copy. Those 20,000 downloads of ProtectionPilot over a 10-week time span generated only 170 calls to McAfee's support lines—approximately one-tenth the volume that the company would expect, according to McAfee software development manager David Ries.And, roughly a third of those support calls were actually pre-sales questions, Ries says, from people who wanted more information about what the product could do; they didn't need technical help. The company attributed this improvement to the enhanced product design and


the significant role that usability played in the need for user help requests.

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Top Tips: Lower CostsTip 1: Redesign the feature or screen that generates the most support calls.

Every product has a feature or even a single screen that is known to causeEvery product has a feature or even a single screen that is known to cause usability problems. (If you don’t know what yours is, just ask the support team.)Focus resources on redesigning that feature or screen. Gather user inputs on the specific issues and solutions to those issues, create a low-fi designs, test them with users, and implement the changes in the product., p g p

Tip 2: Update and enhance your user documentation and support resources, including tutorials, Getting Started information, and “What’s this?” help.

Most users would prefer to answer questions themselves than call support, so make it easy for your users to quickly find the answers to questions themselves.Enhancing “inline” help on screens within a product can have a strong positive impact on product usability. Frequently, products feature obscure or unexplained p p y q y, p p“internal” terms, or simply lack sufficient explanations for how a screen or feature works. Inline help provides the just-in-time answer to obvious user questions.Where to focus if you can’t do it all? Target those areas of the product that are


producing the most support calls, feedback emails, or training questions.

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Top Tips: Lower CostsTip 3: Put the product on a “feature diet.”

More is nearly always less, and it’s often a challenge for even the most well-staffed and well-funded product teams to make all features usable. Couple that with the fact that many companies are not even sure which features their users actually utilize, and the product may have features that users don’t even want or need, that are hard to use, and that are creating noise and interference in the UI. gUsers get confused or distracted if there is too much noise in the product.Such features also require ongoing maintenance and internal support

d QA i h land QA in each release.

Tip 4: Train your product team in usability techniques.While all usability consultants would love to tell you that only usability consultants can guide product usability, the simple truth is that all members of the team can contribute to product usability.Short training courses (such as those offered by UEVision ;)) and online resources and articles can teach bootstrap techniques for design


resources and articles can teach bootstrap techniques for design, testing, validation, and research, that your team members can apply at any time in the product lifecycle.

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Increase Customer SatisfactionWhy Product Usability Can Help You Win More Customers:


Increased Customer SatisfactionCustomers are evaluating every dollar and are often open to looking around for lower-cost and higher-value alternatives, especially in a down economy.

Ease of use differentiates products in a highly competitive market place, bringing an added value that culminates in a higher degree of customer satisfaction, continued business and higher revenues.

But usability techniques such as testing and design alone do not inform customer satisfaction with your products. Customer satisfaction is certainly connected to product usability, but should be measured and managed as a piece of the product usability equation.

Ease of use, learnability, and the belief that their voices and requests are being heard and integrated into the product all contribute to overall customer satisfaction.

In this section, we’ll share usability best practices so you can keep more of your current customers from straying, and even attract new customers, despite the downturn.


despite the downturn.

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Fun Usability Facts: Customer SatisfactionWhen systems match user needs and requests, customer satisfaction [often] improves dramatically. In a Gartner Group study, usability methods raised user satisfaction ratings for a system by 40%.18

A study by Computer + Software News found that prospective customers rated ease of use second at 6.8 out of 10, while ease of learning was rated fourth at 6 4 on a scale of important purchaselearning was rated fourth at 6.4 on a scale of important purchase factors.19

Microsoft® Publisher attained a 92% customer satisfaction ratingMicrosoft® Publisher attained a 92% customer satisfaction rating through customer involvement in the design and development process.20

One study at NCR showed a 25% increase in customer satisfaction correlating with with an additional 25% decrease in errors resulting from redesign of screens to follow basic principles of good design. 21


A Real-World Vignette….gOracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Service Solution was the first enterprise applications vendor to deliver a complete CRM suite on a pure internet architecture. When developing this release of the software, Oracle placed a major emphasis on integrating both usability feedback and customer satisfaction metrics into the development and delivery process.More than 40 major CRM customers including HP Norstan BelgacomMore than 40 major CRM customers, including HP, Norstan, Belgacom, Merck, and France Telecom, provided detailed feedback and participated in extensive testing. Consequently, numerous usability features were introduced. The results included:

30 percent improvement in performance. 38 percent improvement in usability.

The suite won numerous usability and customer satisfaction awardsThe suite won numerous usability and customer satisfaction awards, including:

The highest owner satisfaction ranking of all the major enterprise application vendors, according to Forrester Research.


2004 CRM Market Leader Award, CRM Magazine, for customer satisfaction and product innovation.

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Top Tips: Increasing Customer Satisfactionp p g

Tip 1: Survey your customers’ satisfaction levels. It may seem obvious, but if you don’t know how satisfied your customers are with your product, you’ll need to start the process by finding out. Measuring customer satisfaction through qualitative surveys is a convenient and inexpensive way to capture feedback and prioritize changeschanges.The process can be accomplished in these simple steps:

Capture Representative Feedback: Don’t worry about surveying everyone; a qualitative survey that samples from representatives of each customer user type will suffice We typically recommend surveying approximately 10-12 users from each usersuffice. We typically recommend surveying approximately 10-12 users from each user segment.Prioritize Changes and Enhancements: Once you have the initial feedback and a list of changes and enhancements, the list will most likely be more than your team can possible tackle at one time or in one release. Prioritize the changes based on the feedback received and work them into the development cycle along with other priorityfeedback received, and work them into the development cycle along with other priority changes.Test Improvements with Actual Customers: As the changes and enhancements are added to the product, test them with actual customers and users prior to releasing them to the larger community.


Measure Satisfaction Regularly: As you make changes and enhancements, regularly check back with customers about their satisfaction levels.

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Top Tips: Increasing Customer Satisfaction

Tip 2: Start a Customer Feedback Program. What’s almost as important to product success as a highly-usable product? The belief that your customers have that your company isproduct? The belief that your customers have that your company is engaged in a consistent and sincere effort to listen to their feedback and to work it into a cycle of ongoing improvement. Starting a Customer Feedback Program can be as simple as gathering together 8 10 of your friendliest customers in webgathering together 8-10 of your friendliest customers in web-based quarterly meetings to discuss upcoming features, present new design ideas, and gather feedback and ideas.The rapport that develops between your team and your customers is invaluable the product design and development cycle, as the customer becomes a “real” recipient of the product rather than an abstract concept.Customers will also develop a stronger sense of their voices “beingCustomers will also develop a stronger sense of their voices being heard,” even if feature and enhancement requests are not implemented immediately.


Top Tips: Increasing Customer Satisfaction

Tip 3: Hold Customer Brainstorming Sessions to gather enhancements and improvement ideasgather enhancements and improvement ideas.

Believe or not, customers love to give their ideas about how to make a product they use better than it is currently.While some software professionals may still cling to the outdatedWhile some software professionals may still cling to the outdated notion that “users don’t know what they want until we tell them”, real-life examples of successful products and companies show that notion simply not to be true.p yCustomer satisfaction starts and ends with how useful customers find your product, not with long feature lists or cool, bleeding-edge technologies. By gathering ideas from your customers about your product, your team has the opportunity to innovate with the product in ways that might otherwise not be apparent.


Increase ProfitabilityWhy Product Usability Can Help You Win More Customers:

y


Increased ProfitabilityyAs companies compete for smaller pools of dollars, the need to be the very best becomes even stronger.

Increasingly, the impression of a company’s brand is linked to the usability of its products. Some companies differentiate themselves by improving usability of existing products, and others base their entire brand on product usability.

Whichever the path, when an organization finds an innovative way to solve a problem, the result positions them as an innovator and brings value to the brand.problem, the result positions them as an innovator and brings value to the brand.

Your products (and product demos) need to “wow!” your prospects and customers and we’ll present tips on how to do just that in thisand customers and we ll present tips on how to do just that in this section.

In this section we’ll talk about how to increase product and


In this section, we’ll talk about how to increase product and company profitability.

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Fun Usability Facts: Increased ProfitabilityA major computer company spent $20,700 on usability work to improve the sign-on procedure in a system used by several thousand people.

Th lti d ti it i t d th $41 700The resulting productivity improvement saved the company $41,700 the first day the system was used. On a system used by over 100,000 people, for a usability outlay of $68,000, the same company recognized a benefit of $6,800,000 , , p y g , ,within the first year of the system's implementation. (This is inline with the cost-benefit ratio of $1:$100.) 25

T b ild d l i t t B N t k t $3 illi d tTo build a model intranet, Bay Networks spent $3 million and two years studying the different ways people think about the same thing.

The result: they saved $10 million each year it was in use.26

Sun Microsystems has shown how spending about $20,000 could yield a savings of $152 million dollars.

Each and every dollar invested could return $7,500 in savings.27


y g

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Fun Facts: Increased ProfitabilityOne case study of a usability-engineered software product for a well-known software company showed that increased revenue by more than 80% over the first release of the product (built without usability work).

The revenues of the usability-enhanced system were 60% higher than projected. Many customers cited usability as a key factor in buying the new system.23

Because there are so many poorly designed websites when customersBecause there are so many poorly designed websites, when customers find one that "works", they tend to do repeat business and gain trust in the organization.

One study estimated that improving the customer experience increases the b f b b 40% d i d i b 10% 22number of buyers by 40% and increase order size by 10%.22

After move.com completed the redesign of the home "search" and "contact an agent" features based on a UI consulting firm'scontact an agent features based on a UI consulting firm s recommendations, users ability to find a home increased from 62% to 98%, sales lead generation to real estate agents increased over 150%, and [move.com's] ability to sell advertising space on move.com improved significantly 24


significantly.

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A Real-World Vignette….A Real World Vignette….Incumbent organizations that struggle to incorporate usability into their software products lose a key differentiator for their combined instrumentation/software products

FlowJo™ is a software product that is having a disruptive effect on p g pthe flowcytometry market.

It was developed by a company that doesn’t event make Biotech i t t ti b t it h i d i ifi t k t h d tinstrumentation, but it has gained significant market share due to its usability. 28

Th ltThe result: Competitors instrumentation (in a commoditized industry) when partnered with the FlowJo product are not only competing, but are taking market share


are taking market share.

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Top Tips: Increasing Profitability

Tip 1: Redesign a key feature that will differentiate your product from the competition.

Is there one feature or module in the product that your competition p y pconsistently uses to differentiate (and to win) customers and prospects? For example, do prospects rave about the dashboard that your top competitor has, or how easy their installation and configuration process is compared to your product’s installalion process?is compared to your product s installalion process?Don’t wait until the next full product redesign to address these competitive issues – redesign that feature now, and get a leg up on the competition.

Tip 2: Give your product UI a “facelift.”While a large-scale product redesign may not be feasible, or the next-generation g p g y gof the product may still be 12-18 months out, a UI “refresh” is a great alternative to refreshing an aging product.Changing the visual designs, graphics, and colors of the product can also provide usability gains, as well as making your existing product look fresh and new (and


competitive) to prospects and customers alike.

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Top Tips: Increasing ProfitabilityTip 3: Start the next-generation design work now.

So the next version of the product or site is still 12 months out? Build a working demo or prototype to show customers and prospects toBuild a working demo or prototype to show customers and prospects, to demonstrate the forward-thinking ideas of your product team.Conveniently, you can also use for usability validation and feedback.

Tip 4: Make every release a “usability” release.Frequently, companies announce to customers that a specific product version is the “usability release”, as if usability enhancements can only be released in batches. Make every release a usability release by including usability enhancements on the list of changes.


In ConclusionWhen the economy is in a downturn companies are frequentlyWhen the economy is in a downturn, companies are frequently tempted to put product usability and user interface (UI) projects on the budgetary chopping block as a means of cutting short term costs, without consider the impact of such cuts.A lack of appropriate tools and metrics to measure the real cost and ROI of usability on the product is often the source of belief that cutting usability will not have a real business impact.But, as we have discussed, usability can directly affect:

Support, maintenance, and development costsCustomer satisfaction; andUltimately, profitability.

By treating usability as an integrated and essential step of the product development cycle, companies can not only avoid the p p y , p ytemptation to jettison it in tougher economic times, but can nurture ongoing usability efforts that will deliver direct results to your customers, company, and ultimately, your company’s bottom line ….


Q & AQ & A

Questions?Thoughts?Ideas?Ideas?


Thank you for attending!Thank you for attending!

If you would like more information or if you want to discuss usability ideas, please contact me:

Phone: 415.325.4905Email: [email protected]


Contact InformationContact Information

Sarah Kling, CEOg,UEVision, Inc.www uevision comwww.uevision.comPhone: 415.325.4905Email: [email protected]


References1. “Alerbox: 8/8/1997, Jakob Nielsen 2 “Th T bl ith C t ” T L d2. “The Trouble with Computers”, Tom Landauer3. Bias and Mayhew, 19944. Pressman, 19925. Martin & McClure, 19836. Bias & Mayhew, 19947. Dray & Karat, 19948. Bias & Mayhew, 19949. Bias & Mayhew, 199410. Human Factors International, 2001)11. Dray, 199512. Bias & Mayhew, 199413. Bosert, 199114. Bias & Mayhew, 199415. Bias & Mayhew, 199416. “Clean, cutting-edge UI design cuts McAfee's support calls by 90%” Bruce Hadley, 2005g g g y y17. Oracle Whitepaper http://www.oracle.com/media/peoplesoft/en/pdf/whitepapers/e_crm_wp_usabilitycustsvcapps_42005.pdf18. Bias & Mayhew, 199419. Bias & Mayhew, 199420. “Microsoft Publisher Gets an "A" in Customer Satisfaction; Publisher 2000 Works to Keep Up the Grade”

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/mar99/pubsatpr.mspx21. Gallaway, 198122. Creative Good, 200023. Vividence, 200124. Bias & Mayhew, 199425. Fabris, 1999


26. Rhodes, 200027. http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/magazine/4/5/0610klsg/?searchterm=usability

Final ThoughtsFinal ThoughtsSome final thoughts:

Engage sabilit e pertise if o are serio s abo t impro ing o r prod ct andEngage usability expertise if you are serious about improving your product and need support to deliver enhancements in design or greater value to your evolving user community.Employ actual/real users. Complex applications require domain-specific knowledge Though it might be easier to enlist someone from another departmentknowledge. Though it might be easier to enlist someone from another department to run through a quick user test, the results are likely to be questionable.Include representatives from all critical departments. Too often, testing and user-research limits the participants to UI designers and Marketing. Developers, business analysts and technical leads should play an active role in the usabilitybusiness analysts, and technical leads should play an active role in the usability process.Usability test early and test often. Usability testing should continue throughout the design and development cycle. The most common mistake is to test an application when it is near completion—at a time when changes are most costlyapplication when it is near completion at a time when changes are most costly.


uevision presents: how usability can help you get more customers

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