The Secret to Success

Author: Rob Keefer

June 2009

It’s a tough market. Companies need every advantage to lower costs, drive new revenue, and expedite time to market. My question is: why do so many companies routinely make it hard to do that?

It all starts with design.

Every product or service has been designed. Some have been designed well, yet very little thought has gone into others. Regardless, the resulting design generates a customer experience, or User Experience (UX). And, UX directly affects the financial health and public perception of a company.

Unfortunately, UX efforts are often considered to be additive; that is, if the product development does not include formal UX activities, such as usability testing or prototyping, there will not be any UX costs. This is an expensive and false assumption. Numerous research findings demonstrate measurable financial risk by avoiding UX design. The reality is you’re still doing design along the way; what varies is who performs that design and/or what design process is—or most likely is not—being used.

By intentionally incorporating UX into the engineering and development process, companies can significantly decrease development costs, more successfully drive sales, and positively impact faster delivery.

Decrease Development Costs
Nearly, 65% of all product development projects overrun budget. The top 4 issues for overrun are unforeseen usability issues. These costs are frequently quite large and could mostly be avoided through adequate UX planning and testing. The intentional use of UX design decreases product development costs of both internal and customer-facing products by minimizing the correction of expensive mistakes early in the development cycle.

Drive Sales
A good customer experience leads to increased loyalty and increased Net Promoter Scores. Companies can monetize loyal customers 2.4 times more than neutral customers. Also, an investment portfolio formed in 2007 of select companies known for successful UX, outperformed market indices with 37% growth its first year.

Deliver Faster
A user experience design professional clarifies the user interaction and brings focus to the development team. Rather than building a product with 100 features that no one wants to buy, a company can focus on quickly releasing a product with the most valuable 20 features customers are ready and willing to buy. A well-known printer manufacturer realized this and expedited its product launch schedule from 3 years to 18 months while also improving its new product success rate.

Regardless of whether a product or service is designed with UX in mind, customers will evaluate the experience and make future buying decisions based on their experience. So, what are some things that you can do to avoid common UX mistakes that cost big business?

Project Managers – Get a coach. There are a range of organizations that will review your designs and provide workshops on how to include users into your development process.

Project Managers – Rent UX help through vendors. While many nationally recognized firms can help with this, there are a few select, local companies that also provide this service and do not have to be expensive.

Product Managers - Talk to users as early as possible. Many products are developed from the myopic point of view of the product manager. The customers know what they want, and are very happy to share their views. A rule of thumb would be to speak with around 7 customers to get a reasonable idea of what people are looking for. In one example, American Airlines reduced the cost of fixing usability problems by 60 to 90 percent by correcting problems identified early in the development process rather than waiting for the product to be released.

Product Managers - Take a developer to talk to customers. I know this may be very frightening to a product manager, but a developer is often familiar with new technology developments that others are not aware of. This insight may encourage the development of a better and more innovative product.

Developers - Remember the Golden Rule. Build for your users what you would want to use, not what is easy for you to build. Engineers often focus on fulfilling a stated requirement rather than thinking about the intent of the requirement and how it could be implemented in a most useful way.

By incorporating a few of these suggestions, your company will maintain a good relationship with your customers, and be better positioned to lower costs, drive new revenue, and expedite time to market.

To learn more or to download a complete white paper on UX, please visit http://www.sds-consulting.com/free_resources.html or call Rob Keefer at 937-886-9405.