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Usability is good investment
Overall, pursuing usability is found to be a great investment when you
consider the likely payoff. By making it a priority you not only satisfy
your customer, you streamline the operation by improving web design and
development, you save costs by reducing development time, training and
maintenance expenses, and you succeed in getting your web project- a better
one - to the market sooner.
Incorporating ease of use into your web projects actually saves money.
Reports have shown it is far more economical to consider user needs in
the early stages of design, than it is to solve them later. For example,
Author Robert Pressman shows that for every dollar spent to resolve a
problem during product design, $10 would be spent on the same problem
during development, and multiply to $100 or more if the problem had to
be solved after the product's release. Simply stated, the lesson is clear:
It is far less expensive to prevent a problem occurring in the first place
than to fix it later. And one of the best ways to prevent problems from
occurring, and to protect your development investment at the same time,
is to keep your users/customers involved through the entire web development
life cycle.
In today's market, usable web sites are more desirable. Ease of use differentiates
them in a highly competitive market place. Ease of use brings an added
value that culminates in a higher degree of customer satisfaction, continued
business and higher revenues. In fact, studies conducted by usability
expert Dr. Clare-Marie Karat show that companies committed to ease of
use do more than meet customer expectations, they can actually exceed
anticipated earnings.
Finding it easy
When business processes are based on ease of use, according to Dr. Karat's
findings, there is an increase in employee satisfaction. What's more,
easy-to-use, intuitive web sites have proven to cut transaction time in
half - which, companies report, results in improved productiveness, and
enough savings to cover the cost of the revamping alone.
Still, that's not all ease of use has to offer. By creating a higher
rate of employee satisfaction along with improved performance, it produces
a chain reaction that leads directly, and ultimately, to more satisfied
customers. And satisfied customers provide the base for business growth
and competitive success.
In the end, usability does it. It makes business effective. It makes
business efficient. It makes a great e-business sense.
Usability is not an expense, it is an expense eradicator!
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