Digital Usability and Return on Investment

It’s been a while since we looked at this issue - September 2013 - and as in every digital sector, it has moved on leaps and bounds.

UX (User Experience) is now understood as a fundamental business concern for digital. Previously it had been a ‘take it or leave it’ addition. It was hard to identify in quantifiable terms how UX added to business benefits. This has changed too. It’s a discipline that has grown in knowledge that has been tied to business key performance indicators (KPIs). This is what has driven its recognition as a core component of any type of digital communication.

So, this discipline now has its own sets of awards covering various facets of communication. For example, UKUX Awards 29th October 2014 awarded in the following categories: Best Entertainment, Best Student Project, Best Not for Profit, Best Public Sector, Best Effects on Business Goals, Best Innovation, Best Learning or Education Experience, Best Information, Best Transactional Experience, Best Windows Phone App, Best User Experience, For more details of the winners and an explanation of why they won, see www.bunnyfoot.com.

It’s as well to note that a website or other digital applications may well not be able to show such business benefits straight away. It’s often in the refinement of the user experience in use that tightens up the experience and releases the business potential. This means ongoing observation. Will your customers pay for this? Do you have the expertise? Do you recommend that this happens? If you are not a usability company then these are questions you need to ask.

You also need to appreciate that the different digital offerings need different tests to demonstrate where they are not meeting customer expectations and what to do about this. There isn’t a one way solution! If you read Lee Duddell’s account of ‘5 Tips to Improve Mobile UX’ (20 June 2014) in ‘What Users Do’, you’ll see what we mean.

If you want to do some in-depth self-improvement (Professional Development?), there’s a one hour webinar, ‘How to Measure the ROI of User Experience’ by Dr. Susan Weinschenk, at ‘Userzoom’.

This is a field of expertise and unless it is our field of expertise, we can only appreciate whether our companies should be aware of the benefits it can bring, whether we are covering it with experts, and/or whether we have a duty to inform our customers about it. Yes, there’s so much to consider in projects, we know.