Selling UX In Your Organization

Presented by Carol Smith @carologic

Cleveland UXPAWorld Usability Day 2013

Reasons not to do UX

Arguments Against UX

Time Cost No access to users Liability Not needed Invisible Return on Investment (ROI)

Start Now!

Share What You Learn

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/http://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/5542172347/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Goals of Sharing

Help the team: understand user’s point of view identify new opportunities prioritize content and solutions design for user’s needs and behaviors create new solutions

Information Radiators

Facilitate Communication Decision Making:

Navigation Features Design

Know Your Audience

You may sell UX to: Clients Project/Product Managers Developers Designers Managers Executives

Explain

Explain how the choices you’ve made lead to a successful project. This isn’t magic, it’s math.

Show your work. Don’t hope someone “gets it,” and don’t blame them if they don’t — convince them.

Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job via http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2013/02/20/sell-design-solution-clients/

Negotiate for Your Users

Focus on interest, not positions Need to make a great experience Benefits for user and organization Savings of time, money, resources,

effort, etc.

Watch your pronouns We not them

Want to Sell UX? Stop Talking UX!by Lis Hubert, UX Consultant at Independent on Sep 05, 2013. http://www.slideshare.net/lishubert/want-to-sell-ux-stop-talking-ux

SKEPTICS WILL ASK

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppini/3211910657/sizes/o/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppini/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

We Have That Survey Set Up

We are getting data from it. Why would we need anything more?

Surveys

Compliment qualitative work Questions are an art-form

Multiple and un-intended meanings Only get out of it what you ask about

Our Employees

Easy access Know the users Invested in this project

Employees Aren’t the User

Know too much Ego, job, co-workers, etc. Not the intended user

OK for guerilla style testing

Usability Gets in the Way

BrandDesign

Edge Users

Speed of Development

Why Change?

Move On

Too Many Clicks

More than 83% of Internet users are likely to leave a Web site if…too many clicks to find what they’re looking for.

-Arthur Andersen, 2001

Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

Vague, Misleading Links are the Culprit

Give them the “scent”

of informationand they will happily keep clicking

Focus Group vs. Ethnography

http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarycommission/2840794254/sizes/m/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarycommission/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

What is the difference?

Ethnography• Observe actual process• Equity among participants• Find patterns of behavior

User Research

We Know it’s Difficult, We Have a Training Program!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/5181464194/sizes/o/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/

Training

Additional time and money Less costly to find and correct issues

Training (Continued)

How much is their time worth? 1 Hour of training? 1 Day of training? 1 Week of training?

Company was able to eliminate training and save $140,000

AT&T saved $2,500,000 in training expenses

Bias & Mayhew, 1994http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/roi_of_usability.html

How many test participants to get real results?

Number of Participants

Studies have shown that testing 5-6 representative users of each user type will reveal 80% of usability issues.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.htmlJakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users. March 19, 2000.

Let go of the Numbers!

This is about people Statistical significance is not feasible

Time Cost

ROI would diminish entirely

Looking for Patterns

Identify repetition After pattern is found, continuation:

Adds cost Delays reporting Low probability of many new findings

Define Purpose

Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group Size for Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide” by Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.

Main Purpose # of Participants

Convince skeptics (demonstration)

3

Find serious problems 9-12

Find all serious problems Unknown

Find all problems Unknown

Measure key parameters >20

What This Means

Know your primary user(s) and recruit carefully Very specific user group - 5 works Less well defined - more (8-15 or more)

There is controversy Study in 2001 was inconclusive due

to study design (Spool and Schroeder)

Disclaimers

Testing five users is not always enough

Must be well recruited – not just anyone

Smaller groups do not equate better findings

Low test quality - size doesn’t matter

"Results of usability tests depend considerably on the evaluator"

- Jacobsen and Hertzum, 2001

Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group Size for Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide” by Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.

Return on Investment (ROI)

“If you dedicate at least 10 percent of your project budget to usability activities, you will see an average of 135 percent improvement in usability"

- Jakob Nielsen, principal, Nielsen Norman Group, 2003

http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/financial/5670570-1.html All Business. Dated:Jan. 8, 2003

Once a system is in development, correcting a problem costs 10 times as much as fixing the same problem in design.

If the system had been released, it costs 100 times as much relative to fixing in design.

-Gilb, 1988 -Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

ROI: In House Advantage

Access to users Access to data Before and after

Small increments of time and effort

# of employees over time

Potentially huge savings in time and money

X =

ROI (continued)

Small things can make a big difference

$300,000,000 Button

Provide right recommendations by observing and talking with the customersSpool, Jared. The $300 Million Button. January 14, 2009.

http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/ Button: BD Create

Create UX Advocates

Who is Already There?

Pay attention to who approaches you Look for your comrades May not be in your area of the

organization Make time to chat with them

Share recent articles about UX Invite to a UX event locally Invite to join LinkedIn or other groups

online

Find & Create New Advocates

Use promotions Remind everyone of successes Provide templates for planning -

include UX Provide highlights and/or reports that

will help them sell UX

Build UX in the Organization

Identify C-level person Get their support for a small study Invite them to sessions Make sure they see benefits gained Remind them of success next time Help them become a promoter

Building UX

Centralized in a department Embedded in existing teams

See Shared Interests (not positions)

Increase sales Save time and money Create happy customers

Benefits from UX

Sell more product Discover unmet needs Reduce:

Costs (support, training) Need for updates and maintenance

releases

From A Practical Guide to Usability Testing by Joseph Dumas and Janice Redish, 1999. Page 18.

Why You Should Care

“Customers are the only stakeholders who are not represented in design meetings.

If it hurts users and will cause customers to leave? Silence.

Unless you speak up. So do it.”

-Jakob Nielsen

Usability Evangelism: Beneficial or Land Grab? By Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D http://www.developer.nokia.com/Design/Usability_evangelism.xhtml

10 Ways to Promote UX

1. Invite everyone to observe via remote observation

2. Schedule testing at a regular time3. Promote availability of testing internally (Yammer)4. Network within organization and share what you

do5. Present lunch sessions6. Invite staff to local UX events7. Share recommendations and successes widely8. Post information radiators in shared locations9. Hold a World Usability Day event next year!10.Invite everyone to observe UX sessions in-person

Represent Your UsersThey are depending on you!

Contact Carol

Twitter @carologic

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/caroljsmith

Slides: slideshare.net/carologic

UX Akron

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Recommended Readings

References

Building Trust and Credibility: How To Sell Your UX Design Solution To Clients by Rian van der Merwe http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2013/02/20/sell-design-solution-clients/

Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age, Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew

The $300 Million Button by Jared Spool Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5

Users. March 19, 2000. Measuring the User Experience by Bill Albert and Tom Tullis Usability Evangelism: Beneficial or Land Grab? by Jakob Nielsen,

Ph.D http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/

roi_of_usability.html Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group

Size for Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide” by Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.