Many people are not aware that the user experience is a central part of the design of a successful product. That experience involves the science and art of designing a product so that it is easy to use, meets expectations and business goals. There is an entire methodology behind designing a user experience.
We’ve teamed up with Human Factors International to show you why it’s critical to calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) of user experience.
Human Factors International partnered with Truscribe to add the visual element to Dr. Susan Weinschenk’s testimony of why it’s critical to invest time and resources in the user experience in order to save money long term.
The ROI of the User Experience
In an effort to show how user experience affects ROI, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) released a report about why software fails. The report estimates the amount of money spent on worldwide information technology is $1 trillion per year. Yet the percentage of projects that are abandoned each year because they are deemed inadequate is 15%. The report also states that three of the 12 reasons new projects fail center around user experience.
Dr. Weinschenk goes on to give an example of how ROI changes if user experience is tested. She used the example of a micro lending company, which is a nonprofit organization that looks to people for donations and then takes that money to fund other small businesses. This is a business where people donate on the website. It is estimated that 50 customers will abandon the effort to donate money because the searching and donating part of the website is too difficult to navigate.
Yet if the micro lending company invested $100,000 to fix the user experience and the back-end coding, it would take just over a month (approximately 40 days) to recoup the investment. Other ways that improving user experience impacts ROI is through reduced training requirements and fewer calls to a help desk.
Finally Dr. Weinschenk uses the following quote from Albert Einstein to illustrate Human Factors International’s philosophy.
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” — Albert Einstein