Ebook Usability Is Good Business
Research shows that improving the usability of software systems—including information-technology (IT); e-commerce; “shrink-wrapped” and other commercial software—can be highly cost-effective. The benefits of usability engineering extend beyond improving a system’s user interface (UI) and end user productivity; its beneficiaries include not only end users but also system developers and the companies they work for. Usability techniques can reduce software and e-commerce costs (including development, support, training, documentation and maintenance costs), shorten development time and improve marketability.
The rule of thumb in many usability-aware organizations is that the cost-benefit ratio for usability is $1:$10-$100, that is, for every dollar spent implementing usability techniques, the organization will realize a benefit between $10 and $100. But many organizations may want to perform their own usability cost-benefit analyses. In such analyses, the goal is to estimate the costs and benefits that will result if specific usability activities are conducted and contrast them with the costs of not conducting the activities. Doing so requires identifying the usability technique to be employed, deciding an appropriate unit of measurement, making an assumption about the magnitude of the benefit and translating the anticipated benefit into a monetary figure (as illustrated on pages 4-6.) In a usability cost-benefit analysis it is also essential to focus on the benefits most relevant to the group for which the analysis is conducted.
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Ebook Usability Is Good Business
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