Andrew,
I appreciate the response. The reason I did not provide more
information is for a few reasons. The main being I can not get into
exactly what I need the information for. My company is involve in a
large RFP. As part of this, we are looking to include "hard data" to
show that the time/money/energy that was spend on UI and User
Experience issues are part of our solution and hold value. While this
is a product we have, and is out in the wild collecting data, I was
checking to see if folks are at a stage that they feel comfortable
throwing general numbers around.
Now I, like you, live in a world of (to keep the phrase going) "it
depends". However this group we are presenting to is not comfortable
in that world. They like more certainty. Numbers are always comforting.
On Jun 6, 2009, at 6:24 PM, Andrew Otwell wrote:
I need to provide data showing the increased value of a well thought
out user interface/user experience.
The data I am looking for is general. "Providing a well designed
user experience shows "xx"% increase ....."
I'm not sure what you're looking to accomplish here, but I'm
guessing you're
trying to sell someone on the value of doing design. I haven't found
this to
be a very effective technique for selling design to stakeholders.
I'm not
even sure among our community we could agree on what "a well-
designed user
experience" is in the abstract.
"Well-thought out" is *very* vague--how are you going to guarantee
it, and
are you really confident that a particular process guarantees a known
result? If you think 10% "better" will you get 10% better results? I
don't
think it's wise to set yourself up to deliver a numerically specific
outcome
from what's really just an *intention* to do "well thought out"
design.
Worst of all, you're putting yourself in a position to convince
stakeholders
of a lot of subjective stuff: whenever you're trying to teach
stakeholders
what "good design" is you're going to have your work cut out for you!
Much better is to start and end with things you can measure that are
specific to your problem and your context. For your shopping cart
maybe
you've identified spots where there's high abandonment, or where
users make
errors, or other metrics that you and other stakeholders already
understand
and value. Identify specific goals (like "reduce abandonment from
page x by
10%"), and then work specifically on those. Some of those problems
require
thorough design processes, testing, iteration, etc. You might be
able to
solve some (easy) problems with the application of common sense and
a bit of
luck. The key will be to help stakeholders understand where you need
time
and resources to get to good solutions for valuable problems.
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