ROI from Usability

First, a basic assertion: usability leads to simplicity, which leads to user satisfaction, which means increased profits.

Let's unravel that. Usability is a measure of quality, but it is in part subjective. Whoa, you say, I'm not paying real money for a subjective response, a feeling. Well, people prefer one product over others, give recommendations, and make purchase decisions largely due to the way they feel about it.

More concretely, usability is strongly connected to the time it takes to complete a certain action, including wrong turns, recovering from errors, consulting help documentation, and so on. Those actions are completely non-productive. People don't like the feeling of being frustrated, and are aware when they are wasting time with a bad design. Website usability is determined by users' ability to avoid navigation errors and deal with new information.

Real-World Usability

Jakob Nielsen completed a study in 2003 which concluded:

"Development projects should spend 10% of their budget on usability. Following a usability redesign, websites increase desired metrics by 135% on average; intranets improve slightly less."

A project can conduct usability testing iteratively, beginning with paper wireframes, sharpen focus on the user group, and catch design problems. It doesn't have to cost a lot to be effective.

Costs vs. Benefits

The Nielsen study collected data from 863 redesign projects which employed usability activities, and found that costs of those activities were around 10% of the total budget. But this data revealed a non-reciprocal cost curve: the larger the project, the smaller the usability cost percentage, sometimes a low as 4%.

The Nielsen study reviewed data from 42 redesign projects where like usability metrics were available for both the original and revised system. They found that usability increased by 135% or higher. That means, if the original usability was 1.00, then usability of the revised system was over 2.35.

Nielsen found average improvements in sales and conversion rate of 100%, traffic and visitor counts of 150%, user performance and productivity increased to 161%, and use of specific features of 202%.

ROI from Usability

Real-World Usability

Costs vs. Benefits

Further Reading