• Unmanaged risks

o   Poor communication among customers, developers, and users

o   Use of immature technology

o   Inability to handle the project's complexity

o   Sloppy development practices

o   Poor project management

o   Stakeholder politics

o   Commercial pressures

 

HFI recommends following the “10%” rules.The rules of thumb state that 10% of your IT staff should be user experience (UX) professionals and 10% of your budget dedicated to UX. By putting a larger emphasis on UCD principles and practices, you can make iterative improvements and avoid costly large scale rework that does not fit your users or organisations goals.

 

 

 

• Understanding Your Return on Investment (ROI) of UX

At a minimum, success can be defined as the project not being abandoned and it finishing on time and on budget. However, you can go deeper by calculating the cost savings of doing UX upfront and also discussing success in terms of user performance and satisfaction measurements.

 

 

• Calculating ROI

Weinschenk, in her white paper Usability: A Business Case Site exit disclaimer outlines three useful equations for calculating cost savings related to:

 

 

• Errors

(# of errors) x (avg. repair time) x (employee cost) x (# of employees) = cost savings

Example: (2 errors/week) x (60 mins) x ($30/hour) x (100 employees) = $6,0000/week or $300,000/year

 

 

 

• Cost of Development and Maintenance

(# of changes) x (avg. hrs/change) x (cost of developer) x (4, if late) = cost savings

Example: (20 changes) x (8 hrs each) x ($40/hour) = $6,400 if fixed early or $25,600 if changed late

 

 

 

• Productivity

(Time saved) x (employee cost) x (# of employees) = cost savings

Example: (1 hr/week) x ($30/hr) x (1000 employees) = $30,000/ week or $15,000,000/year

Defining and Measuring Success

In addition, there are some other ways to define and monitor success related to your goals.You can do so by identifying specific targets for various performance and satisfaction goals:

 

• Goals   Measurements Target
• Improve Performance
• Reduce number of user errors
• Increase ease of use
• Increase ease of learning
• Identify Specific Targets for Each Measurement You Choose to Improve
• Increase Exposure     
• Increase traffic/ audience size
• Increase number of return visitors when appropriate (retain users)
• Increase number of new visitors (attract users)
• Increase number of visits from search
• Improve Credibility   
• Increase user satisfaction
• Increase trust in the system
• Increase number of visits referral
• Reduce Resource Burden      
• Reduce development costs
• Reduce development time
• Reduce maintenance costs
• Reduce redesign costs
• Decrease support costs
• Reduce training needed
• Reduce documentation costs
• Increase Sales & Increase product sales
• Increase transactions/ purchases