| |
| Research shows that you can increase
sales and revenue, gain a competitive edge, and satisfy your
customers through usability and customer-driven development
methods: |
| |
| Increased
sales and revenues |
| Usability
goals are business goals. Web sites that are hard to use frustrate
customers, forfeit revenue, and erode brands. It is common for
usability efforts to result in a 100% or more increase in traffic
or sales. A usability engineered software product increased
revenue for Digital Equipment Corporation by more than 80% over
the first release (built without usability work). |
| |
|
|
| Greater competitive
edge |
Unusable web
sites commonly drive away nearly half of repeat traffic by not
making it easy for visitors to find the information they need.
This finding is even more critical because it is your repeat
customers who are the most valuable: New users at one e-commerce
site studied spent an average of $127 per purchase, whereas
repeat users spent nearly twice that.
American Airlines sued Budget Rent-A-Car, Marriott Corp. and
Hilton Hotels after the failure of a $165 million car rental
and hotel reservation system. Among the major causes of the
project's disintegration were "an incomplete statement
of requirements, lack of user involvement, and constant changing
of requirements and specifications," all failures in customer
research. |
| |
| Improved customer
satisfaction |
Usability
methods can raise user satisfaction by up to 40% according to
a study by the Gartner Group.
In order for people to spend money online, they must trust the
company offering the product or service. An e-commerce trust
study found that navigation and presentation¾both usability
concerns¾were essential to creating customer trust.
|
| |
|
|
