Book description
You just know that an improvement of the user interface will reap rewards, but how do you justify the expense and the labor and the time—guarantee a robust ROI!—ahead of time? How do you decide how much of an investment should be funded? And what is the best way to sell usability to others?
In this completely revised and new edition of Cost-Justifying Usability, Randolph G. Bias (University of Texas at Austin, with 25 years’ experience as a usability practitioner and manager) and Deborah J. Mayhew (internationally recognized usability consultant and author of two other seminal books including The Usability Engineering Lifecycle) tackle these and many other problems. It has been updated to cover cost-justifying usability for Web sites and intranets, for the complex applications we have today, and for a host of products—offering techniques, examples, and cases that are unavailable elsewhere. No matter what type of product you build, whether or not you are a cost-benefit expert or a born salesperson, this book has the tools that will enable you to cost-justify the appropriate usability investment.
- Includes contributions by a host of experts involved in this work, including Aaron Marcus, Janice Rohn, Chauncey Wilson, Nigel Bevan, Dennis Wixon, Clare-Marie Karat, Susan Dray, Charles Mauro, and many others
- Includes actionable ideas for every phase of the software development process
- Includes case studies from inside a variety of companies
- Includes ideas from "the other side of the table," software executives who hold the purse strings, who offer thoughts on which proposals for usability support they've funded, and which ones they've declined
Table of contents
- Front cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of contents (1/4)
- Table of contents (2/4)
- Table of contents (3/4)
- Table of contents (4/4)
- Preface
-
1: Justifying Cost-Justifying Usability
- 1.1 INTRODUCTION
- 1.2 LESSONS FROM THE PAST: SEMINAL RESEARCH ON RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN HUMAN FACTORS IN THE 1980S AND 1990S
-
1.3 WWW.SOWHAT
- 1.3.1 Who Are All Those People?
- 1.3.2 If I Had a Hammer, I Wouldn’t Necessarily Be a Carpenter
- 1.3.3 The Tug of “Internet Time”
- 1.3.4 The Old “Get Something Out There” Approach Doesn’t Work Anymore
- 1.3.5 The Dangers of Amateur Usability Engineering
- 1.3.6 More Capabilities Means More Novice Users
- 1.3.7 The World Is More Complex, so It Is Harder to Know What All the Possibilities Are
- 1.4 ISN’T IT OBVIOUS?
- 1.5 NOT “IF” BUT “WHICH”
- 1.6 THE SOLUTION: APPROACH, TOOLS, AND COMMUNICATION
- REFERENCES
- 2: User Interface Design’s Return on Investment: Examples and Statistics
-
3: A Basic Framework
- 3.1 INTRODUCTION
- 3.2 THE USABILITY ENGINEERING LIFECYCLE
- 3.3 GENERAL APPROACH
-
3.4 SAMPLE COST-BENEFIT ANALYSES
- 3.4.1 An Application for Internal Users (1/5)
- 3.4.1 An Application for Internal Users (2/5)
- 3.4.1 An Application for Internal Users (3/5)
- 3.4.1 An Application for Internal Users (4/5)
- 3.4.1 An Application for Internal Users (5/5)
- 3.4.2 A Commercial Application by a Vendor Company (1/2)
- 3.4.2 A Commercial Application by a Vendor Company (2/2)
- 3.4.3 An E-Commerce Site (1/2)
- 3.4.3 An E-Commerce Site (2/2)
- 3.4.4 A Product Information Site
- 3.5 SUMMARY
- REFERENCES
-
4: A Business Case Approach to Usability Cost Justification for the Web
- 4.1 INTRODUCTION
- 4.2 WHY MEASURE THE COST BENEFIT OF HUMAN FACTORS?
- 4.3 USABILITY ENGINEERING IN WEB SITE AND APPLICATION LIFECYCLES
- 4.4 WHAT IS COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS?
- 4.5 HOW DO COST-BENEFIT ANALYSES RELATE TO BUSINESS CASES?
- 4.6 ASSESSING COSTS AND BENEFITS OF USABILITY ENGINEERING
- 4.7 BENEFIT CALCULATIONS EXAMPLES
- 4.8 USABILITY ENGINEERING COSTS
- 4.9 COST AND COST-BENEFIT CALCULATION EXAMPLES
- 4.10 USABILITY ENGINEERING COSTS FOR APPLICATION 2
- 4.11 SIMPLE COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES
- 4.12 SOPHISTICATED SELECTION TECHNIQUES
- 4.13 SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
- 4.14 A LOOK AHEAD
- REFERENCES
- 5: Marketing Usability
-
6: Valuing Usability for Startups
- 6.1 INTRODUCTION
- 6.2 NOTES ON DATA ABOUT STARTUPS
- 6.3 RESISTANCE TO USABILITY IN STARTUPS
- 6.4 DIFFERENT VALUES DURING THE INTERNET BUBBLE
- 6.5 TIME-TO-MARKET AND THE “FIRST-MOVER” ADVANTAGE
- 6.6 FOCUS ON VALUATION—WHAT’S A STARTUP WORTH?
- 6.7 SUCCESSFUL STARTUPS VALUE THE USER EXPERIENCE
- 6.8 WHAT USABILITY OFFERS STARTUPS
- 6.9 A TOOL FOR UNDERSTANDING AND EVALUATING STARTUPS
- 6.10 HOW DO STARTUPS DETERMINE VALUE?
- 6.11 HOW MUCH SHOULD STARTUPS INVEST IN USABILITY?
- REFERENCES
- 7: Cost-Justifying Usability in Vendor Companies
-
8: Categories of Return on Investment and Their Practical Implications
- 8.1 INTRODUCTION
- 8.2 CATEGORIES OF RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.3 INTERNAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.4 INTERNAL SOCIAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.5 IMPROVING INTERNAL SOCIAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.6 REUSE AND INTERNAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.7 USER-CENTERED DESIGN INFRASTRUCTURE AND RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.8 EXTERNAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.9 HISTORICAL, PREDICTIVE, AND SIMULTANEOUS MEASURES
- 8.10 DIRECT AND INDIRECT MEASURES
- 8.11 MEASURING IMPROVED USER EXPERIENCE
- 8.12 CHALLENGES TO MEASURING EXTERNAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- 8.13 RETURN ON INVESTMENT FROM COMMUNICATING IMPROVED USER EXPERIENCE
- 8.14 SUMMARY: WHY WE CATEGORIZE USABILITY RETURN ON INVESTMENT
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- REFERENCES
-
9: Usability Science: Tactical and Strategic Cost Justifications in Large Corporate Applications
- 9.1 INTRODUCTION
- 9.2 BENCHMARKING AWARENESS AND ISSUES OF IMPLEMENTATION
- 9.3 A PROBLEM OF EXPERTISE
- 9.4 THE OBVIOUS COST-BENEFIT FACTORS
- 9.5 HOW USABILITY SCIENCE CAN BE UTILIZED IN A LARGE CORPORATE SETTING
- 9.6 THE ACTUAL DOWNSTREAM IMPACT
- 9.7 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE APPLICATION OF USABILITY SCIENCE
- 9.8 WHERE YOU WILL CURRENTLY NOT FIND USABILITY SCIENCE
- 9.9 MOVING TO THE USE OF USABILITY SCIENCE AS A STRATEGIC ASSET
- 9.10 CASE STUDIES: TACTICAL AND STRATEGIC
- 9.11 SUMMARY
- REFERENCES
-
10: The Return on Investment in Usability of Web Applications
- 10.1 INTRODUCTION
- 10.2 RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN USABILITY OF WEB APPLICATIONS
- 10.3 LESSONS LEARNED FROM ANALYSIS OF RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN USABILITY ON THE WEB
- 10.4 THE ATTRIBUTES OF VALUE
- 10.5 CREATING VALUE
- 10.6 THE COST OF CHANGE
- 10.7 REDUCING THE RISK OF FAILURE
- 10.8 MEASURING VALUE
- 10.9 HOW TO SELL RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN USABILITY
- 10.10 SUMMARY AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
- REFERENCES
- WEB SITES OF INTEREST
-
11: Making the Business Case for International User Centered Design
- 11.1 INTRODUCTION
- 11.2 THINKING STRATEGICALLY ABOUT INTERNATIONAL UCD
- 11.3 THE DREAM OF “SIMPLE” ANSWERS
- 11.4 CUSTOM UCD RESEARCH
- 11.5 UNDERSTANDING COSTS OF INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH
- 11.6 ARE THERE LESS EXPENSIVE WAYS TO COLLECT DATA?
-
11.7 MAXIMIZING THE VALUE OF INTERNATIONAL UCD RESEARCH
- 11.7.1 Target the Right Markets for Your Research
- 11.7.2 Do Background Research
- 11.7.3 Investigate Opportunities for Partnering
- 11.7.4 Do Ethnographic and Exploratory Visits First
- 11.7.5 Focus Stakeholders on Broader Benefits and Synergies
- 11.7.6 Develop In-Country Resources
- 11.7.7 Build Cumulative Learning
- SUMMARY
- REFERENCES (1/2)
- REFERENCES (2/2)
- 12: Cost Justification of Usability Engineering for International Web Sites
-
13: Return on Goodwill: Return on Investment for Accessibility
- 13.1 INTRODUCTION
- 13.2 WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MAKE A WEB SITE ACCESSIBLE?
-
13.3 THE BENEFITS OF ACCESSIBILITY
- 13.3.1 Enablement
- 13.3.2 Accessibility Helps Everyone
- 13.3.3 Public Good and Corporate Citizenship
- 13.3.4 Social Justice
- 13.3.5 Market Size
- 13.3.6 Niche Markets
- 13.3.7 Positive Market Perceptions
- 13.3.8 Legal Requirements
- 13.3.9 Cost Savings in Service Provision
- 13.3.10 Cost Savings in Software Development and Maintenance
- 13.3.11 When Is There No Benefit to Designing for Accessibility?
- 13.4 AUDIENCE DIVERSITY AND MARKET SIZE
- 13.5 THE COSTS OF ACCESSIBLE DESIGN
- 13.6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- REFERENCES
-
14: Ethnography for Software Development
- 14.1 A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ETHNOGRAPHY
- 14.2 DISTINCTION BETWEEN SITE VISITS AND ETHNOGRAPHY
-
14.3 ETHNOGRAPHY AT DIFFERENT TIMES IN THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT CYCLE
- 14.3.1 Early in the Development Cycle: Near-Term Product Planning and Future Planning
- 14.3.2 Middle of the Product Development Cycle: Feature-Specific and Product-Specific Questions
- 14.3.3 Final Phases of the Product Development Cycle
- 14.3.4 Both Marketing and Public Relations Are also Interested in Field Research
- 14.4 SOME BEST PRACTICES FOR FIELD RESEARCH
- 14.5 CASE STUDY 1: WINDOWS XP PROJECT: GUIDELINES FOR A SUCCESSFUL ETHNOGRAPHY—ANNE KIRAH
- 14.6 CASE STUDY 2: TABLET PC BETA TESTING IN THE FIELD—EVAN FELDMAN
- 14.7 CASE STUDY 3: MSN:FORMING THE PILLARS FOR A RELEASE OF OUR INTERNET SERVICES THROUGH EXPLORATORY RESEARCH—ANNE KIRAH
- SUMMARY
- REFERENCES
- 15: Out of the Box: Approaches to Good Initial Interface Designs
-
16: Keystroke Level Modeling as a Cost Justification Tool
- 16.1 INTRODUCTION
-
16.2 CASE STUDY
- Color Insert (1/4)
- Color Insert (2/4)
- Color Insert (3/4)
- Color Insert (4/4)
- 16.2.1 Model Tasks (1/2)
- 16.2.1 Model Tasks (2/2)
- 16.2.2 Run Existing Applications Productivity Test and Use Results to Refine Modeling Technique
- 16.2.3 Compare Modeling Results to Goals
- 16.2.4 Address Unmet Goals
- 16.2.5 Run Proposed Application Productivity Test
- 16.3 CONCLUSIONS
- REFERENCES
- 17: The Rapid Iterative Test and Evaluation Method: Better Products in Less Time
- 18: Summative Usability Testing: Measurement and Sample Size
- 19: Cost-Justifying Online Surveys
- 20: Cost-Benefit Framework and Case Studies
- 21: At Sprint, Understanding the Language of Business Gives Usability a Positive Net Present Value
-
22: Cost-Justifying Usability: The View from the Other Side of the Table
- 22.1 INTRODUCTION
- 22.2 THE EXECUTIVES
- 22.3 QUESTION #1: WHAT ARGUMENTS TO PAY FOR USABILITY SUPPORT HAVE YOU SAID “YES” TO?
- 22.4 QUESTION #2: WHICH ARGUMENTS HAVE YOU SAID “NO” TO?
- 22.5 QUESTION #3: WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOUR WOULD-BE USABILITY SUPPORT (THE IN-HOUSE TEAM OR A CONSULTANT), TO HELP YOU MAKE YOUR DECISION TO “BUY” OR NOT?
- 22.6 THREE FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
- 22.7 AND SO . . .
- Index (1/6)
- Index (2/6)
- Index (3/6)
- Index (4/6)
- Index (5/6)
- Index (6/6)
- About the Authors (1/2)
- About the Authors (2/2)
Product information
- Title: Cost-Justifying Usability, 2nd Edition
- Author(s):
- Release date: May 2005
- Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
- ISBN: 9780080455457
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