Alertbox #9

Return on Investment for Usability

Usability is a key element in any design project, and like any other element, part of the budget should go towards it as well. This article will take a look at what we should put in and what we should expect to gain from it.

Usability Costs

After collecting data from nearly a thousand different sources, it was determined that approximately 10% of a project's budget should go towards usability.

Usability Benefits

Again, after doing another data collection of 42 cases of websites that did not budget for usability and then later redesigned their websites for usability, it was determined that usability increased by 135%. Sales, traffic, user performance, and use of target features all rose significantly. Website usability is dominated by users' ability to avoid errors.

Estimating ROI

Spending as little as 10% on your project will double the usability of the website. It is hard to give an actual number for the ROI becuase you are measuring two different things: the amount that you spend on usability, and the amount of usability that increases. However, the more people who use a design, the larger ROI will be because of sales. Because the gains of usability out weigh the costs, it is likely that the percentage of the budget devoted to usability will likely increase in the future to 20% or more.

I am an accounting major, and we talk about ROI often, and you will find that it is one of the most important number in a business. It is true that spending money on usability is an investment but the return is huge. Without that investment, a company would plummit. Usability is good for both the consumer and the producer. Both will be less frustrated with good usability. Customers will not spend money on a website that they cannot use, but with good usability a company's profits will soar.