User experience and ROI: a case for investment
What is User Experience? Can this bring ROI to my company? These questions are common in many companies. But in this article, I will explain to you what these things are and how they are intertwined!
User experience is one of the relevant new areas in big enterprises such as Facebook and Google, but now small companies are investing in these specialists too.
But what do users experience really mean? Is it actually the future of software development? Can it improve the performance of a technological product/service enough so as to bring up ROI?
We believe that every small or medium entrepreneur who relies on some kind of platform or application has already asked these questions, but could not find any reliable knowledge source about it while searching on the internet.
So, let’s start by understanding a little more about how UX and ROI are intertwined.
Usability is a word which has always been used when the subject is software development. However, such concept did not used to be considered a “must have” inside the companies. The main focus has always been on functionality.
But what is the value of functionality when the end user needs to read a manual in order to understand how to use the software?
This was one of the questions which have brought up the need for an area, a job or a dedicated person inside the companies who is able to think about the best practices to make the user’s life easier while navigating in the system.
The UX team can perform a breadth of functions inside the companies. We will talk about two very relevant ones related to digital products and services provision companies:
- UX Research
- UX Design
UX Research
The main focus of this area is to minimize the risks of a product or functionality becoming “useless” for most of the users.
Let’s look at a practical example.
How many digital products do you use in your daily routine? I believe that it is a lot.
Now, try to remember some of the functions you use mostly. For sure, in many programs there are some that you have never used or even asked what it is used for.
The role of the UX Researcher is to carry out surveys with diverse kinds of users and find out whether what is planned in the development roadmap will be relevant for users or not.
UX Design
Last but not least, UX Design. This area caters for the “WOW!” effect on users and clients.
These designers work on the interface, navigation flow and the positioning of each element. Their intention is not to make it beautiful or pleasant to the eye, but as easy as possible to use.
Good usability will cause the users to interact longer with the product and gradually build their trust, so that they feel like purchasing something. A sequence of good experiences potentially turn a newcomer into an evangelist user — the one who will advertise your product organically.
But be careful! Do not confuse a UX Designer with a UI Designer, as they have very different roles as far as product development is concerned.
While the UX professional will care for the user interactions, such as where the CTA’s or the relevant information are, the UI designer will work on the visual perception of the product which are all of these elements that make the user’s eyes shine.
The power of the evangelist user
According to Annemarie Bufe, master’s student in Business and Computer Science at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 72% of the users who have had a good experience with a product or service will tell about it to 6 or more people.
This brings to surface the ubiquitous evangelism that we have seen over some products such as certain chinese company’s cell phones, which have been attracting many followers — who in turn — try to persuade more people to use the technology.
Usability matters a lot!
In the fourth edition of “Return on Investment (ROI) for Usability” from Nielsen Norman Group, we can see the analysis of 72 digital projects which have had their usability redesigned and how this has affected their results. 4 metrics have been considered: “Sales and conversions”, “Traffic”, “User productivity” and “Use of specific functionalities desired”.
The average results following the usability redesign are impressive: the least impacted, the sales, already presented 87% growth. The user’s traffic grew 91%, followed by users’ performance, at an average of 112%. But, by far, the major growth was in specific functionalities which grew 174%.
Such figures speak for themselves to show how much the usability can impact your website performance, be it financial or not.
The ROI is hard to calculate, because we will not be handling just monetary value. The UX will greatly add to users’ satisfaction, promote engagement and increase organic traffic.
However a study by Forrester tells us that the usability can increase ROI at a rate of almost 10,000%.
Usability is for certain a great investment on your digital product or service.
In my opinion all the technology companies should seek to become more efficient when it comes to UX.
The figures in this area are astonishing and its intangible rewards are even more promising. If you wish your digital product to excel, your institutional website to attract thousands of leads and your e-commerce to explode in sales, make sure UX is in your investment list.
References
Bufe, A. (2022). 20+ Powerful UX Statistics To Impress Stakeholders 2022. https://uxcam.com/blog/ux-statistics/
Hogan, A. (2016). The Six Steps For Justifying Better UX. https://www.forrester.com/report/The-Six-Steps-For-Justifying-Better-UX/RES117708
Nielsen Norman Group. (2003). Return on Investment (ROI) for Usability. 4th Edition.
