FAQ - Frequently Answered Questions
Why do you need usability?
Usability is one of the main factors that influence a customer’s buying decisions, satisfaction, and loyalty to a product and brand. It is not about “dumbing down the interface”, making it “fashionable”, or just “making a beautiful design”. Usability is a quality that has to be carefully built into the product itself. It is not expensive and pays very quickly for itself.
Companies that implement usability sell more products, report 10x – 100x return on their usability investment, lower development and maintenance costs by a factor of 60-150x, and increase employees’ productivity and job satisfaction.
Do I have to change all my processes to implement usability?
No. Usability is designed to be embedded in other work processes and we are familiar with both classic and agile development and project management. We can painlessly fit usability to your workflow without slowing you down.
When is the right time to think about usability?
As soon as possible. The cost of repairing usability mistakes grows with development time (by a factor of at least 60 — that’s where our name comes from!), so the earlier you start, the better the results will be. Ideally, usability should be a part of your project from the beginning.
How do I start with usability?
Call us to do a usability audit (expert review) of your systems or products. It is not expensive and doesn’t take much time. Our analysis will recommend you the necessary steps to improve your product, the order of those steps, and their timeframe.
How much should I invest in usability?
A small budget is enough to diagnose and solve many usability problems. You will soon see that usability pays for itself and that it is worth further investment. Companies often report 10-100x return on investment for usability improvements. Read that carefully. It is not percent, it is 10-100 times.
I’m the biggest player in my market. Why should I care about usability and UX?
Even if you don’t care about usability and UX, your customers do. Lack of usability costs them real money for training, maintenance, support, and lost productivity. As soon as a competitor offers better usability and UX, your customers will jump ship to save all that money. Contact us — no strings attached — and we’ll be happy to tell you more on the topic.
Is bad usability really that problematic?
Yes. As an example, Forrester Research reports that 50% of users do not return to a website if they have difficulties using it. For B2B users the two most important criteria when using a website are usability and neutrality. The time where companies differentiated from each other on technology is long gone; most products are now built with ready-made modules and libraries. You have only one chance to differentiate yourself: via usability and user experience.
Why do I need you if I have my own usability engineers?
Congratulations! You understand the importance of usability and have your own staff. They are undoubtedly very good, but they are humans too. They get used to your product and cannot see it with fresh eyes. They have helped shape the product, so they cannot distance themselves enough from it to be objective. They are also part of the “company politics game”, so they don’t like to make “big waves” in the company. We do not have any of those problems! Furthermore we are happy to work together with your usability staff on making your product the best it can be.