UX

Technology and business models are evolving and then level-setting again so fast that features and functionality are no longer enough to differentiate you from your competitors. The obvious example, of course, is online banking. Back in the stone ages, the ability to do simple things like view balances, make transfers, and pay bills was so revolutionary that those banks that offered those features ran roughshod all over the competition. Nowadays, however, those features are so commonplace that any bank that didn’t offer them online would be laughed off the internet.

As feature sets and functionality sets mature in a particular online business, however, there are still plenty of opportunities to separate yourself from the pack, and virtually all of them are going to come in the realm of the customer experience. After all, in a world of online widget sales sites that claim the same basic features and functionality, widget customers are going to flock only to those sites that make the sales experience pleasant.

This, of course, is hardly rocket science, but prior to 2004, you’d be hard-pressed to find many online companies that did usability—i.e., the customer experience people—on anything other than an informal, ad hoc basis. In 2004, Dr. Eric Schaffer, CEO of Human Factors International, the largest software usability consultancy in the world, wrote his seminal book Institutionalization of Usability: A Step-by-Step Guide. In this book, Schaffer describes a roadmap by which organizations could develop a “mature” internal usability practice and avoid some of the problems that occur when trying to set up such a practice. The book kicked up a whirlwind, and today, according to Human Factors International’s UX Maturity Survey 2009, usability has transformed from a business differentiator to a routine component of business practice.

Usability, it seems, has gone the way of a mature feature and functionality set—it’s not just a nice to have, it’s a must have. But that’s not to say that having a usability presence means a company has a usability practice, and according to the Maturity Survey, many companies world-wide still have quite a ways to go before they establish a true usability practice, even though they may employ usability professionals.

For example, approximately half of those who responded to the survey indicated that their company lacked a true champion at the executive level. This is troubling because a champion at the executive level is crucial to a vibrant usability practice—he or she gives the usability team credibility and support by evangelizing usability throughout the company. Most importantly, of course, an executive champion can ensure adequate funding for the usability team. Without an executive champion, usability personnel are often forced to work in “triage” mode, reports the UX Maturity Survey, but “because they are just keeping up, the group rarely has time to develop—much less disseminate—the foundational research or tools that could benefit the organization as a whole.”

The survey also found that many of those organizations that enjoyed executive buy-in and support lacked strategy, and operated without a clear charter and little accountability. This, again, contributes to the practice of usability as a “triage” experience, or a “just in time” experience, on a project-by-project basis. These organizations are more apt to fail to recognize the value of reusable work. In other words, usability reports are generated and acted upon, but they’re one-and-done in nature. Usability, however, has inherent value in re-use, if just to establish an institutional database or catalogue of best practices. And the beauty of usability testing is that it nearly always leads to new, unanticipated discoveries. Organizations without a means to collect, archive, tag, and re-use usability reports are putting themselves at a significant strategic disadvantage, and are bound to lose institutional memory over time.

Some companies—Makibie first and foremost of them—advocate the notion of usability as a service, thereby eliminating the need for companies to create, staff, and maintain internal usability organizations. Makibie’s approach to usability focuses heavily on iteration and measurement; usability is not something that happens once during a project lifecycle, when a product is just about baked and ready to face customers for the first time. Rather, as Makibie focuses on user-centered design, usability plays an essential part in the idea lifecycle, from conception to deployment, and after deployment through further iteration.

Usability is quickly evolving from a “nice to have” into a “must have,” and when you think about it, this is exactly how it should be. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar; likewise, you do more business on the web by delighting your customers, not frustrating them. But giving usability lip service isn’t enough; in order to do it well, you have to go the extra mile and ensure you have a top-down usability strategy in place. The good news is that some companies, like Makibie, have already done the heavy lifting for you.

By Robert Pothier