... advocating user experience
Today, more and more people understand that UX is important, but sometimes they don’t understand why.
Since the term, “UX” has been used for a short amount of time a lot of people don’t really understand why UX is vital for their business.
We, as professionals, need to educate people. We need to explain why using UX steps are important. Why we can skip some steps while others are essential. To advocate it, we need to find the right language to use when speaking to a manager or CEO.
The three most common excuses that companies use in order to escape additional expenses are, “we have a tight budget”, “we don’t have time”, and “we don’t see the value”.
Let’s think about the arguments that will end these excuses.
WE HAVE A TIGHT BUDGET AND DON’T SEE THE VALUE
The person who makes a budget decision thinks in numbers. So give him numbers. Speak with numbers. Prove your conception and vision with numbers. Don’t go deep into the theory, it won’t help to explain why investing in UX is vital.
Alastair Simpson, in his article, explains very well how to get the budget you need.
It is no good telling them in a meeting that the existing sign up form gives a terrible user experience and error messages are poorly aligned and the copy needs improving. They won’t care and will already be fiddling with their blackberry. Frame it in your manager’s language;
- 24% drop out rate across the 5 step process
- On average, that equates to 1000 customers per month, lost
- Scaled across the 10 international sites you run, that’s 10,000 customer per month, lost
- Or 120,000 customer per year
- A customer’s average lifetime value to the business is $20
- $20 x 120,000 is $2.4M in lost revenue per year
Make sure you speak with your manager or CEO in the same language. Make your research about the best way to present information and speak with confidence.
WE DON’T HAVE TIME
They should actually want to have time for UX!
By spending some money and time on UX companies, they actually save much more!
A good developer costs a company a lot of money. Bringing a developer into a project before implementing UX will cause many misleading ideas, since the developer thinks with code. UX designers think about users and creating experiences for them.
Craig Morrison in his article writes
…going from idea to finished product is a long, drawn out process, and if no one is responsible for keeping the user’s experience in mind, then it will quickly get buried under piles of feature requests, egos, ideas, and added ‘fluff’.
By researching and applying vital steps of UX, you bring much more clarity that will help the developer to write efficient code and avoid extra work in the future.
Susan Weinschenk, in her video, explains why companies should invest in UX.
IN CONCLUSION
No one but the right UX Designer is on the same page as the users all the time. He knows how to put himself in a user’s shoes and create a meaningful experience. This is why having a professional UX Designer is essential.
If you are one of these UX Designers - be confident in yourself, prove your vision with numbers, and know the right language. Speak up!