The Business Value of Experience Design Well designed experiences can lift the organization to the next level, often impacting the bottom line, and thrown together experiences can have certain negative effects on the organization. There are times when experience design gets exposure with and is valued by higher ups within the organization. They understand the possibilities, want to push the envelope, and hold people accountable to a certain level of quality. In other cases, experience design is not understood or valued within the organization. The value may not be clear, or amongst the company’s deep list of priorities, user experience is not a focus. Linking Business Objectives with Experience Design Through the user centered design process, experience designers develop a keen sense of what the audience is looking for, what drives them, what will bring them satisfaction, and what will cause them to return. If that knowledge is brought to bear against what the organization is trying to achieve, the implications to the experience become clear: Conversion: Delivering enough persuasive information to assist customers in making their decision. Lead Generation: Integrating a "carrot" for the prospect while also setting appropriate expectations. Adoption/Utilization: Making the capabilities, value and output of the interaction immediately evident. Engagement: Finding that one compelling feature that will get them coming back for more and telling their friends. Satisfaction Retention: Making their primary goals seamless, and linked to their overarching workflow. Awareness/Volume: Moving from dealing with incoming requests to a destination site and towards outreach via a coordinated digital communications strategy. Channel Migration: Enhance the awareness around and ease of use for the self service channel. Internal Resource Optimization: Understand real workflows, integrate systems improve tools. Telling the Story In some situations, we are brought in during a research, strategy and planning period, where we can make recommendations which will craft the experience roadmap for the organization. In other situations we are engaged for tactical deliveries against an existing roadmap. In either situation, the initiatives on the roadmap can be prioritized based upon impact to the user, relative impact to the business, and cost associated with design and implementation. Usually with some investigation, business goals can be tied to something measurable and in some cases a dollar value can be estimated. A simple business case for an enhancement, or larger initiative may include the following details: What is it? What value does it create for the user? What business goal does it address? How will we know that it has been successful? What is the approximate corresponding business value? What is the approximate cost to implement? After this information is put together, it becomes very clear where the organization should focus their design and development efforts.

1. GOING BEYOND YOUR MANDATE:
A CASE FOR BUILDING BUSINESS CASES
Prepared by:
Amy Cueva – Founder and CXO
603.436.7177
May 28, 2008

2. Things we will cover…
Why should we go beyond our mandate?
How to…
Work with the business.
Build your case and tell the story.

3. Mad*Pow Clients

4. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
Put simply:
Rulz.
Experience Design Rulz.
Smaht.
We are Supah Smaht.

5. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
Business Explanation:
Customer experience can
position our orgs for success.
If knowledge is power, then we
have a lot of it.

6. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
Has this ever happened to you?
You are given a project to make a specific
flow or page more user friendly.
You do research, and come up with some
design options.

7. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
Has this ever happened to you?
You realize that although minor improvements
can be made, the larger issues do not exist
within that page or flow.
You wonder why you were given this assignment.
What were the motivations?

8. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
Has this ever happened to you?
You find yourself wondering where the project
should start and end, or even worse…
You come up with a really great idea.
Your instincts are going haywire, and there is a
peculiar spring to your step. You think this idea
could really make a difference.

9. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
What should you do?

10. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
Don’t be Milton.

11. Why should we go beyond our mandate?
We have the power…
multi-
- We work at the crux of a multi-disciplinary team.
- We know our users.
- We can harness our creativity to solve not just
user problems, but business problems as well.
- We know the business and can effect the business.

12. Setting the Stage. Work with the business.
What is their goal?
Conversion, Cross Sell, Up Sell, Increase Average
Order Size, Adoption, Utilization, Engagement,
Satisfaction, Retention, Lead Generation,
Awareness, Repeat Visits, Increase Volume,
Channel Migration, Internal Resource Optimization.

13. Setting the Stage. Work with the business.
Integrate process.
multi-
Form a multi-disciplinary core team.
Have a kick off meeting.
Ask the right questions.
Facilitate clear goals and metrics.

14. Setting the Stage. Work with the business.
Know your audience.
Who are your allies?
Who are your adversaries?
Who will be willing to participate?

15. Setting the Stage. Work with the business.
Educate them on the value of XD.
Make past success clear.
Apply Peer Pressure to the value of x.
x = Competitor success + cross organizational support.

16. Setting the Stage. Work with the business.
Involve them in the solution.
What are their ideas and sources of inspiration?
What parts of the process can they participate in?

17. Setting the Stage. Work with the business.
Help them prioritize.
May I please see your roadmap?
How do we figure out what is most important to attack
first? Are we missing something?

18. Setting the Stage. Work with the business.
Consider other factors.
Is bonus season coming up?
What is the spirit of top down pressure these days?
What will make the core team and sponsors look good?
Other cultural factors and project drivers?

19. Build your case and tell the story.
So you’ve done all of the pre-work.
pre-
Now it’s time to build the business case
and pitch your idea.

20. Broad & Heavy
Opportunity Online
Business Issue:
Company.com (CAG) is not “living up to it’s potential”
Our Goal:
Leverage the web via manifesting and infusing the brand
evolution into the Web to drive the Company.com NPS score up
10 points over the next 5 years from the current score of 33.

21. Broad & Heavy
Why Now?
The industry is waiting …
75% agree that the web will play a much larger role in their practice over the next 3 yrs.
35% of panel vets indicate they go to the web daily and 83% go once of more per week.
Company Customer Insights Group; “Web Usage Study, July 2007”
74% of self-identified early adopters purchase via web
identified
33% seek industry data online daily (increases to 45% of early adopters)
VIN usage activity highlights a degree of comfort using web as resource and venue
Based upon stakeholder interviews
VetConnect is already a “daily target”
Total of 476,158 visits in Q2 07 -- growth of 53% compared to Q2 06 Company NetTracker Data: “2007_06Metrics”
Providing value to early adopters now is critical to reaching bulk of audience
63% prefer to wait and see what others think before trying a new product or service
Company Customer Insights Group; “Web Usage Study, July 2007”
Time is required to “get through” to significant volume
LaserCyte as example: 3 years to get through the 4314 customers (16%) that constitute early adopters
Company Customer Insights Group; “LaserCyte Adoption Rate”

22. Broad & Heavy
Why Now?

23. Broad & Heavy
Why Now?
Online channels are mature across other industries
Forrester March 2007, Trends “eBusiness Managers’ 2007 Outlook”
Necessary to cement position as leader, innovator, and dedicated partner
“In what seems like record time, the Web has gone from a focused, if galvanizing, revolution
limited largely to activities performed online to a force that's transforming how consumers
interact with brands, search for products, and relate to one another
another.”
Jeffrey F. Rayport, “Demand-Side Innovation: Where IT Meets Marketing”

24. Broad & Heavy
Why Now?

25. Broad & Heavy
Potential Approaches
Based on business stakeholder interviews and a review of industry trends
Centered on customer needs and drivers of NPS
Serve as hypotheses that need to be validated with targeted customer
research

26. Broad & Heavy
Process Alignment with Business Objectives
Focus on Customer Needs Manifest Brand Attributes into Business Objectives
Approach, Infuse Brand Impact,
Style, Personality
Easy to do Business With Increase Product Penetration
+ =
Dedicated to Veterinary Medicine Optimize Internal Investment
World Class Customer Support Drive Utilization

27. Broad & Heavy
Approach Alignment with Business Objectives
Improved Usability Personalization Communities Digitize Sales Channel
www.Medstory.com www.Google.com www.Amazon.com www.myAlli.com www.CDW.com
www.eol.org/demonstration.html www.mySpace.com
http://vettechs.blogspot.com/
Content-Rich Website Expanded Self-Service Continuity of Experience
Business Objectives:
Increase Product Penetration
Optimize Internal Investment
Drive Utilization
www.BankofAmerica.com Microsoft.com, Gadgets,
Staples Easy Button Desktop

28. Broad & Heavy
How will we measure success?
Increase in repeat visits
Increase word of mouth and viral marketing
Increase in level of engagement: length of stay, content views,
training & event participation, newsletter/feed subscriptions, and
customization
Increase in quality of call center inquiries
Increase in online self service
Shortened sales cycle
Increase in qualified leads

29. Specific & Light
Idea/Initiative Title: Overview
Initiative Gist: Provide customers with personalized products and pricing to increase Larger Strategy Tie In
revenue and sales force effectiveness
What is it?
• Idea/Initiative is a turnkey system that provides Success Measurements:
• % of new customer acq
Internet publishers with widgets and stuff site • Revenue growth
•
functionality on their own sites. The system # of affiliates and quality
enables Internet publishers to distribute and sell
Level of Effort
Company stuff that resonate to their audience
Level of Effort
while providing broader distribution for Company’s
High
stuff and marketing message.
• The product adds stuff sites and ecomm
Revenue Potential
functionality to an existing website that chooses to
be an affiliate
Medium
• Stuff and the transaction are still owned by
Company, revenue would be shared with the
Risk
affiliate based on performance
High
Why do it?
• Niche stuff sites have begun and will continue to siphon stuff postings away from large stuff sites
• *Business Case under development
Broader distribution of stuff enables engagement of the higher value passive person
• Target Live Date: TBD
Increase the number of truly “qualified” people
Owner:TBD

30. Prioritization
User Need Prioritization
Tier 1 - Immediate informational needs
Improved navigation and usability (site search, expanded hierarchy, link
link-rich landing pages, usability updates)
Expanded reference lab and product support content
Integration of VetConnect, LearningCenter and Company.com
Practice management section
Tier 2 – Added Value as Traffic Increases
My Account Personalization (Mail preferences, ROI wizard, Company contacts, PDP points, client Ed)
Desktop icon/mini app/gadget
Self service review of invoices
Tier 3 – Lowest Current Demand, Potential Future Usage
Online forums
Scientific data repository

31. Build your case and tell the story.
What should your story include?
- What is your idea?
- What problem does your idea solve?
- What value does it create for the user?
- What business objective is addressed?
- What is the approximate value of the idea? What is the cost?
- What are the risks associated with the idea? What is your plan
for overcoming them?
- How will success be measured? Validity tested?

32. Build your case and tell the story.
What will you show?
- What will be most compelling to your audience?
- A prototype? What fidelity?
- New tech? Bells & whistles? High design?
- Metrics & graphs? Other Facts and Figures?
- “Soft” indicators?

33. Build your case and tell the story.
Who will help you?
- Can someone in product management, marketing or
finance help you prove your idea?
- Can someone in creative, design or marketing, help
develop the eye candy?
- Can someone in technology stand behind the
feasibility of the idea, and maybe build a POC?

34. Build your case and tell the story.
Take your show on the road.
- Who will you make the pitch to?
- In what setting? A meeting, email, over lunch?
- Will any of your adversaries pitch as well?
- Consider what aspect of your idea will resonate most
with your audience for each “pitch”.

35. Build your case and tell the story.
Tip 1 - Test your theories.
Use time with users to vet ideas.
Be open and evolve the idea.
Document compelling tid bits. Audio & video help.

36. Build your case and tell the story.
Tip 2 - Words count (buzzwords that is):
Buzz, engagement, exploration, ideate (gag),
innovate, new solution, out of the box, social
networks, stickiness, web 2.0, wow, oh my!

37. Build your case and tell the story.
Tip 3 - Get fired up, but don’t get fired.
Don’t put your job on the line or all of your
eggs in one basket.
There is no harm in providing options.
There is power in numbers.

38. Build your case and tell the story.
Tip 4 – Do not accept defeat (at least mentally)
Even if you don’t get exactly what you were looking for,
your effort will:
- Achieve even the slightest smidgen more value for the
user or the business.
- Create the momentum and climate for the vetting of
future ideas.

39. Want a Copy?
Drop your card or visit:
www.madpow.net

40. Questions?
Questions, comments, war stories, and
verbal tomatoes are all welcomed.