This document summarizes Carol Smith's presentation on selling UX design. It discusses challenges to adopting UX like time, cost and lack of access to users. It provides tips for selling UX like focusing on user needs to help teams, using data to make decisions and explaining choices clearly. Testing with 5 users can find most issues but more may be needed depending on the user group. Fixing problems early in design saves significant costs compared to later in the development process. Adopting UX can increase sales, save time and money, and create happier customers.

1. Cleveland UXPA
World Usability Day 2013
Presented by Carol Smith
@carologic

3. 
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Time
Cost
No access to users
Liability
Not needed
Invisible Return on Investment (ROI)

5. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/5542172347/sizes/l/in/photostream/

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Help the team:
 understand user’s point of view
 identify new opportunities
 prioritize content and solutions
 design for user’s needs and behaviors
 create new solutions

7. 
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Facilitate Communication
Decision Making:
 Navigation
 Features
 Design

8. 
You may sell UX to:
 Clients
 Project/Product Managers
 Developers
 Designers
 Managers
 Executives

9. 
Explain how the choices you’ve made lead
to a successful project. This isn’t magic, it’s
math.
 Show your work. Don’t hope someone
“gets it,” and don’t blame them if they don’t
— convince them.
Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job via http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2013/02/20/sell-design-solution-clients/

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Focus on interest, not positions
 Need to make a great experience
 Benefits for user and organization
 Savings of time, money, resources, effort, etc.
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Watch your pronouns
 We not them

11. Want to Sell UX? Stop Talking UX!
by Lis Hubert, UX Consultant at Independent on Sep 05, 2013. http://www.slideshare.net/lishubert/want-to-sell-ux-stop-talking-ux

12. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppini/3211910657/sizes/o/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppini/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

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We are getting data from it.
Why would we need anything more?

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Compliment qualitative work
Questions are an art-form
 Multiple and un-intended meanings
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Only get out of it what you ask about

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Easy access
Know the users
Invested in this project

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Know too much
Ego, job, co-workers, etc.
Not the intended user
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OK for guerilla style testing
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18. Why Change?

20. 
More than 83% of Internet users are likely to
leave a Web site if…too many clicks to find
what they’re looking for.
-Arthur Andersen, 2001
Vague, Misleading Links are the Culprit
Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

22. http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarycommission/2840794254/sizes/m/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarycommission/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

23. User Research
Ethnography
• Observe actual process
• Equity among participants
• Find patterns of behavior

24. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/5181464194/sizes/o/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/

25. 
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Additional time and money
Less costly to find and correct issues

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How much is their time worth?
 1 Hour of training?
 1 Day of training?
 1 Week of training?
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Company was able to eliminate training and
save $140,000
AT&T saved $2,500,000 in training expenses
Bias & Mayhew, 1994
http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/roi_of_usability.html

28. Studies have shown that
testing
5-6 representative users
of each user type
will reveal
80% of usability issues.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users. March 19, 2000.

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This is about people
Statistical significance is not feasible
 Time
 Cost
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ROI would diminish entirely

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Identify repetition
After pattern is found, continuation:
 Adds cost
 Delays reporting
 Low probability of many new findings

31. Main Purpose
# of Participants
Convince skeptics (demonstration)
3
Find serious problems
9-12
Find all serious problems
Unknown
Find all problems
Unknown
Measure key parameters
Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group Size for Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide” by
Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.
>20

32. 
Know your primary user(s) and recruit
carefully
 Very specific user group - 5 works
 Less well defined - more (8-15 or more)
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There is controversy
Study in 2001 was inconclusive due to study
design (Spool and Schroeder)

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Testing five users is not always enough
Must be well recruited – not just anyone
Smaller groups do not equate better findings
Low test quality - size doesn’t matter
"Results of usability tests depend considerably
on the evaluator"
- Jacobsen and Hertzum, 2001
Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group Size for Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide” by
Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.

35. http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/financial/5670570-1.html All Business. Dated:Jan. 8, 2003

36. Once a system is in development,
correcting a problem
costs 10 times as much
as fixing the same problem in design.
If the system had been released,
it costs 100 times as much
relative to fixing in design.
-Gilb, 1988
-Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

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Access to users
Access to data
Before and after
Small
increments of
time and effort
X
# of
employees
over time
=
Potentially huge
savings in time
and money

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Small things can make a big difference
$300,000,000 Button
Provide right recommendations by observing
and talking with the customers
Spool, Jared. The $300 Million Button. January 14, 2009.
http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/
Button: BD Create

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Pay attention to who approaches you
Look for your comrades
May not be in your area of the organization
Make time to chat with them
 Share recent articles about UX
 Invite to a UX event locally
 Invite to join LinkedIn or other groups online

41. 
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Use promotions
Remind everyone of successes
Provide templates for planning - include UX
Provide highlights and/or reports that will
help them sell UX

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Identify C-level person
 Get their support for a small study
 Invite them to sessions
 Make sure they see benefits gained
 Remind them of success next time
 Help them become a promoter

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Centralized in a department
Embedded in existing teams

44. 
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Increase sales
Save time and money
Create happy customers

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Sell more product
Discover unmet needs
Reduce:
 Costs (support, training)
 Need for updates and maintenance releases
From A Practical Guide to Usability Testing by Joseph Dumas and Janice Redish, 1999. Page 18.

46. “Customers are the only stakeholders who are
not represented in design meetings.
If it hurts users and will cause customers to
leave? Silence.
Unless you speak up. So do it.”
-Jakob Nielsen
Usability Evangelism: Beneficial or Land Grab? By Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D
http://www.developer.nokia.com/Design/Usability_evangelism.xhtml

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Invite everyone to observe via remote observation
Schedule testing at a regular time
Promote availability of testing internally (Yammer)
Network within organization and share what you do
Present lunch sessions
Invite staff to local UX events
Share recommendations and successes widely
Post information radiators in shared locations
Hold a World Usability Day event next year!
Invite everyone to observe UX sessions in-person

48. They are depending on you!

49. Twitter @carologic
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/caroljsmith
Slides: slideshare.net/carologic
UX Akron

50. 50

51. 
Building Trust and Credibility: How To Sell Your UX Design Solution
To Clients by Rian van der Merwe
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2013/02/20/sell-design-solution-clients/
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Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age,
Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew
The $300 Million Button by Jared Spool
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users.
March 19, 2000.
Measuring the User Experience by Bill Albert and Tom Tullis
Usability Evangelism: Beneficial or Land Grab? by Jakob Nielsen,
Ph.D
http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/roi_of_
usability.html
Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group
Size for Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide” by Macefield.
Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.