In difficult times, "lean times" or economic instability, companies tend to reduce their spending, drastically cutting projects and even some staff. This is where digital channels, especially the web, become central to profitability strategy, as senior management understands their potential and the relevance of migrating transactions from traditional channels (branches, call centers, or field sales representatives) to digital channels (website/mobile, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
While cost should not be THE argument for having a strategy and developing an online presence, sometimes it is a good driver for orienting actions towards digital.
Now, when thinking about improving website results, optimization tactics can be grouped into those that allow:
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increasing traffic, i.e., getting more users to the website,
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improving conversion or achieving business objectives, i.e., selling, attracting leads (potential customers), generating transactions, downloads, registrations, etc.
When it comes to improving conversion, the role of an easy-to-use interface that ensures a good user experience (UX) is fundamental. In difficult times, there is a tendency to cut the budget dedicated to study and research, and often, the preference is to maintain "operations." Now, why shouldn't this be the case?:
- In general, it is more agile to optimize than to redesign and implement from scratch, going through a bidding process that is long in itself. The exception could be a website built on a very obsolete platform whose maintenance is expensive, time-consuming, not optimized for mobile devices, and limited from a user experience perspective. In this case, it is preferable to redesign rather than make continuous improvements.
- When you want to monetize the budget of a development, there is no time for backtracking, so it must be built from the beginning, centering the design and functionalities on the user. Otherwise, not considering the user and not testing at an early stage will generate higher additional costs, as we may end up with a technically well-done development that no one understands or uses.
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Promoting online transactions: to reduce service costs in traditional contact channels (branches, call centers), it is necessary to have a reliable online platform that helps the user/customer solve their needs without having to resort to a support channel. Usability as a quality attribute of a system ensures that the user can self-serve easily and intuitively.
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In internal software development and back-office applications, the return on investment (ROI) of every dollar associated with usability and user experience is significant. Building software with the user in mind and making usability testing a recurring activity will generate lower training costs and faster adoption rates of the technology. In other words: the executive who has to serve customers through this software will do so intuitively, considering the platform as a work tool and not as a necessary evil with which they must struggle daily. In this Nielsen Norman Group study, you can read about intranet system usability and its impact on metrics.
Making usability and user testing a continuous process is more a matter of discipline and rigor than budget. Dedicating 10%* of the total development budget to usability and UX ensures that the foundations of a project are well laid.
(*) 10% is the minimum recommended by relevant players such as Human Factors International (HFI) or Nielsen Norman Group.
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