Part IV - The Role of Usability In Benchmarking Performance

Following last months introduction to usability techniques we look forward to how these can be applied to benchmark the performance of digital interfaces.

Using standard techniques it is possible to make a mark in the sand and say that on a given revision version of the site a certain percentage of users were successful at the specified tasks. We can see how long those tasks took and how many errors were made, by applying the scientific measures described in last month's newsletter.

Once recommendations for change have been made and implemented the same tests can be run again with different participants, and analysis can be performed on the two sets of results. This enables the impact of the changes to be measured in terms of the metrics previously decided upon. The process can then be iterated almost indefinitely with the effects of changes being measured each time. The benefits are obvious as well as allowing the customer to be innovative with their designs.

We can take this one step further. If we combine usability metrics with business metrics and technical performance metrics; the impact of usability can be directly measured in terms of return on investment and the impact on the bottom line. In all cases to date, usability can be shown to provide real benefits but until these sorts of data were collected in conjunction with bottom line business numbers the ROI has been difficult to prove.

The flip side of this is that we can also use technical and business metrics to focus the attentions of our Usability Specialists. If, for example, we discover from our technical readouts that out conversion rate is very low because 75% of all our users stumble on the transactional elements of a site, then that is going to be a number of screens worthy of further investigation. No number of user groups will show the reasoning behind why users are failing. The only real way to determine the problem areas would be to carry out a focussed Usability Evaluation and let users show and tell you what the issues are.

Although it may not be possible to collect business metrics and some technical metrics about competitors' sites, there is nothing to stop you carrying out Usability Evaluations and comparing them against your own usability metrics. It might be frightening but at least you would know you if were falling behind or ahead of the game… powerful information indeed!

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