Enhancing Productivity
The average software application has 40 usability-related design flaws. If UXE methods are applied from the beginning of the design process, the cost of UXE returns a benefit of over 700% in efficiency improvements. [65]. Field studies have demonstrated the time required to complete common tasks on intranets with low usability scores is about double what it takes to compete the same tasks on ones with a high usability scores [89]. For a large company, improving the usability of corporate enterprise software or intranet can result in huge cost savings by saving employee's time. For enterprise software vendors, usability can be a key selling point. In fact, some customers have begun to run usability tests to help them choose between software offerings [112].
Here are some examples of how UXE methods have enhanced productivity and the resulting cost savings:
- IBM saves $6.8 million by investing $20,700. A $20,700 investment in UXE resulted in design changes to IBM's sign-in procedure that saved 9.6 minutes per task per employee. This yielded an internal savings of $41,700 on the first day, $6.8 million in the first year, resulting in a cost benefit ratio of $1:$100 [58].
- State of Kansas reduces task time on Web portal by 70%. Usability testing revealed that users were confused by the organization of the site and took an average of 22 minutes to complete a task. By adjusting the site's information architecture, task time was reduced to 9 minutes [89].
- NCR Corporation improves data entry by 25% and decreases errors by 25% by redesigning data entry screens according to UXE heuristics [42].
- Bay Networks saves $10 million per year. A $3 million investment in an intranet developed using UXE methods saved Bay Networks an estimated $10 million per year in employee search time, while resulting in a qualitative improvement in employee's work [37].