Usability
goals are business goals. Web sites that are hard to use frustrate
customers, forfeit revenue, and erode brands. Executives can
apply a disciplined approach to improve all aspects of ease-of-use.
Start with usability reviews to assess specific flaws and understand
their causes. Then fix the right problems through action-driven
design practices. Finally, maintain usability with changes in
business processes.
McCharty
& Souza, Forrester research, September 1998
Not
even the nascent state of the Web can excuse the amateurish
lack of usability of today's eCommerce initiatives. The sites
we evaluated demonstrated a fundamental failure to incorporate
decades-old principles of software design. But as the novelty
of doing business on the Web gives way to demands for basic
quality, companies will have to get serious about user experience.
Sonderegger,
Forrester Research, December 1999
The
benefits of usable technology include reduced training costs,
limited user risk and enhanced performance ... American industry
and government will become even more productive if they take
advantage of usability engineering techniques
Vice
president Al Gore, 1998
Evidence
suggests that e-retailers who skimp on website design and user
testing significant and avoidable losses in revenue.
On
a corporate intranet, poor usability means poor employee productivity;
investments in making an intranet easier to use can pay off
by a factor of 10 or more, especially at large companies.
CIO Business Web
Magazine, 1999
