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Cost-Justifying Usability,

Edition 2 An Update for the Internet Age

Editors: Edited by Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew

Publication Date: 04 Apr 2005

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You just know that an improvement of the user interface will reap rewards, but how do you justify the expense and the labor and the time—guarantee a robust ROI!—ahead of time? How do you decide how much of an investment should be funded? And what is the best way to sell usability to others?

In this completely revised and new edition of Cost-Justifying Usability, Randolph G. Bias (University of Texas at Austin, with 25 years’ experience as a usability practitioner and manager) and Deborah J. Mayhew (internationally recognized usability consultant and author of two other seminal books including The Usability Engineering Lifecycle) tackle these and many other problems. It has been updated to cover cost-justifying usability for Web sites and intranets, for the complex applications we have today, and for a host of products—offering techniques, examples, and cases that are unavailable elsewhere. No matter what type of product you build, whether or not you are a cost-benefit expert or a born salesperson, this book has the tools that will enable you to cost-justify the appropriate usability investment.

Key Features

Includes contributions by a host of experts involved in this work, including Aaron Marcus, Janice Rohn, Chauncey Wilson, Nigel Bevan, Dennis Wixon, Clare-Marie Karat, Susan Dray, Charles Mauro, and many others
Includes actionable ideas for every phase of the software development process
Includes case studies from inside a variety of companies
Includes ideas from "the other side of the table," software executives who hold the purse strings, who offer thoughts on which proposals for usability support they've funded, and which ones they've declined

About the author

Edited by Randolph G. Bias, University of Texas at Austin and Deborah J. Mayhew, Deborah J. Mayhew and Associates, West Tisbury, MA, U.S.A.

Introduction
1. Justifying cost-justifying usability
2. Return on investment for usable user-interface design: Examples and statistics

Framework
3. A basic framework for cost-justifying usability engineering on Web development projects
4. A business case approach to usability
5.Marketing usability
6. Dot coms

Organizational and Design Context
7. Cost-justification of usability engineering: A vendor’s perspective
8. Practical ROI issues for UCD teams: Considering the impact of social, internal, and external ROI on team credibility, team longevity, and product success
9. Usability science as an independent research service
10. ROI in Human Factors for Web Applications
11. The business case for international user centered design
12. Cost-justification of usability engineering for international Web sites
13. The ROI of accessibility

Methods and Approaches
14. Ethnography/Field research at Microsoft
15. Out of the box: Approaches to good initial interface designs;
16. Keystroke level modeling as a cost-justification tool
17. The RITE method
18. Sample size and user testing – how much is enough?
19. Cost-justifying online surveys
20.Cost benefits framework and case studies
21. Want respect? Respect the shareholder: Usability at Sprint
22. Conclusion, wrap-up, next steps

Title Reviews

"HCI professionals will repeat quotes with statistics, learn from case studies, and copy chapters for their managers. Thorough & thoughtful, practical & actionable— readers will be able to put the ideas to work immediately!"—Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland

"Cost-Justifying Usability"delivers much more than the promise of its title. Each chapter is worth the price of admission! I found more useful ideas and creative thinking in this book than I've come across in one place in years. Moreover, the collection of articles goes far beyond what the book title might suggest: it not only offers the definitive treatment of determining ROI for usability, but also provides a complete overview of usability considerations for getting you there. From specific calculations to help you with extending the business case, to introducing ethnography into the product development process, Cost Justifying Usability offers a treasure of gems for every user-centered design professional."—Dominick J. Dellino, Director of User Research and Testing, Washington Mutual

ISBN: 9780120958115

Page Count: 640

Retail Price (USD) :

Usability for the Web, Brinck et al, 2001, 1-55860-658-0

The Usability Engineering Lifecycle, Mayhew, 1999, 1-55860-561-4

Usability professionals and others who serve in this role, including user interface designers, information architects, or software or web development managers

Cost-Justifying Usability,

Editors: Edited by Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew

Key Features

About the author

Title Reviews

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