Cost of Frustration
Web Pro News — “It’s difficult to find someone who doesn’t believe it’s beneficial to make a more usable design. However, in today’s design environment, it’s often difficult to justify the expense of usability work against other business priorities.”
The article was written by Jared Spool. Smart guy, smart words.
September 21st, 2004 at 10:50 am
Interesting article, but I questions the total logic of the Amtrak example because even though the numbers make sense it does nor include those customers that get frustrated online and then book via phone or some other means.
I know the online experience is bad, but to flat out say it is $79.0m lost sales is maybe not entirely true.
September 21st, 2004 at 12:19 pm
“Our inspection of the site’s logs shows the same patterns we see in the labs: only 25% of the people who start reservations actually complete them. That means that 30,000 reservations a month aren’t completed. Using our average reservation, that roughly puts the monthly failed registrations at $6,600,000 or $79,200,000 a year.”
Indeed, some people might actually want to get the information from the web but still place the call for the order. Maybe there are exceptions to deal with. Maybe there are business processes outside of Amtrak to follow. And so on. However, I’m sure that some large amount of money is just flat out lost.
September 22nd, 2004 at 9:52 am
I think I was trying to say in a round about way that the science of usability needs to stand up to the rigors of science, in that, to have the credibility it deserves will require more than high level computations to get a point across.
I think business want to believe, but business wants to see the same level of thought put into how usability can help as they put into calculating business cases etc.
$79m sounds like a big figure…. And it is….but it should be side-bared with a comment of a % of folks that used other channels to order.
Or this argument should have been wrapped up in the cost savings lost due to driving some of these people to another channel. That way it is a revenue lost and cost savings lost opportunity… a much stronger argument.
September 22nd, 2004 at 12:57 pm
A marketing piece aimed at the gullible. I wouldn’t call any of it “smart” though.