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The myths of usability ROI

Published: 01 September 2004 Publication History

Abstract

As I have followed the ongoing discussion in our field about usability ROI, I have consistently had the feeling that this debate is taking place on a different planet than the one I am familiar with. From my perspective, as an executive overseeing the user experience (UE) group at the world's second largest software company, much of this debate is based on misconceptions. As I stated in a recent talk at Xerox PARC hosted by BayCHI [7], in my 20 plus years of experience, I have never been asked to produce an ROI analysis.

References

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Bias R. & Mayhew, D.J. (Eds.). (1994). Cost Justifying Usability. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.
[2]
Capterra Enterprise Software Center. (n.d.). The need for a marketplace in the enterprise software industry. Retrieved July 7, 2004, from, www.capterra.com/enterprise-software.tcl
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Lindgaard, G. (2004, May-June). Making the business our business: one path to value-added HCI. Interactions 11{3}.
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Nielsen, J. (1998, October 18). Failure of corporate websites, Alertbox. Retrieved July 7, 2004, from, www.useit.com/alertbox/981018.html
[5]
Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability engineering. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.
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Ostrander, E. (2000, October).Usability testing of documentation has many benefits of unknown value. Usability Interface, 7(2).
[7]
Rosenberg, D. (2003, October 14). 7 myths of usability ROI, Talk given at BayCHI Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, CA.
[8]
Rosenberg, D. (1989). A cost benefit analysis for corporate user interface standards. In J. Nielsen (Ed.), Coordinating User Interfaces for Consistency. Boston: Academic Press. pp. 21-34.
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Sinha, Rashimi. (2004, February). ROI of usability: A collection of links. Retrieved July 7, 2004, from www.rashmisinha.com/useroi.html
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Wixon, D. and Jones, S. (1992). Usability for fun and profit: A case study of the design of DEC RALLY, version 2. Digital Equipment Corporation.

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Published In

cover image Interactions
Interactions  Volume 11, Issue 5
Funology
September + October 2004
90 pages
ISSN:1072-5520
EISSN:1558-3449
DOI:10.1145/1015530
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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 September 2004
Published in INTERACTIONS Volume 11, Issue 5

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  • (2015)The User Experience Designer's Charlatan TestProceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2702613.2732503(517-529)Online publication date: 18-Apr-2015
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  • (2012)ReferencesThe UX Book10.1016/B978-0-12-385241-0.00027-0(363-386)Online publication date: 2012
  • (2011)A Strategic Approach to Metrics for User Experience DesignersJournal of Usability Studies10.5555/2010380.20103826:2(52-59)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2011
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