How would you apply convenience to your manager?
For a little background, I work for a firm that develops networking platforms for social media. We have many different clients and our mantra is that we bring our clients closer to our clients. Basically, usability should be very important to us throughout the entire product lifecycle.
However, my company does not have IA (although we do have very knowledgeable product managers and designers) or usability analysts. We have not submitted any of our products for proper testing or usability analysis. Since I have a bit of experience in IA / Usability, I take it upon myself to change this because I see Usability saving us money in many ways: reduces QA iterations, builds our knowledge in business for future product development, increases sales trust, etc.
The problem is that nobody is very interested. Management is concerned about the overhead costs of changing our approach to development; many developers don't care about usability anyway, as it won't change much for them; sales just don't know much about it to begin with.
How do I approach my managers / bosses and convince them to start considering usability as an important part of our development and sales process? Thanks in advance!
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You will need solid sales or financial metrics to show the real profitability of your performers. Otherwise, all the conversations in the world are not going to move them.
Once you have the controls on board, which is a huge hurdle in itself, development will follow.
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I've been a UX / Usability / IA (whatever you call it) for many years now. One of the best articles on this topic is here ( Selling UX Daniel Szuc on UXMatters) It covers most of the obstacles and offers great insight into the long-standing problem of selling what people just don't know what they really need. The main thing that I think is: your company, organization, group, etc. Be prepared to integrate the voice of the client into the design process. Sometimes this is a huge shift that some people may not understand. Others have done for years without knowing it. Keep in mind: It's almost impossible to sell usability or UX to companies that ignore or sometimes even vilify users because they complain about their products. Typically, marketing people are most aware of the power of a customer's voice. You can get them on your side first. First, don't even mention methods or processes. Potential, measurable, business outcome.
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Chris is right, you need to prove ROI. Human Factors International offers ROI calculators that can be helpful.
Also check out the book Institutionalizing Usability. You can view it here .
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