The best way to communicate this is to create metrics that can provide indications that our work is offering the right benefits to the business's we are helping.
Knowing how to measure and present the return on investment (ROI) of UX is crucial. Our clients are only going to invest in UX if the figures add up and they can relate.
In Dr. Susan Weinschenk's video, she argues that up to 50% of programmers’ time is spent on avoidable rework.
Of the top 12 reasons that projects fail, three of the top 12 are directly related to the lack of user experience work.
Susan Weinschenk, in her white paper Usability: A Business Case Site, outlines three useful equations for calculating cost savings
Calculation
(# of errors) x (avg. repair time) x (employee cost) x (# of employees) = cost savings
Example
(2 errors/week) x (60 mins) x (R300/hour) x (100 employees) = R60,0000/week or R720,000/year
Calculation
(# of changes) x (avg. hrs/change) x (cost of developer) x (4, if late) = cost savings
Example
(20 changes) x (8 hrs each) x (R400/hour) = R64,000 if fixed early or R256,000 if changed late
Calculation
(time saved) x (employee cost) x (# of employees) = cost savings
Example
(1 hr/week) x (R30/hr) x (1000 employees) = R30,000/ week or R15,000,000/year
Calculation
(# of people who complete an online booking process) ÷ (# of site visitors) = conversion as (%)
Example
(50 people completed an online booking process) ÷ (10,000 site visitors) = 0.5%