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Not even the nascent state of the Web can excuse the amateurish
lack of usability of today's eCommerce initiatives...(Sonderegger,
Forrester Research, December 1999.)
The business case for usability can be summarised by saying that
good usability leads to satisfied, purchasing, and returning customers.
The Gartner group found in 1992 that a user-centred approach raised
customer satisfaction by 40%. Bad usability on the other hand,
leads to angry customers and loss in sales. AT Kearney in
2001 reported that 82% of users they surveyed attempted to purchase
something but gave up because of poor design and usability.
A useful metric of your web site's success is not traffic
but conversion rate: the number of visitors who are 'converted'
into buyers.
B2B studies show that between 30-40 percent of web purchase attempts
fail due to poor web site usability. Enterprises need to establish,
institutionalise and fund user experience as a core competency (Gartner
group, 2001).
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