Firstly, let’s simple define usability. Usability is delivering value to your customers and/or clients. This value comes from having sound understanding of and anticipating their needs, and knowing how to organize and design your product whether online or offline to produce that value.
Why is usability important to defining your business strategy?The application of usability in your product and design strategies yields great intangible and tangible business and user values.
Business Benefits of Usability
Your company could gain leading edge competitive benefits as follows:
Intangible Benefits
Cost Efficiencies – a product with good usability will decrease cost of user support through Email and Call Centre as well as product production costs.
Product usability strategy gives you positioning within your industry and what you want to be known for in the marketplace.
Brand differentiation – it provides another way to position your products and/or services relative to your competitors.
Acquisition driver – A usable product developed with customer benefits and value in mind will drive exponential acquisitions of that new products.
Profitable customers – It will contribute to profitable customer relationships.
Effective marketing – It will enhance the effectiveness of your marketing programs. Makes it easy to convey your unique selling proposition and easily gets users to take the actions you intend.
High customer ratings & reviews – A strong usable product enhances positive evaluations of a product’s quality and maintains high level of product awareness.
Reduce risks – A well defined and usable product reduces risks involved in users acquiring your products and services, for example: functional, time, and financial risks.
Competitive edge – It enjoys an advantage relative to the competition. That is, consumer preference and loyalty for your product enables pricing flexibility or even monopolistic advantages.
Tangible Benefits
Financial performance – It will positively impact your financial performance such as profitability and revenue.
Revenue volatility – A defined usability strategy may reduce the volatility of revenues, where brand loyalty is expected to result in lower volatility and vulnerability of cash flows, and therefore corporate risks.
Cost efficiencies can be achieved in terms of reduced marketing and advertising spending.
Increase in sales.
Operational efficiencies –Usability strategy can lead to operational efficiencies, which can consequently eliminate the redundancy in delivery systems realized through economy of scope and scale.
Conversion Rate.
Increased product usage and engagement.
Customer Loyalty
In addition, management should support exploring usability issues because it will:
Help them determine their product blueprint/architecture.
Help them understand whether it is necessary to use a particular product line as a supporting umbrella for their corporate strategy
Grow market share
Fill a competitive gap
Impact of not incorporating website usability strategy to your website projects
The absence of a well thought out website usability strategy can be detrimental especially to a reputable company.
Customers who have built trust into the relationship may terminate the relationship because of a company’s failure to clearly establish and communicate easy ways to acquire its products and services online. They may find their confidence in the company worn out by the lack of a solid positive online experience — a crucial element that so often forms the basis of a company’s product perception and reputation.
And as far as investors are concerned, a bad company reputation is never a good thing, especially when it hints of poor management and planning.
Negative impact on the company’s financial performance such as profitability and revenue.
Your company will find it difficult to sustain competitive advantage with at least one of your products, failing to utilize a usability strategy as a competitive strength. Consequently, having reduced return on investments of website activities.