A very good reference for this topic is the book by Karen Donoghue (2003):
Built for Use: Driving Profitability Through the User Experience
The book deals with the relationship between business goals and user
experience goals. Someone mentioned a matrix in the book by Steve
Mulder. There is a similar one (more detailed perhaps) in Donoghue.
The matrix is something like the one below
Business Goal Tasks that support Product feature Experience
Best Practices User Interface Metrics Testing Plan &
& Success metric business goal that supports Goal
Acceptance
business
goal
Criteria
Business goals/success metrics would be things like Increase revenues
by 30%; increase customer satisfaction by 10% over last year; increase
customer loyalty; promote new brand image
Experience goals might related to efficiency, reduced errors, reduced
learning, improved consistency, etc.
Best practices might related to patterns, style guides, or the best
way to provide a good interaction. The user interface might specify
the general approach that you intend to follow (or major options).
For example, you might use tabs or menus to highlight features. The
metrics would be what you measure to see if you meet your experience
goals; learning time reduction over trials, success rates, time on
task, number of errors, the last column notes that the minimum level
of a metric (e.g., success rate) is acceptable given your business and
experience goals.
If you can trace through this matrix, you can relate business goals
all the way down to individual features and ensure that you are
designing and building something that is in line with your business
and user experience goals.
Chauncey
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 11:35 AM, jennifer wolfgang<[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks to all of you who responded. It was good to hear that my
> notions of this topic were definitely not off-base. And, it was good
> to get your comments about how to negotiate this difficult territory.
>
> The common element to all your comments is to turn the language of
> what I'm saying around to make it sound like it's purely to benefit
> the company (which, really it ultimately is). So, thanks :)
>
> What I've come to realize while reading your responses and mulling
> it over a bit more is that our VP, as well as many in our
> organization, honestly - in their hearts - feel that what the company
> is doing on the website is exactly what our visitors want/expect.
> Whether that is the case or not, I cannot say, as we do not have any
> research beyond our reliance on things like Web Trends to tell us
> what is working and what's not.
>
> I've learned that we are sort of haphazardly setup (I am the sole UX
> person (and I'm not a natural evangelist, so that's tough). Good
> news, though, is that though our VP is fairly new to the web (he
> comes from a traditional marketing bg), he is seeking the best and
> brightest in our field to consult with. So, that will help
> tremendously.
>
> Best to all!
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44399
>
>
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