Forum Moderators: phranque
Strictly speaking usability should always be part of planning, designing and building a website, IMO.
But since a lot of clients sometimes just compare proposals of different contractors, and not all contractors include usability concepts and tests, I sometimes try to put an extra proposal for usability. Sometimes it works, and I can convince them to pay for it.
Anybody similar experiences?
I'm a huge promoter of usability (and accessability) to any and all clients that I deal with, however, while clients will nearly always give tacit approval for a few extra project hours to accommodate usability - it is very rare that I get approval for proper testing.
Proper testing? Ok, a bit of a misnomer. It's possible to spend tens of thousands of currency units on a thorough usability test. However, it is possible to get some very fine test results on a shoestring buget with only a few test subjects.
A caveat to accompany my last paragraph. While it is possible to get good results with a few users (the old maxim of 8 people is enough for user testing), Jared Spool (of UIE fame) recently published an article refuting this rule, citing evidence that with more than 8 users far more issues are revealed. You can read Jareds article here [uie.com].
So, where does this leave us? It depends on the client and their budget as to how much usability testing one can do. I will always say that you need to do some usability testing - how much depends on your client and their budget (and your powers of persuasion!).
It is astounding the amount of sites that are simply cack when it comes to this, like they had never even thought that somebody might us it. I think the idea of building it into the process and charging accordingly for it would be a good approach but you may fall foul of cheaper alternative. I suppose that comes down to your sales technique and how you pitch the extra, quality added processes that you offer that Joe Schmo does not and why in the end that equates to more ROI (as it can actually be used).
Cheers
Return on Investment for Usability [useit.com]
