11. How to Convince Your Boss or Client

The best way to convince your boss or client to invest in improving usability is to inform them about the benefits of it in terms of increased profits or productivity. However, just showing that potential benefits are likely to exceed the costs might not be enough if your suggested approach requires changing the company’s culture (for example, when there is a ‘UX expert’ designer who does not like his work challenged), you need to address some underlying concerns and have persuasive, logical arguments, as well as to appeal to managers’ emotions and ambitions.

Successful strategies in convincing bosses to invest in usability:

1. Think strategically. Focus on the key projects in which usability is important, some of the projects might be successful enough the way they are, the costs of usability testing everything might discourage your boss from even trying. Also, focus on projects where it is easy to measure the performance before improvements in usability and after, so the returns on investment are visible.
2. Identify a top-level champion. Identify somebody in the company who is a user advocate, or some manager who is leading customer centered initiatives and show him how usability can support his goals: how it is linked to various business objectives, show some usability testing footage of users struggling with the product.
3. Raise awareness. Organizational changes are more successful when there is a team effort. Share past reports, user videos, usability best practices with other team members, send newsletters.
4. Demonstrate that it is really needed. Run a mini user testing session, just 3-5 users and demonstrate the key insights of it – a video of users struggling with some problems that are hard to identify without user testing is more convincing than a presentation about the benefits of user testing in general. You could also run a mini test against competitors.
5. Demonstrate the return on investment. In order to be convincing, case studies used should be in the same industry, very specific projects. It might also be a good idea to implement a small change and show the results of it in order to make stakeholders more confident that you know what you are doing and that your approach can bring a high return on investment.
6. Talk the right language. Use simple terminology that others understand and care about: not UI, UX, users, ease of use etc., but key performance indicators, revenues, transactions.

This is a good presentation template to use in order to convince others to do usability testing: http://www.usertesting.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Why-We-Should-User-Test1.pptx . Pdf version: https://blog.usertesting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Why-We-Should-User-Test.pdf

Be ready for common objections and user testing myths

The following ones are common:

• We have analytics, there is no need for user testing. Explain that they need to understand not only what is happening, but also why it is happening in order to make good design decisions.
• Usability testing is expensive. Great results can be achieved with recruiting only 5 users or testing paper prototypes instead of finished products. Emphasize the value of testing and the risks of not doing it. Introduce various contemporary tools and recruiting options (e.g. moderated and unmoderated testing platforms) and show their costs.
• Usability testing is complicated and time consuming. Create a timeline to demonstrate that it can be done quickly.
• We apply the best practices or hire a designer who is an expert in usability. That is great, however there is no other way of finding out how actual users perceive the product than doing user testing.

There might be a multitude of other arguments, you need to know your company, the industry and their main concerns to prepare in advance.