Benefits of UX for Business

The value of design is difficult to define but to place it in financial terms, there’s a growing body of evidence that good design delivers shareholder value. One study completed a number of years ago by Motiv Strategies developed a market index to track how design-focused companies perform relative to the S&P 500 over time. 15 publicly traded US companies made the criteria for inclusion. The results showed that over a 10-year period design-focused companies outperformed the S&P by an extraordinary 211%.

A superior user experience leads directly to a competitive advantage because consumers will naturally opt for anything which saves time or makes things easier to use. Research from Forrester suggests that up to 97% of websites fail when it comes to user experience. When compared to their peers, the top 10 companies leading in customer experience outperform the Standard and Poor’s index with close to triple the returns (Forrester data). Jeff Bezos of Amazon, for example, invested 100 times more to customer experience than advertising during the first year of Amazon. And if you’re looking for metrics to justify improvements in UX, according to a survey by NN Group, the average improvement in ROI from usability improvements is 83%.

Expedia, for example, increased earnings by $12 million just through dropping one field from an online form.

Many organizations over time use a set formula for the development of digital assets such as the website. However, when not combined with a good understanding of your users, the site is unlikely to gain much traction.