by David Silva Smith
Fact: The higher cost of quality design can save money.
When building software, many programmers focus on the features: what is this software going to do? Left to their own devices, programmers often deliver undesigned software; many boxes and options are typically strewn about. It can be just as easy to delete your entire document as it is to copy the text. That was okay 15 years ago. Today, only Craigslist has had much commercial success with a poorly-designed website. Websites and software are more complicated today, and more critical to all business aspects. Users need software to perform their jobs, and to not get in the way or slow them down.
The high cost of bad design:
- Increased help desk calls: people may think the software is broken because they don't know how to complete a task, or because they are using the software in a way the developer didn't intend. How much does each help desk call cost you?
- Employees take longer on tasks: if staff cannot find the functionality they need right away, they must spend time searching around the software, checking Google for help, and asking other coworkers.
- Risk reduced quality: if people cannot insert a chart into their document, they may just give up and skip the chart.
Wasted costs are multiplied by the number of users on the system. If one user costs $1.00 in wasted time, one thousand users of an ineffective system will cost $1,000.00. Costs add up quickly. When you are building your product understand how many users will be on the system, the cost of your help desk, the cost of your employees time, and the cost of reduced work quality from the system.
This summer, our team rolled out a replacement system that gave our client, a statewide government agency, a return on investment in three months. The old system and the new system provided the same tools, but our system was designed better: people could complete tasks four hours faster.
At Gravity Works Design & Development, we know quality design saves you money. Spending the extra time to understand client needs, and study how people use a software tool, means people can easily add items to their cart, check the football score, and raise global poverty awareness.