Convincing Clients to Pay for Usability

Professionally run design agencies user test their designs to increase the value they deliver to their clients. The challenge is getting clients to understand the benefits of a solid development methodology.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Consulting

Dimensions of Usability: Defining the Conversation, Driving the Process  

Have you ever wondered if your colleagues or clients really understand usability? Too often, standards or guidelines substitute for really engaging our business, technical and design colleagues in a discussion of what usability means. By looking at usability from five dimensions, we can create a consensus around usability goals and use that definition to provide the basis for planning user centered design activities.

Quesenbery, Whitney. WQusability (2003). Articles>Usability>Consulting>User Centered Design

Effective Use of Contract Communicators  

How to get the most from employing a contract technical writer -- common sense, but not necessarily common practice.

Info Action (2002). Articles>Management>Consulting

Guerilla WriteFare: When Clients Don't Listen

What do you do with a perfectly good client who, despite your recommendations, embarks on a course of action you believe to be wrong or even disastrous? I know of only one answer to that question: let it go. After you've given it the old college try, of course. I never did let go easily. There are few things more disturbing than watching a client jump off a cliff. You just know they're going to crash onto the rocks below, because you've seen it happen so many times before. Is there anything you can do? Yes, and here's my list of things to do when clients don't listen.

Knowles, Michael. Write Thinking (2002). Articles>Writing>Consulting

In Defense of Difficult Clients

Challenging clients: avoidable pain or necessary stepping stone to enlightenment? Rob Swan considers the benefits of un-perfect clients.

Swan, Rob. List Apart, A (2006). Articles>Web Design>Consulting

Usability Consultants Tapped to Untangle Web Sites

Having a beautiful Web site with all the latest sales technology won’t help your business if visitors can’t find their way around. But how can you fix navigation problems when exploring your Web site seems as confusing as tracing a single strand in a plate of spaghetti? That’s where usability consultants and software come in.

Wagner, Mitch. BtoB (2002). Articles>Usability>Consulting

Helping Your Client Maintain Markup Quality

One thing that is particularly frustrating with caring about Web standards and accessibility is what often happens after your work is done and a site is handed over to the client.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Consulting>Standards

Ten Reasons Clients Don't Care About Accessibility

Working as an accessibility consultant in an IT company is a very frustrating job right now. Highly publicized lawsuits and deep-rooted accessibility myths leave us with a lot to explain when the final product does not really help visitors. Our clients simply don’t care about accessibility as much as we’d like them to, and there are several reasons for that.

Heilmann, Christian. Digital Web Magazine (2005). Articles>Consulting>Accessibility>Web Design

Five Reasons Why a Digital Agency Should Take Usability Seriously

Many digital agencies are now talking about usability and including it in their offering, but few are incorporating into their everyday process. Here are some reasons why agencies should think seriously about integrating usability and usability testing into their offering.

Experience Solutions (2009). Articles>Consulting>Usability>Testing

Consulting On Negotiation: Teaching Business Students Basic Techniques    

My experience as a consultant has provided a wealth of information and ideas that I often share with my college students. Perhaps the most important skill I have honed has been the ability to negotiate deals and contracts. No other factor has had such a direct impact on the success of my consulting business. The art of negotiation is understood by few people or regularly utilized, and yet most people negotiate several times a day. Each time a person buys a product or service, an internal as well as external negotiation occurs. We barter professionally, personally, and psychologically with little or no thought of improving this much-needed skill.

Layng, Jacqueline M. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Education>Consulting>Business Communication

Use of Uncertainty Reduction and Narrative Paradigm Theories in Management Consulting and Teaching: Lessons Learned    

Teaching business communication while performing professional business consulting is the perfect learning match. The bizarre but true stories from our consulting world provide excellent analogies for classroom learning, and feedback from students about the consulting experiences reaffirms the power of using stories for teaching. When discussing this article, we recognized that we used two distinct communication theories for consulting and then for relaying these experiences in teaching. First, we talked about the challenge of truly in-depth process consulting: determining with the client what they need, not simply what they want. This requires extensive uncertainty reduction theory--continuing to drill down until the true nature of the problem is revealed and further consulting can begin.

Barker, Randolph T. and Kim Gower. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Education>Consulting>Business Communication

Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients

It's hard for clients to understand the true value of user experience research. As much as you'd like to tell your clients to go read The Elements of User Experience and call you back when they’re done, that won’t cut it in a professional services environment. David Sherwin creates a cheat sheet to help you pitch UX research using plain, client-friendly language that focuses on the business value of each exercise.

Sherwin, David. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Consulting>User Experience>Research