In April, when I learned I’d be working in San Francisco as a Summer Associate at Adaptive Path, I did what any MBA student worth his salt would do — a cost-benefit analysis. Undecided between driving or flying from Virginia, where I just completed my first year at Darden, I considered several variables — the cost of gas, how much stuff I might ship cross-country, the number of hotel stays, and so on. In the end, the experience of getting in the car and visiting nine new states was more than worth the extra time, dollars, and wear and tear.
Of course, when it came time to make the decision, I didn’t have to get managerial approval — other than my wife’s consent — to go for the richer experience. But if you’re a user experience professional trying to justify a new project to your manager, you probably don’t have it as easy as I did. You might not even know where to begin.
This summer, I’ll be working with Brandon to reexamine the business value of user experience. This work will follow up on our 2004 report, “Leveraging Business Value: How ROI Changes User Experience,” but most of it will involve new thinking about how user experience professionals can make the case for getting budgets and projects approved. Whether you’re working for a small nonprofit or a Fortune 50 company, we want to create a playbook telling you how to have an effective conversation with your manager and sell the value of your project. There’s a lot of theoretical work in this area, but very little practical step-by-step advice.
Our goal is to share information early and often. This project can only benefit from involving user experience professionals from the beginning. We want to hear your stories, and we want to know about both successes and failures. Stay tuned as we begin our work and share the initial findings.
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