E-Consultancy's Friedlein predicts the Future of UK Usability Consultancy

Foviance interviewed Ashley Friedlein, CEO of E-consultancy.com, about the future of the UK marketplace for usability services and how he expects usability agencies to evolve.

Q. What trends do you see in the market for usability and accessibility consultancy in the UK?
A. Well, the good news for usability specialists is that the market for services is definitely growing. According to our report 'Usability and Accessibility: A Buyers Guide', the market will be worth around £110m in the UK this year, up 25% from 2004. Most of the consultancies we spoke to expect their turnovers to grow by between 10% and 60% for 2005.

We see this growth in demand for usability and accessibility services being driven by four key factors:
• Increased understanding of and familiarity with the return on investment (ROI) from usability and accessibility improvements;
• A united approach from leading design agencies and usability consultancies;
• Usability increasingly built into best practice development approaches; and
• Fear of DDA litigation driving growth in the accessibility market.

We also see a trend whereby usability is moving away from being seen as just 'usability testing', or being positioned as 'human-computer interaction' (HCI) or user-centred design (UCD). Now the phrases you are more likely to hear are 'experience management' or 'conversion optimisation'. When we surveyed 90 UK e-commerce managers for our 'Managing an E-commerce Team' report, we found that converting visitors to sales or outcomes was where they felt they could most improve their online operations.

Q. What challenges do usability consultancies and agencies face in such a buoyant market?
A. One of the problems of being in a buoyant market, of course, is that everyone sees an opportunity to make some money. Suddenly everyone is a usability expert.

Weve seen the same happen with search engine marketing to the extent that most digital agencies now offer search marketing as a service. A similar thing is happening with usability. In our 'Digital Agency Rate Card Survey' of 2003 we had only 40 of the responding agencies claiming to offer usability services. In our 2005 'Digital Agency Rate Card Survey', this figure is now over 130.

So the biggest challenges we see for usability specialists are how to avoid commoditisation and how to differentiate in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Staff recruitment and retention is also a big challenge for usability consultancies at the moment. Again, because of the buoyant market, and an education system that perhaps isn't delivering usability specialists with enough understanding of the commercial context, finding and keeping good people is tough and increasingly expensive.

Finally, a larger number of clients are now hiring usability specialists themselves. Particularly those who have realised just how valuable and powerful it can be and recognise they need to embed it in everything they do. This trend risks eating into the market for external consulting in the long term.

Q. How will usability and accessibility specialists evolve over the coming years?
A. There will always be a need for external, independent and impartial usability testing. And, as things continue to evolve, there will always be a need for specialist skills. For example, at the moment, those might be eyetracking capabilities, specialist labs, online forms optimisation, on-site search optimisation, accreditation, compliance auditing, or deep sector expertise.

However, I believe there are three main ways in which usability and accessibility specialists will be able to differentiate themselves in future:
• Firstly, by providing true multi-channel capabilities. Most companies now recognise that their customers interact with them through multiple channels (online, in store, on the phone, by post etc.) and that they need to deliver a seamless customer experience across all those touch points. Usability and accessibility professionals have a lot to offer in helping architect this experience but it requires them to understand multiple devices and environments.
• Secondly, by having a real understanding of experiential marketing and selling online. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think usability professionals who want to make it in the commercial world should be talking about 'HCI'. They should be 'experiential marketers', or perhaps 'interactive buying psychologists'? Clients are realising that for them to differentiate themselves, and successfully acquire and retain their customers, they must do so by delivering a better customer experience. In a recent interview with E-consultancy, Dr Louise Benson from O2 said: "Delivering an engaging and enjoyable customer experience is the next competitive battleground."
• Thirdly, by providing a service offering which better marries usability with the wider (online) marketing context. So rather than just being experts in user centred design, usability professionals will need to be able to understand, and integrate with, other areas of online marketing.

E-consultancy.com provides information, training and events on best practice online marketing and e-commerce. Ashley Friedlein was a keynote speaker at HCI2005 at Napier University in Edinburgh last year.

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