Media: John Rhodes looks at the Effort of User Experience

"How Much Effort Does It Take to Create a Great User Experience?" by John Rhodes tackles that knotty problem of making an attractive concept into practical reality. It promises answers to questions such as: 'How much money does it take to move a project from inception to completion? How do you fully consider the total cost of ownership? How do you know how much time to spend on usability and requirements?' and while not answering in full (who could?), it does make an interesting starting point by offering a formula.

'Many companies probably think they somehow include customers in their measurements of effort. But they don’t. I'm stating that companies need to look outside their walls to understand how much effort it will take inside to get the job done for customers,' he says.

'You need users per day, how often the product will be used per day, how long it will used for during those times, and how long the product will be in play in the long run. If you multiply these four simple factors, you will have a single number. This number is the numerator in our equation.

Then: 'You need a value that reflects your dedication to user experience, a value indicating your adherence to best practices, and a value indicating the clarity of the requirements. Multiply these numbers together and suddenly you have a denominator for your formula.'

Associated Link: Apogee: How Much Effort Does It Take to Create a Great User Experience?

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