22 Chapter – Cost-Justifying Usability: The View from the Other Side of the Table

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the experiences of usability professionals, with cost justifying usability efforts. Individually, they had experience considering proposals to fund or otherwise support usability projects. Collectively, their companies represented a broad expanse of the software or website landscape. The “users” of proposals for usability support are the executives who hold the purse strings and decide how to deploy resources. In this chapter, user-centered design approach is pursued to maximize the chances that the proposals for funding will be seen as usable (and, more to the point, will be funded). Three fundamental questions about usability support have been asked to different professionals, and their responses have been discussed. These are followed by three considerations that deal with starting up, attribution problem, and the “Compleat Angler” (for usability funding).