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February 20, 2004
When proposing user experience improvements, design groups often face resistance
within their company. The eBay UI Design group has had significant success
getting user experience improvements prioritized and launched by conducting
rigorous cost-benefit analysis and by participating in the company product
planning process.
The group does the cost-benefit analysis based on:
- the estimated benefit of the user experience improvement. Estimates are
based on site usage statistics (e.g. current completion rates on key flows
plus projections based on the improvement) and standard values for key metrics
(e.g. the value of each registered user);
- the estimated cost for various resources (including the cost to design,
specify, build, and test the improvement) as well as any impact on operations.
Once the project is launched, the team uses these same metrics and updated
site usage statistics to determine the ROI of the project. Based on the success
of projects the two years, this has led to increased credibility for the group
and increased acceptance of the projects we propose.
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Jeff Herman is a design manager at eBay, where he focuses on current projects,
overall design guidelines, and long-term strategies. Prior to joining eBay
in 2001, Jeff was a designer at Yahoo!, where he worked on Yahoo! Mail, and
Apple, where he worked on Apple Guide and HyperCard. He received his M.S.
from the MIT Media Lab, where he designed and developed an adaptive, personalized
audio news guide. He holds nine patents, which include design work on software
and consumer electronics.
Suja Raju is a UI Designer at eBay, where she concentrates on designs for
improving the selling process. Prior to joining eBay, Suja was a designer
at Yahoo!, where she worked on Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Yellow Pages, Yahoo! City
Guides, and Ad Manager. She also worked as a designer at the consulting firm,
Scient Corp. where she worked on projects for Morgan Stanley and BenefitPoint.
She received her M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford and her B.A. in Environmental
Science from U.C. Berkeley.
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