Details

Executives recognized that we were at risk of losing market share to competitors. Our SVP, requested that the usability team (UX Group) conduct a usability study, comparing users deploying our home network device versus a competitor’s for dialup connections via modem and ISDN. Results:

Users of the competitive product succeeded in 40 minutes. Users deploying our product experienced critical errors in their attempts to deploy it. Only experts succeeded, taking 3.5 hours. Key error points included:

• Understanding which items in our accessory package were important
• Which cables to plug in and where (on both the network devices and external devices)
• How to interact with the our product's command line interface
• Complex technology and terminology

PC Magazine initially considered our home office network device too complex to even consider in head-to-head comparisons. The UE group led a team that included Engineering, Marketing, Documentation, Manufacturing, and Tech Support, which changed these components:

• Modified Accessory Kits to include Open Me First and Open Me Only if Needed bags
• Defined a color-coded cable model across the company to lower costs by purchasing cables in volume and decrease tech support costs
• Created a configuration wizard that asked simple questions only. We auto-detected and defaulted most parameters.
• Decreased documentation from 800 pages to a four-color Quick Start Guide
• Simplified initial setup in the network device command-line interface for users who preferred not to use a graphical UI

After our efforts, novices could connect to the Internet in 20 minutes. Revenue moved from $200 Million to over $2 Billion in two years. Senior leaders stated that while these usability improvements were not the sole contributor, they were the largest. PC Magazine finally rated our product #1!