[IxDA Discuss] Anyone succeeded in getting a usability-only release?

[Nasir Barday]

I'm working on a "usability improvement" release for a product right now. We
have a subscription model for our software, so almost all of the convincing
had to happen with product managers. As a result of evangelizing usability
testing for a while, I ran a few user tests on the product and the
suggestions that came out of it directly became enhancements.

I jive with Renato's post, and it's an idea you'll hear time and time again:
justify the change(s) with something that hits the bottom line (in our case
it was the competitive advantage of making the product better). It's all
about the ROI, baby.

Convincing customers to *buy* the new release may be a challenge. Especially
since the people buying the product aren't always the people using it, the
sell will have to be on how much time/money the changes will save. In some
markets, as discussed before, a feature list is what sells the upgrade.
Maybe you can re-frame your usability improvements as features?

- Nasir