User Experience Design as a Building Block in a B2B Company’s Market Strategy : An empirical study of how the user experience of a software service can be used to create increased customer value

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Linköpings universitet SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden 013-28 10 00, www.liu.se TQIE33: Master Thesis, 30 hp | M.Sc. Industrial Marketing Autumn semester 2020 | ISRN: LIU-IEI-TEK-A--20/03956—SE

User Experience Design as a

Building Block in a B2B Company’s

Market Strategy

An empirical study of how the user experience of a software service

can be used to create increased customer value

___________________________________________________________________

Author: Josefin Håkanson [josha046] Date: 17-12-2020

Supervisor: Roland Sjöström Examiner: Daniel Kindström

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I

Abstract

The after-sales pricing industry has, as many other industries, transformed with the digital era which have enabled automatization and scalable solutions. For companies pricing over 35 000 after sales items, scalable, digital solutions is needed. “The Company” International AB offers their SaaS solution Price, which integrates with the company’s ERP system and helps gain as much profits as possible by assisting with value-based pricing.

But lately, “The Company” has realized to be able to be market leading they need to ensure a better user experience (UX). This research’s aim was to understand how design affect customer value by understanding what UX factors are important to succeed in a B2B after-sales spare part market. The main research question were thereby: How do the UX design affect the customer value on an after

sales digital service?. An important note to make is that this study will focus on the

market, UX design trends and customers and their needs – not how the design should be done per se (e.g. “this button should be green, not blue”).

From the literature review, the sub-elements of UX were found to be Functionality,

UI Design, Usability and Affect. Moreover, Organization is found to be a vital part to

enable as good the UX as possible. The review suggested all sub-elements and their units could play a part of creating enhanced customer value.

The study is based upon qualitative interviews, followed up by a quantitative validation form studying the sub-elements and CSI. The interviews were held online with video calls and lasted for about 1–1,5 hr.

The findings verify earlier studies and implications, that all UX sub-elements do affect customer value significantly. The factor with least correlation to CSI is

functionality which could be explained by being a hygiene factor, not motivator

factor. Another finding, in contrary to B2C research, suggests that positive

emotions is not wished for in B2B software’s as the users are “forced” to use the

software as it is a part of their job, but this implication need to be further researched.

To be able to use UX as a market strategy “The Company” is advised to, within the product development team, not only prioritize new functionalities but also improving existing functionalities. It is also advised to share UX goals and vision throughout the different division working with Price. Some actions advice to take to enhance Price’s UX is making error messages actionable, enabling the user to save drafts in wizards and make it possible for the user to terminate any actions in the system.

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II

Author’s Note

This Master Thesis is the final step before graduating as a M.Sc. Engineer from Linköping University, College of Science and Engineering. The thesis is done within the industrial marketing division at the department of management and engineering. I’m very happy to be able to combine both the design aspect from my bachelor’s as well as the industrial engineering aspects from my master’s in a perfect combination.

The project is done in a collaboration with “The Company” International AB and especially the product division of Price. I have had the pleasure to have two very helpful and dedicated handlers: Heather Key and Per Almberg. Without your help, I couldn’t have collected the empirical data, enabling the studies existence in the first place and moreover providing interesting and reliable results. Thank you. I have been lucky to have a great handler from LiU assisting me in the process and re-assuring me I will manage this project even when I doubted myself (a lot). Thank you Roland Sjöström for the patience with my questions, clear feedback and help to push me forward.

Moreover, I’d like to thank my opponent Susanna for providing excellent feedback on how to look at the report with a different point of view, ensuring the quality of the report. Our meetings have been relaxed and open which I greatly appreciate. During the semester, I’ve had a huge amount of support from my partner Oscar, who have helped me when ranting about the process and given me advice as well as consoling me. This also applies to my parents, who have put up with my ups and downs, assisting me in (what I perceive as) life-changing decisions and always given support to whatever situation I end up in. I believe one of the best advise my dad gave me was no not write the Grunken midterm but do it at the re-exam and instead go homehome to relax.

Surprisingly, I’d like to thank corona for enabling me to work in my pajamas basically every day during the whole semester, eating freshly-homecooked food. Lastly, I’d like to give a shoutout to all dear friends I’ve found at LiU, having my back during both this autumn but also during the 5 years before enabling me to have (what I will probably remember as) the best time of my life.

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III

List of Figures

Figure 1: Business Impact by Level of Price Sophistication. ... 4

Figure 2: Price Waterfall ... 5

Figure 3: The Three Aspects of UX ... 7

Figure 4: List Price Lists Page, Typical Interface of Price. ... 10

Figure 5: UI of Set Basic Price in Price ... 11

Figure 6: Embryo of Model of Analysis ... 13

Figure 7: Connection of customer, service and user experience ... 18

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Figure 9: Hierarchy of Consumer Needs ... 40

Figure 10: Relation Emotion and Purchase Decision ... 41

Figure 11: Model of Analysis ... 42

Figure 12: The Systems View: Synergy ... 44

Figure 13: The Modified Whalbin U ... 45

Figure 14: Tactics of Analysis ... 47

Figure 15: Visualization of Sample Selection ... 50

Figure 16: Validation Form Scoring Scale ... 54

Figure 17: Operationalization ... 55

Figure 18: Distinction Between System Components and Workflow ... 65

Figure 19: Example of Feedback During List Line Import ... 71

Figure 20: Example of Error Message in the Module “Price Logic Revision” ... 72

Figure 21: Example of Error Messages, Where Different Errors Generate the Same Error Message ... 73

Figure 22: Example of Error Message, in the Expression Builder ... 73

Figure 23: Example of Wizard, Price Curve Optimization ... 76

Figure 24: Example of Progress Not Saved in Wizard ... 76

Figure 25: Screenshot from Price, which during an interview was described as "it is more or less overwhelming" ... 80

Figure 26: Example of Instance Where Hover Over is Missing and Existing ... 80

Figure 27: List Pricing Menu ... 82

Figure 28: Structure of Price ... 84

Figure 29: Price’s Start Page ... 100

Figure 30: Revised Model of Analysis ... 127

Figure 31: Proposed Model of UX ... 134

Figure 32: Prioritization Matrix of Recommendations ... 138

List of Tables

Table 1: One-Sample T-Test of Pre-Study ... 12

Table 2: Triangulation Matrix of the Problematization ... 13

Table 3: The Units of Usability ... 25

Table 4: Organizational Elements Enabling UX ... 28

Table 5: Emotion Affect Dimension ... 33

Table 6: The Units of UI ... 35

Table 7: Sample Selection Motivation ... 51

Table 8: Structure of Interview Guide ... 53

Table 9: Structure of the Validation Form ... 54

Table 10: Correlation Coefficient Measurement Scale ... 55

Table 11: Operationalization of Units into Codes ... 56

Table 12: Interviewee Descriptive ... 63

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VI Table 14: Correlation Between Sub-Elements from Customer Validation

Form and CSI ... 104

Table 15: Customer Data: Significant Correlations Between Units and CSI ... 104

Table 16: Descriptive Statistics of the Personnel Validation Form ... 105

Table 17: Customer Sub-Element Correlation to CSI ... 106

Table 18: Descriptive Statice, Personnel & Customers Combined ... 106

Table 19: Comparison of Sub-Elements, Customers & Personnel ... 107

Table 20: Validation Form Unit Comparison Between Customers & Personnel ... 107

Table 21 : Correlation to CSI, Combined Customer & Personnel Responses ... 108

Table 22: Correlation Simulation: Customers to CSI ... 109

Table 23: Simulation of Correlation to Each CSI Question ... 110

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Nomenclature

Below follows a list of concepts, their abbreviations and definitions which might be handy when reading the report.

Acronym Abbreviation Explanation/Definition

B2B Business to business

A business selling its products or services to another business or organization.

B2C Business to customer A business selling its products or _{services to end users or end customers.}

CSI Customer Satisfaction _Index A way of measuring customer _{satisfaction.}

CX Customer Experience

ERP System Enterprise Resource _{Planning System}

A type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting and supply chain operations.

HCI Human Computer _Interaction

The design of computer technology and the interaction between humans (the users) and computers

KPI Key Performance _Indicator

The critical indicators of progress toward an intended result, quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success or performance of an organization, employee, etc..

SaaS Software as a Service

Software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts application and makes them available to customers over the Internet.

SX Service Experience

UI User Interface The screen which the user sees when _{interacting with a software.}

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1. Introduction

In the following chapter, a background will be given about the study. Thereafter, the background lead to an embryo of model of analysis. The purpose of the study and its research question is thereby presented, followed by constrains.

1.1. Problematization

In this subchapter, the current situation in the after sales industry will be connected to previous research to understand the context of the study’s research issue.

1.1.1. The Era of Digitalization and the After Sales Industry

For the last decades, we have lived through an era of tremendous digitalization. This shift is changing the way companies deliver value to customers (Rezac, 2020). Former hardware driven organizations are now increasingly integrating digital solutions in their products (Hylving, 2015). For example, the automotive industry is today not only about the physical car – but at large about the software it carries. Moreover, the digital innovation has completely changed how companies compete and collaborate (Senyo, et al., 2019) including engagement in complex digital processes such as digital business ecosystems (DBE) (Hylving, 2015). A business ecosystem (BE) can be described as a community around an innovation consisting of individuals and organizations interacting to produce valuable services and/or goods (Moore, 1993). Likewise, a DBE may be described as a collaborative space consisting of different entities which with the help of digital technologies co-create value (Senyo, et al., 2019). DBE’s present an opportunity for companies to leverage different technologies and services to be able to meet their customer needs (Senyo, et al., 2019).

With the digitalization progress, one part of a DBE could be a vendor provides a

Software as a Service (SaaS) system, an on-demand software service, to their

clients. By digitalizing the after sales services, companies may be more able to scale and gain a stronger market position by, for example, making tasks more affordable and efficient than their competitors (Parviainen, et al., 2017).

1.1.2. “The Company” and the After Sales Industry

“The Company” International AB, onwards labeled “The Company”, is an after-sales service company based in Stockholm, Sweden, but are active worldwide with offices in Europe, America and Asia. They offer a SaaS helping customers with their after sales services. “The Company” describe themselves as a global leader in time management and pricing optimization. The main customer segment for “The Company” are B2B companies producing and selling industry machines

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3 within the automotive, construction, mining, industrial equipment, oil and gas industry. The sweet spot industry verticals are construction equipment and mining, automotive, agricultural and industrial equipment. Some of “The Company”s customers are Nissan, Hitachi, Volvo, Sidel, Iveco and Konecranes. The machines “The Company”’s customers produce need service, reparation or spare parts – but the customers may not have the knowledge how to put an optimal supply chain or pricing systems in place. As they often are relatively big companies, as seen above, the logistics rapidly becomes complex systems with a lot of factors weighing in. Here, “The Company”s offerings saves the day. “The Company”’s SaaS solutions focus on three main areas: Inventory Management,

Price and Uptime. Inventory Management helps companies control the logistics

and supply chain of their spare parts, whilst Uptime eliminates downtime by predicting failures and proactively identifies anomalies. This study will focus on the pricing product, Price, which helps customers pricing their spare parts in a way which increases the customer’s profits by using an smart software pricing software, further described in next subchapter 1.1.3.. The main market for Price is industry companies with at least 30 000 and up to (some even more than) 2 000 000 spare parts to keep track of.

There are a number of other players in the after-sales pricing industry. “The Company”’s main competitors are PROS, Vendavo and Price f(x). All companies offer a SaaS with data, AI and/or cloud driven solutions for pricing your after sales items. But unlike “The Company”, Price f(x) only provides a pricing platform, not any other system like supply chain or uptime. As “The Company” can provide a larger, integrated system, this may give them a competitive advantage against Price f(x). On the other hand, both PROS and Vendavo have something called sales

solutions and PROS also offer help within e-commerce. Hence, these companies

niches somewhat more towards B2C companies. All this implies “The Company” do compete with these three companies on the Pricing product but depending on what market the customers are in and what demands they have, customers may see different advantages in partnering up with a particular actor.

1.1.3. Price

The price software is a web-based SaaS application. This means Price is not an application installed on the customer’s computer but accessed through a web browser. Price is connected to the customer’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system where it, depending on customer, import current parts, receive new information from and export new prices into after the user sets it. Price can be connected to any ERP system, but to give the reader an understanding some examples of ERP systems are IFS, SAP, Oracle ERP and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

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4 The aim of Price is to use value-based pricing to increase the margins of spare parts, creating customer value by helping the customers increase their profits. Value-based pricing means, in this case, to use other price drivers than cost to put the price on a product. As “The Company” puts it, price is an indicator of the customers perceived value and this may be used to price the after-sales spare parts. There are different value drivers which affect how a product should be priced and how to select the optimal value strategy. These drivers include

• Customer value-based algorithms • Competitive pricing

• IoT data

• Price harmonization.

For example, these factors may include country, region, type of reseller, willingness to pay and importance of the piece. There are different levels in the Price product, depending on how sophisticated the customer wishes their pricing to be. The more sophisticated, the more business value, as shown in Figure 1. By using Price, the customers gain increased business value by driving higher revenue and profits through optimization. Moreover, they may increase their operational excellence and efficiency by boosting their process efficiency. But pricing an item is not a one-time-activity, rather it’s a continuing process affected by for example market prices, manufacturing costs and competitor prices.

Figure 1: Business Impact by Level of Price Sophistication. Figure adapted from “The Company” internal documents.

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5 1. Captive consumables: unique items proprietary of an OEM and used by products developed and designed by it – does not fit any other machines than its own. Generally needs frequent replacements.

2. Captive items: items designed by the customer for a specific product and difficult to copy, such as electrical circuit boards or impellers.

3. General items/Captive Simple: items designed by the customer, but easier to copy by other players.

4. Commercial unique: Unique items which the customer buys from other suppliers, but there are only one or a few suppliers in the world. For example, specific hydraulic jacks designed with specifics from the customer.

5. Commercial commodity: Items easy to find with multiple suppliers. For example, ball bearings and cables.

6. Standard items: Commercially available, low value items. For example, nuts, rings and screws.

7. Remanufactured items: Items which are renovated. For example, turbines. 8. Kits: A set of related components which are sold together.

By doing this segmentation, it’s easier to find correct value drivers to each item. These value drivers may be numerical (e.g. length, capacity, flow, cost or list prices) or discrete (e.g. material, coating, branding, suppliers or technology). To be able to understand what drives cost on an item as well as what profit and how to change the products price for different segments, a price waterfall is used, which is shown below in.

Figure 2: Price Waterfall

Figure adapted from “The Company” internal documents.

According to “The Company”, Price is market leading in terms of functions, features and complexity of the product. Despite this, “The Company” have found

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6 that potential customers may not choose the “The Company” solution. Internal “The Company” research (such as NPS and customer forms) have found connection to their UX and churn rate and referral rate. Hence, “The Company” have realized that their customers demand a simple-to-use-product and a good user experience (UX) as well as user interface (UI). Consequently, “The Company” has found that the design of their service may be one way to enhance their product to heighten customer satisfaction. By improving the usability, “The Company” believes their churn and referral rate will improve. As they are beyond their competitors in what their product can do, but see a need to renew their UX design to gain advantage over their competitor, “The Company” seeks to understand how they may use UX design as a competitive advantage in a market which more and more focus on usability and products “looking good”.

1.1.4. User Experience and the Experience Economy

In line with “The Company”s’ suspicion about using UX as a part of the business strategy, a lot of research proves UX plays a great part in succeeding at today’s market (Nuutinen, et al., 2011; Sward, 2007; Choi, et al., 2014; Lee, et al., 2018) as well as fulfilling the customer’s demands (Dambe, et al., 2015) – which unfortunately a lot of digital products fail to do (Bogaards & Priester, 2005). As we are currently in a “experience economy” the customers will choose, and pay extra, for a richer experience (Sward, 2007; Pine & Gilmore, 1998) – rather than use a product with badly implemented functions. The experience is crucial to differentiate and create value of a service (Patrício, et al., 2011). This experience economy calls for business innovation (Pine & Gilmore, 1998), Pine & Gilmore (1998) points out that today’s competitive battleground for B2B companies lies in staging experience. Correspondingly, Sward (2007) suggest IT users demand more sophisticated IT products than ever. But there is also a dilemma in with this digital matureness: the necessities to present complex software solutions in a simple and user-friendly way (Nuutinen, et al., 2011). As users bases their value perception of a service not only by rational arguments, but also on the experience of the service (Helkkula & Kelleher, 2010), the UX design becomes more important. Within the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), UX design have grown vastly (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006). But there is no widely accepted definition of UX (Kujala, et al., 2011). It can be described as encompassing every aspect of the customer journey and interaction with a company’s service (Sward, 2007) but Hazzenzahl & Tractinsky (2006) points out UX may be referred to in everything from traditional usability to hedonic and affective aspects of the technology interaction. Moreover, the experiential aspect of UX includes both the interaction situation as well as its temporality. Likewise, Pine & Gilmore (1998) advocate there are two stages in an experience: the customer participation and environmental

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7 those factors affect the users experience. In this study, the customer participation stage will be in focus. Furthermore, by creating the best possible experience, the business can increase both customer satisfaction and loyalty (Kujala, et al., 2011). To get a grip of, the somewhat diffuse term, UX, Lee et al. (2018) proves how multiple authors have somehow consensus that UX is divided in three main components: Value, Usability and Affect. Law et al. (2009) argues there is no consensus of a UX definition but it includes emotional, affective, experiential, aesthetic and hedonic variables. Bevan (2008a) concludes aspects UX includes learnability, usability, usefulness, and aesthetic appeal as key factors. Likewise, Hassenzahl & Tractinsky (2006) concludes from their UX research agenda that UX consists of three aspects: “beyond the instrumental”, “emotion and affect” and “the

experiential”, see Figure 3. Moreover, Hassenzahl & Tractinsky (2006) concludes

that the users inner state (affect and emotion), the characteristics of the designed system and context where the interactions happens creates the UX. The physical environment a service is consumed in has also been shown influencing the customer value created (Smith & Colgate, 2007).

Figure 3: The Three Aspects of UX Adapted from Hazzenzahl & Tractinsky (2006)

1.1.5. Measuring UX: SUS, UMUX, QUIS & USE

To measure UX in a quantitative way, the most usual ways is to use the System Usability Scale (SUS) or Usability Metric for User Experience (UMUX) framework. The full frameworks can be found in Appendix 1.

The SUS framework was first presented by Brooke (1986) and were made for a quantitative analysis regarding usability. The framework asks 10 questions regarding the following parameters:

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8 • The ease of use

• The integration of the system’s functions • The consistency of the system

• The ease of learning the system

As of today, SUS is a popular framework with excellent psychometric properties (Lewis, 2018; Lewis & Sauro, 2009; Finstad, 2010), whilst self-described as “quick and dirty” (Brooke, 1986). The SUS is so widely accepted, it has its own ISO standardization, ISO 9241 (Berkman & Karahoca, 2016). The maximum score of a SUS evaluation is 100, an average product scores is above 70, better products scoring above 80 and excellent products over 90 (Bangor, et al., 2008; Lewis, 2018). The scoring scale has been compared to the school system scoring scale, as follows: A:>89; B: 80–89; C: 70–79; D: 60–69; and F < 60 (Lewis, 2018). It has also been discussed unacceptable results scores lower than 60 (Bangor, et al., 2008). The UMUX framework, presented by Finstad (2010) is a shorter quantitative questionnaire, posing 4 questions regarding if the system meets the customer’s requirements and the ease of use. UMUX aims to measure the user’s perceived usability, but with fewer questions than the SUS (Lewis, 2018; Finstad, 2010; Berkman & Karahoca, 2016).

Measuring UI design usability can be done with the USE or QUIS questionnaire. The USE questionnaire is also quantitative and studies Usefulness, Satisfaction,

Ease of Learning and Ease of Use with a qualitative questionnaire first presented by

Lund (2001). The questionnaire has been proven both having a high reliability as well as validity (Gao, et al., 2018) and has been widely used in multiple studies (for example Gao et al. (2018); Faria et al. (2016)). QUIS stands for the Questionnaire for

User Interaction Satisfaction and has the purpose to guide the UI design of a

system, finding potential areas of improvement and serve as a test for usability (Norman, et al., 1995). The questionnaire measures the user’s overall satisfaction with the interface by user ratings of specific system attributes such as character definition, font, contrast and readability. The QUIS questionnaire has 5 quantitative areas: overall reaction to the software, screen, terminology and system

information, learning and system capabilities followed by two qualitative question,

where the respondent should list the 3 most positive and negative aspects of the system (Norman, et al., 1995). The USE and QUIS questionnaires can be seen in Appendix 1.

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9 1.1.6. UX and Customer Value

Customer value is created by a company’s business model, where the business model reflects what the company believes the customer wants (Teece, 2010). Therefore, when creating a business model, the management have to ask themselves how the customers will use their product or service (Teece, 2010) and to that follows – how will the customer experience it’s interaction? Likewise, Helkkula & Kelleher (2010) points out the importance for organizations to be mindful of how their service offering aids their customers value creating activities. Boztepe (2007) argues there are different kinds of values that can be created, including the emotional, user and design value.

One way to understand how UX can be utilized in strategical terms to gain competitive advantage is the VIRO framework (Choi, et al., 2014). The VRIO model was first presented by Barney & Hesterly (2009) as a mechanism to understand how a company can gain competitive advantage and is today a widely known framework. The VIRO framework was applied by Choi et al. (2014) in a UX perspective. The modified VIRO framework aims to investigate the following questions:

Value: Does our product have UX values that consumers perceive as

competitive edge over other products?

Rarity: Are those UX values provided only by our product and perceived as rare by consumers?

Imitability: Do other companies have difficulties with copying or developing those UX values?

Organization: Are our firm organized effectively to utilize those valuable, rare, and costly to imitate resources?

An interesting observation, is that several earlier studies (Sward, 2007; Chan, et al., 2010) implies that the organization need to involve the UX to get the most out of it – but also, to be able to evaluate it (Kujala, et al., 2011).

1.1.7. Achieving Competitive Advantage Through UX & Customer Value The focus of design has deviated towards enabling UX with the aim of a competitive advantage (Boztepe, 2007). As Porter (1990) stated, competitive advantage is archived through acts of innovation. These acts of innovations include new ways of doing things, such as new product design or production process (Porter, 1990). Onwards, Treacy & Wiersema (1993) points out the value discipline operational excellence and product leadership leads to increased customer value. Operational excellence includes delivering services with minimal inconvenience and product leadership involves offering products enhancing the

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10 customers use of the product (Treacy & Wiersema, 1993). Combining these facts, in our case with Prices, implies that an improved UX may increase customer value and may result in an increased competitive advantage. Consistently, Sward (2007) argues UX can be used to gain competitive advantage. Furthermore, both Slater & Narver (1994) and Woodruff (1997) suggests competitive advantage will be created if the company delivers superior customer value. Subsequently, customer value leads to increased customer satisfaction (McDougall & Levesque, 2000; Kumar & Reinartz, 2016). With this argument, UX can be a part of delivering increased customer value and therefore customer satisfaction.

1.1.8. Price’s UI

The UI of Price looks as exemplified in Figure 4 and Figure 5. The theme is majority white and grey colors, the basic header is blue but this may be adjusted to the customer company’s colors. Moreover, whilst having the demo of the Price UI with “The Company” (2020-09-03), a lot of times the UI was commented as not user

friendly or not nice

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11 Figure 5: UI of Set Basic Price in Price

1.1.9. “The Company” UX Study: Used as Pre-Study

“The Company” (2020b) has in Q1 2020 began to measure UX in their Inventory and Price services as with the aim to begin to benchmark the UX and identify areas of improvement by 2-3 times a year sending out standardized UX questionnaires. To do this, “The Company” used both UMUX for qualitative research as well as quantitative research with questions regarding Ease of Use, Usefulness, Learnability, Reading & Comprehension and User Interface Design. From this, “The Company” are able to calculate UMUX and SUS baseline scores. First, the customer is asked to answer the UMUX questionnaire, if they wish to leave more feedback, they are taken to the longer qualitative questionnaire based on USE and QUIS questionnaires.

The data was collected in June – May 2020 from Price users, where a total of 31 people answered the qualitative form and 15 the quantitative form. “The Company” sympathizes this sample size is less than 60 % of their customers and hence need to collect data from more customers to be able to get more reliable results.

“The Company”’s (2020a) general results showed Price scoring a UMUX baseline of 45/100, which is a poor score as it should be over 60 to be good. The users talk about the low workflow efficiency, too many clicks, labels causing confusion, inability to work at multiple screens and flexibility in analytics. Generally, the

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12 customers wish to improve the usability and user-friendliness. But, 60 % of the users strongly agree that Price’s capabilities meet their requirements.

The questionnaire was also analyzed in SPSS with one-sample t-test, results showed in Table 1. Moreover, regression analysis was done to understand if the factors actually significantly affected the NPS, where NPS was set as dependent and the UMUX and factors shown in Table 1 set as independent. There were no significant results, hence there can’t be drawn any conclusions from the regression analysis. In the one sample T-Test, the scores were tested if they are significant from 60 % of the overall score, since this is what’s desired as explained in the last paragraph. As we can see, only one UMUX factor is actually significant. Hence, as earlier pointed out, these results may be used as indicators but cannot be seen as reliable.

Table 1: One-Sample T-Test of Pre-Study

1.1.10. Embryo of Model of Analysis

From these various research conclusions and together with our research scope, there has been shown there is both internal and external factors affecting the UX. As UX is context-dependent, dynamic and subjective (Law, et al., 2009), which is also insinuated in this problematization, the study need to focus on what is relevant for its scope. But since “The Company” cannot manipulate the environment nor device which the customer is using whilst using Price, the external environment will not be relevant for this study. Nor will the inner state of

Lower Upper 24,00 6,83 2,30 0,47 0,09 0,83 -0,14 1,80

I have to spend too much time correcting

things with this application. 22,00 2,73 1,42 0,30 0,38 -0,27 -0,90 0,36 This application capabilities meet my

requirements. 22,00 3,64 1,09 0,23 0,01 0,64 0,15 1,12 Using this application is a frustrating

experience. 22,00 2,59 1,40 0,30 0,19 -0,41 -1,03 0,21 This application is easy to use. 22,00 3,59 1,37 0,29 0,06 0,59 -0,02 1,20 21,00 3,46 1,03 0,22 0,05 0,46 -0,01 0,93 17,00 3,19 1,18 0,29 0,51 0,19 -0,41 0,80 15,00 3,08 0,82 0,21 0,70 0,08 -0,37 0,54 15,00 3,22 0,46 0,12 0,09 0,22 -0,04 0,47 14,00 3,41 0,73 0,19 0,05 0,41 0,00 0,83 Readability & Comprehension

UI Descriptive Statitics NPS Score UMUX Usefulness Ease of Use Ease of Learning N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

One Sample T-test

NPS test against 6; other against 3 (60 %)

Sig. (2-tailed) (sig if <0,05) Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

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13 the user be concerned within this study, as it may vary from time to time and is uncontrollable by “The Company”. Combined with the factors which “The Company” are currently studying, our embryo of model of analysis has been concluded to the factors Usability & Ease for Learning, Organization, Affect and User

Interface (UI), as shown in Figure 6. We aim to understand how these factors affect

the customer value created.

Figure 6: Embryo of Model of Analysis

1.1.11. Triangulation Matrix of Problematization

To ensure the trustworthiness of the introduction’s theoretical references and their connection to the Embryo of Model of Analysis, a triangulation of the authors cited is done, shown in Table 2. As can be seen, the several subjects are gathered from more than five authors and can therefore be interpret as confident.

Table 2: Triangulation Matrix of the Problematization

Subchapter/Subje

ct Author 1 Author 2 Author 3 Author 4 Author 5 Author 6

Usability & Ease of Learning (Hassenz ahl & Tractinsk y, 2006) (Lee, et

al., 2018) (Brooke, 1986) (Finstad, 2010) (Lund, 2001) (Bevan, 2008a) Organization (Pine & Gilmore, 1998) (Kujala, et al., 2011) (Choi, et al., 2014) (Sward, 2007) (Chan, et al., 2010) Affect & Emotion

(Hassenz ahl & Tractinsk

y, 2006)

(Lee, et

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14 UI (Nuutinen, et al., 2011) (Law, et al., 2009) (Hassenz ahl & Tractinsk y, 2006) (Norman, et al., 1995) (Bevan, 2008a) UX and Customer Value (Teece, 2010) (Helkkula & Kelleher, 2010) (Choi, et al., 2014) (Barney & Hesterly, 2009) (Sward, 2007) (Kujala, et al., 2011) Competitive Advantage & UX (Boztepe, 2007) (Porter, 1990) (Treacy & Wiersem a, 1993) (Sward, 2007) (Slater & Narver, 1994) (Woodruf f, 1997) (McDoug all & Levesqu e, 2000) (Kumar & Reinartz, 2016) (Pine & Gilmore, 1998) (Lee, et al., 2018)

1.2. Purpose & Goal of the Study

This research’s aim is to understand how design affect customer value in this era of digitalization and experience economy by studying what UX factors are important to succeed in a B2B after sales spare part market and how the factors affect that success. Our main research question is thereby:

How do the UX design affect the customer value on an after sales digital service?

An important note to make is that this study will focus on the market, UX design trends and customers and their needs – not how the design should be done per se (e.g. “this button should be green, not blue”).

1.3. Limitations

Workload The study is a master thesis (30 hp study) including 20 weeks of work,

which is equivalent of 800 hours. The work was started in August and wrapping up in December 2020. Usually, the master thesis is done in pair but this is done by one researcher only. Hence, the extent of the study will be adjusted accordingly.

Covid-19 Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the study might be affected in

several ways. For example, the intended interviewees are not available or have less time due to company cutbacks or health issues. Due to the distance-mode, majority of the work will be done from home, meaning no in-person meetings the author cannot as easily reach out to neither the university nor company mentors.

Respondents the sample selection will include respondents from the western

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15 within other cultures and countries as well, such as Japan. Hence the study’s result is mainly focused to users within a western culture. The cultural differences will in other ways not be considered during the study.

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16

2. Frame of Reference

This chapter will deep dive into the different parts of the Embryo of the Model of Analysis. Firstly, it will be deeper investigated how UX developed in the service industry. Secondly, customer value will be further investigated and connected to UX. Thereafter the four sub-elements of the embryo will be deeper explored as well as connected to customer value. This exploration will be done by operatizing the sub-factors into units by analyzing existing literature and earlier studies. As a result, a model of analysis will be concluded and precise research questions presented.

2.1. Understanding B2B Software Experiences

The aim with this subchapter is to gain a deeper understanding of what UX actually means as well as what it means within B2B, as the most studies are in a B2C environment. To do this, different kind of experiences connected to companies and services are first evaluated and connected.

2.1.1. Different Kind of Experiences: Each One Includes UX

There are a few different experience concepts which needs to be connected, defined and understood. As this research is concerning a SaaS B2B company’s UX, the literature connected can be derived from the three following areas concerning experience:

• Service Experience (SX) • Customer Experience (CX) • User Experience (UX)

SX is described to be the core of a service offering (Helkkula, 2011) and SX is described as the “customers' internal and subjective response to any direct or indirect

interaction with the service provider across different touchpoints” (Roy, et al., 2019).

Touchpoints, in turn, in a B2B context are all interactions a customer experience related to the supplier firm (Witell, et al., 2020; Zolkiewski, et al., 2017; Meyer & Schwager, 2007). CX has been described in many ways (Gavrila, et al., 2017), but a common definition is as the subjective and internal responses to any contact (direct or indirect) with a company (Patrício, et al., 2011; Meyer & Schwager, 2007; Gavrila, et al., 2017). As can be concluded from these descriptions, the service and customer experience are more or less analogous to each other – especially if the firm is only providing services, such as “The Company” is.

SX and CX in B2B context haven’t gained a lot of attention in earlier studies, as most focuses on B2C context (Roy, et al., 2019). In a B2B context, a good experience is described as trouble-free, helping the customers solving their business problems (Meyer & Schwager, 2007).

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17 As UX does not have a widely accepted definition (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006) but has emerged within the HCI community and is hence bound to the experience of some kind of software (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006; Law, et al., 2009), including all aspects from when a user interacts with the software or an interface (Park, et al., 2003; Law, et al., 2009).

Like UX, the elements of CX is not commonly agreed upon (Gavrila, et al., 2017). For example, Pandey & Mookerjee (2017) found CX in a B2B context contains 5 dimensions: sensory, emotional, relational, behavioral and intellectual. Whilst Zolkiewski et al. (2017) found CX include cognitive, emotional, affective, physical, sensorial, spiritual and social elements. Moreover, Witell et al. (2020) describes CX as the customer’s cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social responses to a firm’s offerings and actions. One way of understanding these dimensions is pointed out by Roy et al. (2019), who distinguishes the difference from service experience – offering a relation – and service quality – offering a solution. Likewise, Hazzenzahl & Tractinsky (2006) describes UX takes a “human” perspective.

From the above statements, a connection between service, customer and user experience can be drawn, which is shown in Figure 7. This conclusion is also somewhat adapted from the conclusions of Law et al. (2009). Moreover, whilst studying the literature it was found that the customer and service experience concepts overlaps and is used inconsistently when comparing different authors and studies. For example, one study might describe service experience in a way which another study would say customer experience.

As illustrated in Figure 7, a company can have different services and touchpoints, in “The Company”’s case this could be the usage of a service such as Price or browsing on to their website. For every service encounter, there is a service experience. In this study, the service experience focuses in the UX when using price – which is a part of the customer and service experience.

As a conclusion, to understand what creates a great UX, literature regarding customer and service experience can be used, as UX is a part of customer and service experience, which is in line what Sward (2007) concludes. As “The Company” is a SaaS company, it should encompass all these elements in its offering.

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18 Figure 7: Connection of customer, service and user experience

2.1.2. UX: a Vital Part of a Software Service?

As the service and experience centered paradigm has developed (Patrício, et al., 2008; Pine & Gilmore, 1998), design has shifted focus from giving form to objects to facilitate exceptional user experiences (Boztepe, 2007) as technical excellence is no longer enough (Bevan, 1999; Sward, 2007). Moreover, the demand for software which meet the user needs is growing in a work environment (Bevan, 1999). Hence, UX is vital to create a good software service – which proves the fundamental value of UX to “The Company” as Price is a SaaS.

2.1.3. Further Exploration of UX Dimensions & Creating “Good UX”

UX has, as earlier pointed out, no widely accepted definition but is rather a fuzzy definition (Pohlmeyer, et al., 2009). During the research, a number of definitions of UX has been found which will be presented in this sub-chapter with the aim of getting a deeper understanding of what UX actually involves. This subchapter aims to help to validate the findings from the literature from the introduction which is the foundation of the embryo of model analysis and hence the study as a whole.

UX has, as already pointed out, emerged from the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006) and one aim with good HCI in a business perspective has been suggested to be to as effectively as possible satisfy customer needs (Galitz, 2007). Both Edwards (2015) and Park et al. (2003) applies the broad aspect that UX consists of all interactions between a user and product or company. In the field of HCI, ISO 9241-11 (2018) describes the “Ergonomics of

human-system interaction”, which is for example discussed by Bevan (2008a). This

base of HCI describes the following elements:

• Usability: The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to

achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use-

• Effectiveness: The accuracy and completeness with which users achieve

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19 • Efficiency: The resources expended in relation to the accuracy and

completeness with which users achieve goals.

• Satisfaction: The comfort and acceptability of use.

Which in some way could help get a grip of the dimensions of UX. Moreover, the ISO 9241-11 (2018) describes UX as “user’s perceptions and responses that result

from the use and/or anticipated use of a system, product or service”, a definition

applied by for example Petrie & Bevan (2009).

Law et al. (2009) describes UX as dynamic and subjective and specifies it as the interaction via a user interface. It has been described as considering the relationship between the product and the user with the aim to investigate the individual's personal experience (McNamara & Kirakowski, 2006). Dörr & Kerkow (2006) describes UX involves effectiveness, productivity, satisfaction and safety. In line, Hildén et al. (2016) describes UX in a B2B setting as “the way a person feels

about using a product, service, or system in a work context, and how this shapes the image of oneself as a professional”. Likewise, both Roy et al. (2019) and Hazzenzahl

& Tractinsky (2006) opine UX takes a “human“ perspective. Edwards (2015) argues the following factors are necessary to create a good UX:

• Flow: users are so engrossed in their goal so they forget everything around

them.

• Delight: trying to deliver delight through the interaction.

• Frameworks: define design patterns allowing users to understand their

interaction intuitively.

• Hierarchy: a way to ensure the user understands what’s important.

• Control: users feel in control of decisions they make, not confused by the

options presented.

As a conclusion from this sub-chapter is that UX is subjective to every user and involves everything around what they experience around a software. In this study, we consider UX to as occurring when using an interface, as described in Figure 7. It involves everything regarding this experience: from the aesthetics to feelings and flow. But this study will not consider environmental factors, such as what tablet or lightning the user has when using the software.

2.1.4. UX in B2B

B2B experiences includes different elements than the B2C counterparts (Edwards, 2015; Roy, et al., 2019). For example, the purchaser may not be the end-user and elements are valued different in a business versus private setting. But because UX has just recently gotten attention in B2B settings, there are some lack of research regarding these differences (Hildén, et al., 2016).

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20 The experience may even be more important than the service quality in B2B environments (Roy, et al., 2019). A god UX in B2B should enhance the job satisfaction as well as making the user perform a better work (Hildén, et al., 2016), enchanting the effectiveness (Edwards, 2015) and reducing the effort needed to perform a task (Zolkiewski, et al., 2017; Gavrila, et al., 2017). Moreover, the UX enables results and return of investment (ROI) (Edwards, 2015): why would a company invest in a service which does not provide them with more profit? If the UX delivers and meets the customer expectations, it ensures a great collaboration between the customer and supplier (Gavrila, et al., 2017).

The above statements imply this study might have other results than what the literature regarding B2C UX conclude. Therefore, it also provides a chance to strengthen a possible research gap.

2.2. Customer Value

This study aims to understand how UX affect customer value. To understand this, this chapter aims to further investigate what customer value accurately is and how it may be created as well as connected to UX.

2.2.1. Customer Value: The Fundamental Purpose of All Existing Firms? Creating superior value for customers is fundamental to have a successful business (Boztepe, 2007). It’s also a main factor for differential positioning (Smith & Colgate, 2007) as well as creating competitive advantage (Slater & Narver, 1994; Woodruff, 1997). Woodruff (1997) defines customer value as

Customer value is a customer's perceived preference for and evaluation of those product attributes, attribute performances, and consequences arising from use that facilitate (or block) achieving the customer's goals and purposes in use situations (p.

142).

In other words, customer value is the attributes affecting how and if the customer reaches its goal. On another hand, Slater (1996) argues value is the difference between the costs the customers obtain and benefits they get from finding, acquiring, and using a product. But later studies, such as Ulaga & Eggert (2006), suggests that the value of a business relationship is more than a price versus quality trade off and should rather de described as a multidimensional concept. Indeed, Holbrook (2005) has a multidimensional definition of customer value, as he describes it as an interactive, relativistic preference and experience. Additionally, Holbrook (2005) argues there are 8 types of value: efficiency, excellence, play, aesthetics, status, esteem, ethics, spirituality. Some of these value types are directly found as units of UX, such as efficiency (e.g. Bevan, 1999;

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21 Abran, et al., 2012; Nielsen, 1993) and aesthetics (e.g. Edwards, 2015; Dix, et al., 2005; Nielsen & Molich, 1990). The experience of a service is today increasingly critical to create value in a business’s offerings (Patrício, et al., 2008). As UX is an experience, which was described to be a part of the definition of customer value as well as important to create value, a better UX should lead to increased amount of customer value created.

2.2.2. Value is Based Upon the Interaction Between Customer and Product Holbrook (1999) claim value does not reside in the brand or product, but in the consumption experience. As value is described as interactive, it involves a relationship between the customer and product (Holbrook, 2005), but the product may of course be a service. Moreover, Holbrook (2005) argues an interactive relativistic preference rather attaches to a relevant consumption experience than a product itself. In other words, the experience using a product may be more interesting than the actual product. This might be a cause as the current service-centered paradigm has changed the way services are viewed and managed (Patrício, et al., 2008): consumers desire experiences, not the products per se (Pine & Gilmore, 1998). Value is co-created with customers as they interact with and use the service (Patrício, et al., 2008; Boztepe, 2007; Kohtamäki & Rajala, 2016; Patrício, et al., 2011) – not only by obtaining a product itself. For “The Company”, this implies the product indeed is important but the experience the customer has using the product may be a source of creating enhanced customer value.

2.2.3. Customers Value Leads to Loyalty and Satisfaction

In turn, increased customer value leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty (McDougall & Levesque, 2000; Smith & Colgate, 2007; Kumar & Reinartz, 2016; Ashfaq, 2019; Andersson & Fornell, 2010). Loyal and satisfied customers is treasured, as highly satisfied customers are the most profitable customers (Roy, et al., 2019; Ashfaq, 2019). These customers often re-invest and spread positive word-of-mouth (WOM) (Roy, et al., 2019; Ashfaq, 2019) which might lead to an increased customer pool and hence revenue for the company. Higher customer loyalty also lowers the churn rate (McKinsey & Company, 2017; Fornell, et al., 1994), which is great as this was expressed as one of “The Company”’s concerns. Moreover it is shown that more satisfied customers lower the number of customer complaints (Andersson & Fornell, 2010). From this it is concluded that customer value is a prerequisite for customer satisfaction and loyalty. That is, if something creates customer satisfaction, it must also create customer value, as shown in Figure 8. Lastly Fornell (1994) argues higher customer satisfaction leads to lower costs for attracting new customers and enhance the reputation of the firm.

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22 Figure 8: Relationship Between Customer Value & Satisfaction

2.2.4. How Companies May Create Customer Value

As customer value is now defined, the next question is how companies can create value to their customers. As mentioned earlier, in subchapter 1.1.6, Treacy & Wiersema (1993) propose three value disciplines, which are three ways for a company to create customer value:

1. Operational excellence: delivering services with minimal inconvenience having a lean operation with the objective to lead its industry in price and convenience. 2. Product Leadership: product differentiation, constantly providing

state-of-the-art products.

3. Customer Intimacy: customer responsiveness and continually tailor the

services to fit the customer.

To differentiate the company, Treacy & Wiersema (1993) argue no company can be the best in all of the value disciplines, but needs to be leading in one of them whilst keeping up on the market standard in the other two disciplines. In a likewise manner, Hax & Wilde (1999) presents the delta model, also suggesting three ways for a company to create customer value. Like Treacy & Wiersema (1993), Hax & Wilde (1999) identify product leadership and customer solution (alike customer intimacy) as value disciplines. But their third value cornerstone is presented to be

system lock in, implying the company should aim to make themselves

indispensable for the customer by, for example, the use of complementarians. This phenomenon has been described as sticky by Teece (1998) who moreover argues this could give the company a competitive advantage. As for Price, if looking at the proposed value disciplines an indication is that they work towards customer intimacy, as they set up every system tailored to the customer. Moreover, “The Company” claim to be the product leader when it comes to functionality and performance, but not UX. Hence, the results of this study can help them creating more value by working towards the product leadership value discipline when it comes to UX. As for operational excellence, Price enables their

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23 customers to price their spare parts in a more efficient way, but “The Company” do not work towards this value discipline per se.

Ulaga & Eggert (2006) supports the theory of operational excellence, proposing one method for creating value is to reduce one of the following costs in a commercial exchange: (1) direct costs, (2) acquisition costs, or (3) operations costs. They further suggested that a supplier’s success in lowering a customer firm’s cost in each of the three categories leads the customer to expand its business with the supplier (Ulaga & Eggert, 2006). After talking to “The Company”, they have made the researcher aware that “The Company” is not cheap (direct costs) and takes about half a year to implement, suggesting high acquisition costs. But a better UX in Price would lead to lowering the operation costs for the customers, hence creating more value according to Ulaga & Eggert’s (2006) proposition. This proposition is reinforced by Hildén et al. (2016), claiming that in a B2B environment, a good UX may enable a better job performance.

2.2.5. User Experience Enables the Creation of Customer Value

Ensuring user satisfaction is a key factor when designing interactive products or services (Pohlmeyer, et al., 2009). Moreover, the design of a product may become what distinguish it from competitors which hence becomes one way to create value (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). In the same manner, Lee et al. (2018) exhibits there have been studies showing that improving a product’s UX leads to higher business performance. Moreover, studies have actually proved good UX creates customer value (Kuusinen & Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, 2012; Hildén, et al., 2016). Smith & Colgate’s (2007) customer value framework highlights for example functional/instrumental and experiential/hedonic value. Whereas functional/instrumental value is described as if the product has the desired characteristics, usefulness and performs desired function. Experiential/hedonic value is described as if the product evokes an appropriate experience and emotions (Smith & Colgate, 2007). The former is clearly connected to the usability part of UX, whilst the latter connects to the emotion & affect part of UX as shown in the embryo of model of analysis. Similar results have been proved by Ulaga (2003) as his dimensions of value creation in B2B relationships included product quality, performance, reliability, consistency and personal interaction.

Onwards, a study by Khalifa (2004) shows that customer value will decrease if products are non-user friendly. Likewise, Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010) argues that making things simpler or more comfortable to use may create considerable customer value. In fact, Lee et al. (2018) has shown that customer satisfaction may be enchanted by improved UI design, which is one part of UX. This is not a surprise, as the service interaction is fundamental to customer value creation, as

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24 value is co-created in service offerings (e.g. Patrício, et al., 2011; Kohtamäki & Rajala, 2016).

In conclusion, it’s possible that the quality of a service experience becomes a key strategic advantage over competitors and is crucial in the creation of customer value (Zolkiewski, et al., 2017). In Price’s case, the sub-part of the service experience we look at is the UX – hence, the UX is most likely a vital part in the creation of customer value.

2.3. Usability & Ease of Learning

Now, it is time to deep dive into the different parts of UX, defined in the embryo of model of analysis. First up is usability & ease of learning. The sub-chapter will begin with defining usability and what is included in it, thereafter the different units is defined and, lastly, all parts will be connected to customer value.

2.3.1. Defining Usability

Like UX, usability (in common speech “user friendly”) has no clear definition (Petrie & Bevan, 2009) but is described by many authors. Yet, it’s considered an elemental and necessary component of UX (Park, et al., 2003) and key element for software quality (Abran, et al., 2012). An early usability description was done by Dix et al. (1998) which included three main factors: flexibility, learnability and robustness. Usability in ISO 9241-11 (2018) describes as “The extent to which a product can be

used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use”, which is used by a number of studies (e.g.

Abran et al. (2012); McNamara & Kirakowski (2006); Bevan (2008a)). But in ISO/IEC FCD 9126-1, described by Bevan (1999), usability is labeled as “the capacity of the

software to be understood, learned, used and liked by the user, when used under specific conditions”. Hildén et al. (2016) describes usability is improving the human

performance. And according to Bevan (2008b), a product which is useable enables the users to, in an acceptable amount of time, reach their goals and become satisfied with the result. In an earlier study by Bevan (1999) he describes that usability from a user perspective has the goal is to secure efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in an acceptable manner. Moreover, Park et al. (2003) argues the units of usability includes simplicity, directness, efficiency, informativeness, flexibility, learnability and user support whereas Petrie & Bevan (2009) claims usability includes flexibility, learnability, memorability and safety. In a likewise manner, Abran et al. (2012) concluded, from adoption of 2 other models, usability includes effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, security and learnability. Moreover, there are a couple of universal design principles connected to usability: flexibility in use and simplicity and intuitive to use (Follette Story, 1998). As earlier authors have suggested, Nielsen (1993) early on suggested usability included efficiency,

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25 learnability, memorability, safety and satisfaction. Van Weile et al. (1999) used this and two other models to suggest usability includes efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction, which is determined by learnability, performance speed, safety and memorability. Finally, Park et al. (2003) suggest usability can be described by the parameters simplicity, directness, efficiency, informativeness, flexibility, learnability and user support.

Interestingly enough, Petrie & Bevan (2009) also advocates usability in a software should be defined with the ISO standard Quality in Use, as it is the user’s overall experience of the quality of the product. Quality in Use is defined as “The extent to

which a product meets a stakeholder’s needs to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction without adverse consequences in specific contexts of use” (Bevan, 2008a) and is used by a numerous studies, see for example

(Bevan, 2008a); (Petrie & Bevan, 2009); (McNamara & Kirakowski, 2006); (Dörr & Kerkow, 2006). Bevan (1999) further describes quality in use is measures how well the software match the requirements of the user in a working environment (such as productivity) which makes it relevant to our study, as Price is used in a working environment. Further on, better quality in use may create increased efficiency, improved productivity, reduced errors (Bevan, 1999) which may be connected to increased customer value, as the customer may do their tasks faster and with fewer resources.

The different units of usability, described in the paragraphs above, has been summarized into Table 3. From this, our conclusion is that the following parameters should be considered when analyzing usability: effectiveness, efficiency, learnability, flexibility and safety. Here, an important conclusion in Ease of Learning is a sub-part of Usability.

Table 3: The Units of Usability Earlier work Element Effectiveness X X X X X Efficiency X X X X X X X X Satisfaction X X X X X X X X Time/Speed X X Reach Goals X X Understood X Liked X Learnability X X X X X X X X X Simplicity X X X Directness X X Informativeness X X Flexibility X X X X Memorability X X Safety X X X X X User Support X Robustness X Dix et al. (1998) Park et al. (2013) Quality in Use Abran et al. (2012) Nielsen (1993) (Follette Story, 1998) ISO 9241-11 (2018) Bevan (2008 (2)) Bevan (1999) ISO/IEC FCD 9126-1 Park et al. (2003) Petrie & Bevan (2009) Van Weile et al. (1999) USE Frame-work

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26 2.3.2. Increased Usability Enables Increased Customer Value

The usability of a software is essential for having a productive system (Abran, et al., 2012) saving time for the user (Lauesen, 2005). This implies Price has a higher usability, “The Company” may deliver higher customer value as it may enable the customer to finish their tasks in less time saving resources for the customer’s firm. Increased usability is also a fundamental part for new users to adapt and accept a new software (Norros & Savioja, 2008; Abran, et al., 2012), which is important for Price to be liked and used in a favorable way when implementing the system at new customers. First impressions are important, making the usability a vital part of how new users perceive the software.

As proven in the previous subchapter, satisfaction is argued to be a part of usability (Abran, et al., 2012; van Welie, et al., 1999; Nielsen, 1993; Bevan, 1999; ISO, 2018). As customer satisfaction prerequisites customer value (shown in subchapter 2.2), usability must create customer value. Hence, it lies in “The Company”’s best interest to have a software as useable as possible.

On a further note, every dollar spent on usability returns dollar 10 (Bias & Mayhew, 2005) to dollar 100 (Galitz, 2007). This means, the effort “The Company” lays on developing the software’s usability may increase the ROI of the software exponentially. This might be interesting for “The Company” as all companies, in the ground, aim to make a profit and is driven by what may increase the revenue. 2.3.3. Effectiveness

Effectiveness is described as the ability to achieve specific goals (Dörr & Kerkow, 2006) or producing an intended or desired result (Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). In the same manner, ISO 9241-11 (2018) defines it as “The accuracy and completeness

with which users achieve specified goals”, which is for example used by van Welie et

al. (1999), Petrie & Bevan and Abran, et al. (2012). In our case, this means Price should be able to assist the user in achieving their goals which should be pricing their products in the best possible manner. Effectiveness is hence connected to customer value as the ability for the customers to be effective reflect what the company believes the customer wants (Teece, 2010) and what value the products gives them (Slater, 1996) –that is, if the customer can price their products in a preferred manner or not.

User Experience Design as a Building Block in a B2B Company’s Market Strategy : An empirical study of how the user experience of a software service can be used to create increased customer value