In early 2001, silverorange helped Veseys redevelop their two-year-old e-commerce website as a companion to their popular seed, bulb, and gardening supply mail order business. With the new user-friendly site, Veseys realized a 308% increase in online sales. Since then, silverorange has continued to work with Veseys in helping online sales become an integral part of their business.

This month, the Nielsen Norman Group released a report concerning the cost benefits of effective usability in the design of e-commerce websites. The report, Usability Return on Investment, highlights the success of Veseys.com as an example of how good usability pays for itself, many times over.

Jakob Nielsen’s bi-weekly AlertBox column includes an overview of the report, which is available for sale from the Nielsen Normal Group. Featuring companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, MasterCard, Macys, and 37signals, the report capitalizes on the ability to garner immediate and particularly concrete statistical feedback from usability changes in e-commerce sites.

The Nielsen Normal Group is led by respected authors and usability researchers, Jakob Nielsen, Donald Norman, and Bruce Tognazzini. These three partners have authored some of the most influential and recognized books in the usability field, including Designing Web Usability, HomePage Usability, and The Design of Everyday Things.