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a) Hippo, from the ancient Greek for “river horse, is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa.

b) HiPPO, “Highest Paid Person in Organisation” too often is the person calling the shot. Also goes by Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.

HiPPO’s effect on Website Usability/Conversion explained:

HiPPO’s rule the world when it comes to creating customer experiences. And that’s a bad thing. No matter what you think the optimal customer experience should be on the website it is quite likely that you walk into a meeting room, or office, and regardless of your competence the HiPPO decides what goes on the site.
 - Avinash Kaushik 

In Europe, the HiPPOs influence on decisions being made on Usability/Conversion is diminishing and HiPPO presence at design meetings is no a rare sighting.
SA should aim to follow.

Meanwhile - some tips to improve your HiPPO herding skills:

• Smile
• Use the three E’s; explain, explain, explain
• Herd the HiPPOs, don’t just ask and try to appease
• Use data to back up your findings
• Add competitive data and benchmarks - let experts back you up!
• HiPPOs loves a steady diet of graphs and charts