Testing Testing 1, 2 3

We’ve been busy working with some of our existing clients such as Contact Packaging (selling printed tape) and new clients such as The Translation People (providing document translation services) in optimising their conversion rates through analysis and testing (split and mutli-variate).

Event Speaking

Following on from my successful and rewarding presentation at the recent How Do conference in Liverpool, Rob Knight (PRWD’s lead technical architect) has spoken at an event titled Developing With Adobe AIR, which had a keynote from Adobe. Rob’s presentation was titled Business Systems With Adobe AIR and it featured the work we’ve done with a manufacturing company to deliver a user-centered designed business system for them. We have also developed a micro-site detailing our business systems and e-commerce services for manufacturers.

Case Studies

We’ve also released a couple more case studies of some of the work we have been doing and the results we’ve had, in particular on improving online sales by 400% for one of our clients and a technical case study on using Adobe AIR for business systems.

Twittering

I’ve been twittering over the past few weeks (not consistently I hasten to add!) and along the way picking up quite a few new followers, some of which I would put in the spam category. We have also been updating the PRWD twitter account although you tell its alot younger than my personal twitter account!

Featured Supplier In Econsultancy’s User Experience Buyers Guide 2009

We were delighted to be asked to feature as one of the 26 agencies who specialise in user experience and usability in Econsultancy’s annual guide on this topic. I also spent time providing feedback on a number of questions relating to the industry, and if you download the full version you will see various quotes from myself.

We started with a few mulled wines on the Albert Square European market, followed by a sumptuous meal at Tampopo (highly recommended if you haven’t yet tried it!).

We finished off with a few drinks in Beluga, exchanging stories of Christmas parties which have not gone according to plan (think people having a few too many drinks and people letting off steam with one another!) plus looking ahead to 2009 and the projects that we will be working together on.

In reference to the post title, I’m referring to the fact that the clients we invited out are some of our long term clients who we have built extremely strong relationships with – so this certainly won’t be the last time we share a meal with these clients!

Oh and before I forget, I hope readers of our blog have a fab Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

PRWD, An Acronym for ‘Productivity Without Difficulty’

Productivity – A Wikipedia definition

Productivity in economics refers to measures of output from production processes, per unit of input. Labor productivity, for example, is typically measured as a ratio of output per labour-hour, an input. Productivity may be conceived of as a measure of the technical or engineering efficiency of production.

read the full definition of Productivity on Wikipedia

Types Of Productivity We Improve

Without Difficulty – An Answers.com definition

Something not easily done, accomplished, comprehended, or solved. A laborious effort; a struggle.

read the full definition of Difficulty at Answers.com

Types Of Difficult User Experiences We Rectify

A few examples which you may relate to are as follows:

• removing confusion when submitting an application form online
• removing being overwhelmed when using a business system
• removing concerns of trust and privacy when considering an online purchase
• removing complexity when navigating through large sets of information or products
• removing frustration when a website doesn’t do what you need it to do
• removing frustration that the business system makes your job less productive

As you can see from the examples provided above, combining productivity and ease of use can relate to any number of web applications, business systems, marketing activity and brand experiences.

Delivery ROI Through The PRWD Acronym

By focussing on productivity metrics whilst removing difficulties for users when using a system, we deliver return-on-investment in a way which we have recently documented in a case study on User-Centered Design.

Take a look at the video below which tells you more about Manchester Digital and the benefits to employers, employees and educational providers alike…

The PRWD website is getting a much needed makeover and will, over the next couple of months, grow in terms of rich media content to include interactive pages, video and bags of personality. It will not only act as a great platform for selling the business and what we do here at PRWD but will also act as a great source of information on current industry topics and research. The site will be a ‘place to stop by’ on the web with its regularly updated content, keeping both our customers and blog subscribers up-to-date and informed.

Paul Rouke, founder of PRWD, admitted that the revamp was long overdue but as the business quickly rocketed into its new market place with some very big clients on the books, the website took the back burner.

“With Katie coming into the business as our marketing and brand development executive, she has wasted no time in highlighting the areas (and there are certainly quite a few of them!) where the business needs to significantly improve from a branding and marketing perspective. Not only does the business site need some much needed personality, it was completely lacking in informing visitors of our expertise and credibility in the Usability and Web Development industry, as well as not shouting about some of our exceptional blue chip client wins.

With our new blog design and now the now business homepage both live, visitors can at last begin to fully appreciate the work we are doing and the expert people that are behind PRWD.”

Light at the end of the tunnel

Having taken on several new members of staff over the past couple of months we are now able to begin addressing the website so that it does PRWD justice.

I think you’ll all agree the new homepage for the website make a huge difference. We hope you enjoy it.

Our new homepage…

And what we used to have…

The website’s preview will be launched later today, with the major rebuild underway and likely to go live later this summer. We’ll keep you posted.

After just completing work for the N Brown group, our very own Usability expert, Paul Rouke, was head-hunted not only once but twice in the same day! Don’t worry though he’s not going anywhere, but as an upshot PRWD might be working with a major player in the British food retail market. Not to mention currently strengthening a partnership with a Manchester based (2008 NMA award winning) digital agency, who work with some major sporting authorities. Things are moving very fast, my feet have barely touched the ground in my first two weeks here and it shows no signs of slowing down.

With my business PRWD having already worked for blue chip companies such The Co-op, Nationwide, N Brown Group and Shop Direct Group, it’s certainly long overdue that recognition of PRWD being a well respected usability consultancy and web application/software development team is made much more visible in the digital sector.

USP’s, Clients and Specialist Services and Solutions

On coming on-board and beginning to fully understand the USP’s of the business, our client base and our specialist services and solutions, including UCDcommerce (PRWD’s e-commerce platform), Katie says:

I’m so excited about working within such an exciting, young and daring company who are not afraid to produce something remarkable for their clients. However I have got my work cut-out as most of our existing clients have come about from word of mouth, with little previous marketing of the business been done, but with such a great platform and service PRWD are going to be making waves very soon, so watch this space!

All that remains for me to say is “lets get this marketing party on the road”!

Remarkable Individuals

Cementing the businesses strategy of only employing remarkable individuals, as part of the initial discussions on the strategy of the business and what Rob would bring to the business, he took part in our Psychometric Testing process, with our recruitment partner Psycuity.

The testing process, handled fantastically by Ian Hudson, Director at Pyscuity, provided the kind of insight into Rob’s skills, expertise, aptitude and long term potential which we would never have been able to determine through a traditional recruitment process.

Fulfilling Long Term Ambitions

With developing innovative web applications, business systems and enterprise level e-commerce solutions an integral part of PRWD’s services, not only have we recruited someone who can lead the technical architecture and system development process, but for Rob I am fully confident he has found the type of company in which he can realise his full potential and fulfil one of his long term ambition’s of being recognised as being a remarkable individual.

On joining the business, Rob said:

Working for PRWD is a fantastic opportunity for me to work at the cutting edge of web application development. I’m looking forward to creating innovative solutions for our clients, building on the excellent platforms already established.

As a developer, it’s important to me that I work to the highest standards of technical excellence, stretching my personal capabilities and learning new and interesting skills along the way. I hope to enhance the reputation of PRWD for delivering high-quality web applications and I hope that my contribution will be to deliver good value for our clients. On a personal level, I think that this is a very interesting time to be working in this industry, with the constant change and innovation that it requires. PRWD is well-placed to make the most of these changes and I am happy to be in a position where I can be on the leading edge.

Hitting the Ground Running…!

All that remains for me to say is welcome to the team Rob, and we can’t wait to kick-off the analysis phase of your 1st business modernisation project, not to mention driving the evolvement of our e-commerce platform!

Dynamic Categories and Shop by Situation

To reference the introductory article on user centered navigation and findability, “No two web users will exhibit exactly the same browsing behaviour when navigating an e-commerce site”.

Similarly, different visitors will have different reasons for visiting the site, and therefore their ’situations’ can be very different.

Dynamic categories centered around user driven situations and customer groups provide a unique way for our client to group products across their whole catalogue which suit the wants and needs of particular customers.

Using Persona’s to Target Groups of Customers

During the initial analysis phase of the User Centered Design process with Contact Packaging, it became clear that there were specific situations which their existing (and potential) customers are in. From here we were able to develop a series of persona’s to reflect the customers in these different groups, enhancing the effectiveness of the User Centered Design process that was underway.

With this customer analysis and persona’s we developed a method for Contact Packaging, using the PRWD tag engine, to create dynamic categories which specifically target groups of potential customers.

Objectives for Providing Dynamic Categories to Target Customer Groups

• There should be no limit to the number of customer groups that can be created
• Customer groups can be created and put live within 1 minute
• Customer groups should drive conversions from Search Engine Marketing campaigns
• Customer groups should be visible throughout the store, encouraging usage
• Customer groups should enhance the effectiveness of the tag engine, including the tag cloud available under the search facility
• Customers fitting any of the ’situations’ should be encouraged by how they are being recommended a range of products which may suit what they are looking for, which in turn provides a more personal and intelligent shopping experience

The key to the dynamic categories and shop by situation interactive tool is that it isn’t intend to suit all visitors, and even for visitors which fall into one of the situations, it isn’t expected that they will be interested in buying all of the product suggestions.

Instead, the shop by situation is intended to compliment the wide range of other navigation methods available, whilst providing a more intelligent and personalised way for visitors to browse products from a wide range of categories which may well match their buying wants and needs.

The 1st Step on the Ladder for Shop by Situation

The 1st iteration of our Shop by Situation functionality certainly meets all the objectives set out above, but from our business perspective this is simply the 1st step on the ladder for this type of functionality. As we strive to enhance user engagement and provide even more personalised product suggestions, the flexibility we intend providing our clients will provide even more intelligent ways to target customer groups and increase relevancy for these customers browsing the store.

Comments please…!

Have you seen this type of navigation method used? How effective do you feel this method of grouping products could be for different types of products? I’ll look forward to hearing any views and comments on this post!

Online Search

Search is used by a large proportion of web surfers, whether its from the Google homepage, an integrated search toolbar at the top of their web browser, or within a particular site, to name just a few examples.

Best Practice Tips for Search Implementation

As a quick summary of best practice when implementing search within a site, here are my top 6 tips:

• the search facility should be consistently placed on each page within the site
• the search facility should be highly visible and not part of a cluttered user interface
• the search facility should be located as near to the top of the site as possible, close to the brand logo
• the search facility should look like a search facility, therefore its styling should be minimal at most
• the search facility should be an intelligent, accurate and integrated piece of functionality, part of a wide range of findability methods provided
• the search facility should provide intelligent content or product suggestions as a user is typing out their search term

PRWD Search Providing Intelligent Product Suggestions

For modern, standard compliant web browsers, the PRWD E-commerce platform features our dynamic HybridSearch feature which, based upon user input into the search box, delivers dynamic product selections based on an algorithm developed by the Sam Clark.

The product predictions this provides are based on both wildcard and fulltext searching, and in line with the previous article on the intelligent tagging engine, HybridSearch also looks at all the tags associated with each product.

Benefits of Suggestive, or Predictive, Search

• Suggestive search provides links in realtime to actual product or information pages which exist within your website, minimising the amount of ‘no results found’ search result pages
• Suggestive search provides suggestions for products and content that actually exist within your website which the user may not have realised existed, therefore expanding the appeal that your sites content has for that person
• Suggestive search provides customer engagement and intelligent feedback, increasing the perception of the visitor that your site is helping its visitors to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible, speeding up their shopping journey
• Suggestive search can not only provide basic information for each result, it can also be implemented to display user centered information such as % savings, date of content, relevancy to your search term and other valuable information, providing increased amounts of sub-conscious triggers in which certain types of visitor behaviour will respond to
• Suggestive search adds a valuable navigational method to a sites findability methods, increasing the chances of a visitor quickly locating the product or content that best suits their wants and needs

With all this intelligence you can almost guarantee that if Contact Packaging sell the types of products you are searching for, the predictive search results will provide you with all the suitable products in the store.

In addition to each product suggestion containing a small image, the product title and the price range, an additional piece of product information shown is any saving that is available on any SKU for each particular product. This was a key addition to the product suggestion display as this provides the price conscious/sale hungry visitor with essential information to encourage a positive buying decision, which in turns is one of the ways in which persuasion architecture is used.

Persuasion Architecture Explored

For more of my views on persuasion architecture my user experience of House of Fraser talks about this area of user experience in some detail.

Continually Evolving PRWD HybridSearch Feature

As with the bespoke tag engine, the search feature will be continually enhanced to add greater power, relevancy, speed and sorting of content/product suggestions, and the search feature is something which will be implemented on a wide range of sites, both content driven, transactional and other business systems, such as account management facilities.

Following this post going live I will shortly follow up by talking in depth about the Dynamic Categories and Shop by Situation available at Contact Packaging.

Your comments please…!

I’m very interested to hear about your thoughts on the effectiveness of predictive search features, especially when users quickly type in their search string and hit return, without their being sufficient split second pause for the dynamic suggestions to be delivered.

Apart from the Google search toolbar, which sites do you feel are executing intelligent suggestive search most appropriately?