Paul Rouke - Usability Professional

The latest update of our flagship e-commerce system UCDCommerce adds support for the Google Checkout payment system. This allows users to make purchases without having to register on the site, taking advantage of the reliability and trust of the Google brand to help encourage users to make their purchases.

Trust and convenience

For first-time visitors to an e-commerce site, having to register and enter their payment details can be a daunting process. Fear of fraud and the desire to avoid having to maintain a list of passwords for every e-commerce site they visit means that many users can be discouraged from buying from companies not already known to them. Google Checkout helps to overcome these worries by ensuring that all payment details are handled by Google and not the retailer, and also ensures that the user needs only to maintain their Google password and not a separate one for the retail site.

Advantages for retailers

Google Checkout is good news for retailers too. It removes some of the barriers to purchase which leads to more conversions, and it can also add value to Google AdWords campaigns – if your e-commerce site implements Google Checkout, your AdWords advertisements will automatically have a ‘Google Checkout’ logo appear next to them, letting the user know that they are only a few clicks away from being able to buy the product advertised. This can be a crucial advantage in making your advertisements stand out from the crowd and, again, can lead to better conversion rates.

The User Experience

Here at PRWD, we take user experience very seriously, so we have naturally considered the impact on user experience of adding Google Checkout support. Fortunately, Google take user experience seriously too, and their checkout interface is well-designed, following good interaction design principles. We’re confident that Google Checkout can enhance the experience of your site’s users.

Future Developments

This is just the latest new feature to be added to UCDCommerce. We’ve got lots of interesting plans for the future, which we’ll be revealing over the coming weeks and months.

After our branding and marketing strategy work we are delighted to officially launch UCDcommerce, our best practice driven e-commerce platform.

This follows our recent posts on what symbolises customer conversion, an inside look at brand concepting, and strapline brainstorming for UCDcommerce.

UCDcommerce Website Features

If you’ve not already taken a look at the UCDcommerce site, below is a summary of what we have decided to launch with:

An introduction to the platform, explaining how UCDcommerce allows us to deliver User Centered Designed e-commerce solutions

A page dedicated to why your business will benefit from using UCDcommerce, including the statement that “your business recognise the importance of user experience for increasing brand credibility, conversion and retention”

A page showing prospective e-commerce customers exactly who is behind the platform, the amount of credibility and blue chip experience we have, and our expert usability services

Additional areas we have included are:

• A definition of User Centered Design (UCD) for people who aren’t familiar with this method of designing user experiences
• Dynamic links into our most recent articles, on the subjects of UCDcommerce, retailing and best practice

Onwards and upwards

Alongside the development of our Content Management System and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, the continual evolvement of UCDcommerce will now begin in earnest, as we attract the right type of serious online retailers to our business.

After our strapline brainstorming sessions, our brand concepts and considering which symbols best represent customer conversion, our new brand identity for UCDcommerce is now finalised.

Bold, simple and with a touch of personality (plus our key conversion message)

There are 2 variations of the new logo dependant on how they are being used, either horizontally or vertically, and we are delighted with the boldness of the brand, the simplicity and the touch of personality provided by the strapline (top marks for Rob on this!).

UCDcommerce website is round the corner

Following the finalisation of the new brand logo we will shortly be revealing the new website for UCDcommerce, so watch this space!

Following on from my post around symbolising User Centered Design and Customer Conversion for UCDcommerce, I thought it would be good to share some of the brand concepts that I’ve been working on, as we move ever closer to the launch of the new brand identity.

Recapping on some of the USP’s the brand logo should aim to portray

• The brand is all about User Centered Design
• Customer engagement, conversion and retention are key principles
• With UCDcommerce suited to serious online retailers including blue chips, striking a balance between having a slightly corporate edge whilst also delivering fun, engaging and personal e-commerce platforms is fundamental to our proposition

Example’s A – focussing on circles to symbolise our User Centered Design approach

Example’s B – focussing on circles to symbolise converting from unfulfilled through to fulfilled

Example’s C – using straight lines to signify a clear path for customers

Straplines, Symbols and some Brand Logo Concepts

What with brainstorming sessions for straplines, consideration of how symbols can help represent our core principles, and with some of our brand logo concepts on the table, we are now getting much closer to finalising the new brand identity for UCDcommerce and we can’t wait to share it with the online retailing community. So keep an eye out!

As part of our brand development and marketing strategy work for UCDcommerce, I have been working on brand logo concepts.

My key considerations are:

• representing User Centered Design, the foundation for UCDcommerce (hence the brand name!)
• symbolising customer conversion, which again is an integral aspect of the platform
• adopting a clean, minimal identity, representing the clarity at which our e-commerce solutions are based upon
• balancing the corporate, blue chip retailing look and feel with a slightly personal, fun tone of voice
• adopting aspects of our existing brand identity at PRWD

Symbolising User Centered Design

In order to symbolise this fundamental aspect of UCDcommerce, I immediately considered a circle, as this is already used within the PRWD logo to symbolise the continuous cycle of User Centered Design. By this I mean that our solutions/platforms/systems are never finished in the traditional sense, where you don’t go back to something again that is fit for purpose. Instead we continually monitor the performance of our delivered systems following the deployment stage, both because we work with our clients long term but also because providing an exceptional user experience is an on-going process of continual improvement.
This in turn means our processes come full circle as per any high quality User Centered Design process.

Symbolising Customer Conversion

For symbolising Customer Conversion, one of my interpretations of this for e-commerce site’s is of a user/customer starting off unfulfilled. In order to convert this visitor they need to feel fulfilled, in terms of their enjoyment, satisfaction at the shopping journey and having being able to find what they were looking for (if they were in fact sure of what they were after when they arrived at the store!).

Using circles of different shadings, with the use of borders where you would otherwise lose the visibility of lighter shades, I began to play around with circles of different sizes, styles and strengths. See what you think below…

UCDcommerce Identity and Website is Coming

We are absolutely delighted with the progress being made on both the brand identity and the long term marketing strategy for UCDcommerce, and we will soon be launching the the new brand and website to the retailing industry and the usability community.