Paul Rouke - Usability Professional » business case

In Layman’s Terms: User-Centered Design For Software

Paul Rouke — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:09:41 +0000

As part of my presentations at Manchester Digital’s event Usability: What’s The Use?, we produced a short video explaining the importance of adopting a user-centered design approach when developing business critical software and systems.

Rather than us preaching about this subject, we decided to ask our client C&O Powder Coatings a few questions and get them to explain why user-centered design is so important for their new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that we are developing.

Questions we asked that feature on this video are:

what are your efficiency and productivity issues?
what are their customer service demands?
what are your expectations?
what does user-centered design mean to you?

Comments and feedback greatly received…

Video Presentations from Usability: What’s The Use?

Paul Rouke — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:21:52 +0000

The videos from my presentations from Usability: What’s The Use? are below for watching.

My presentation slides and further usability resources from the event are also available for reference.

Manchester Digital Introduction and Usability Primer

Usability – Stripped Bear from Paul Rouke on Vimeo.

An introduction to Usability: What’s The Use? by Shaun Fensom from Manchester Digital, followed by a short primer to usability by Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD.

No matter how many job titles there are in the usability and user experience field, at least all professionals share 1 common goal…

Usability – The Importance For Internal Business Systems

Usability – The Importance For Internal Business Systems from Paul Rouke on Vimeo.

Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD, talks about the importance of usability for internal business systems, specifically around staff productivity and process efficiency.

The presentation touches on common barriers to staff productivity, some of the main reasons for these barriers, plus a short video of a manufacturing company who are embracing user-centered design as a way of combating the traditional software development issues on a companies productivity.

The presentation also asks business owners a few key questions, such as do you listen to your staff, do you staff waste valuable company time doing repetitive tasks, and do you know what is the on-going cost to your business if you use un-usable software systems.

Usability – The Importance For Websites and Online Marketing

Usability – The Importance for Customer Facing Websites from Paul Rouke on Vimeo.

Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD, talks about the importance of usability for businesses communicating with both new and potential customers.

Featuring a case study of how a company improved their revenue-per-employee by 95% over a 2 year period, along with some attendee participation, this 17 minute presentation touches on a wide variety of websites and activities, such as lead generation sites, information portals and search engine marketing campaigns.

Most significantly conversion rates for e-commerce websites are discussed, where usability can have a remarkable affect on a companies bottom line, if the right decisions are made in making improvements.

Usability Case Study – PRWD Increase Clients Revenue Per Employee by Over 95%

Paul Rouke — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:11:03 +0000

Developing the business case for adopting usability as an integral part of your sales and marketing strategy is something which we work with our clients on, and below is a quote from one of these clients:

“The weekly, monthly constant contact with PRWD has enabled them to totally understand our goals and together Contact Packaging is moving forward. The previous 2 years have been very productive and to see such results makes the experience a very enjoyable one. “

To describe our user-centered design approach and the services provided we have produced the following case study.

Client Objectives

In January 2006 Contact Packaging wanted to transform their sales and marketing strategy, moving away from their traditional strategy of relying on salesman to generate new business enquiries, to fully embracing the online marketing channel. PRWD recommended that to deliver this new strategy, a user-centered design approach is used to maximise their return-on-investment and employee efficiency.

What We Did

We carried out a range of user-centered design services, including conducting user testing, in-depth competitor analysis, usability evaluations, A/B split testing and web analytic analysing to help develop a new sales and marketing strategy for Contact Packaging. Key elements of the process included:

What we did	Why we did it
We carried out a usability evaluation of the existing website	This allowed us to identify where there were existing usability barriers when visitors arrive at the existing website, in turn providing the business case for making widespread improvements
We proposed and developed user-centered micro sites to promote key products and services	Providing exceptional increases in the effectiveness of their lead generation activities was our primary goal, and by developing user centered lead generation micro-sites meant that ROI for future online marketing activities would be maximised
We designed a user driven, conversion focused business presence	We wanted to transform the existing business presence into one which actually converts prospects into making online enquiries, rather than acting simply as an online brochure
We proposed, planned and continue to deliver search engine marketing campaigns	With the user-centered micro sites in place, we knew the search engine marketing campaigns would continually convert to a much higher level than if we hadn’t optimised the usability of the landing pages from search engine marketing
We conducted split testing on their lead generation websites	As part of our continual drive to improve the conversion rates of the lead generation websites, conducting split testing has allowed to further refine the usability and effectiveness of the sites
We followed a user-centered design approach to develop their new e-commerce store	To develop such an integral business platform as Contact Packaging’s e-commerce, we only use a User-Centered Design approach, as this is guaranteed to increase conversion rates and basket sizes
We proposed and developed a new business blog	Contact Packaging now have a further marketing tool for their business which allows them to attract potential customers from previously un-tapped online communities and networks, whilst giving their business a greater sense of personality and customer connectivity

Results

During the last 2 years Contact Packaging has seen:

the cost of internal sales staff decrease by 30%
the number of employees decrease by 30%
online enquiries increase by over 2000%
turnover increase by 20%
revenue per employee increased by 95%
profit margins increase by 150%
the conversion rates on lead generation sites increase by 400%
the conversion rates from online customer sales enquiries improve from 10% to 40% compared to traditional cold calling sales methods

Return-on-Investment

During the 1st 2 years working with PRWD, Contact Packaging has seen a Return on Investment of:

over 900% on their search engine marketing (Google) budget
over 1200% on their marketing and usability budget

Long Term Plans

Contact Packaging and PRWD continue to work closely together to continually improve the performance of the online sales and marketing activities. This includes the major move into e-commerce during 2008, when PRWD used their in-house e-commerce platform UCDcommerce to deliver Contact Packaging’s new e-commerce website.

Contact Packaging continues to introduce PRWD to other business owners looking to modernise their business operations, whether this be in online sales and marketing or internal business systems.

Client Quote

“PRWD has given inch perfect attention to detail in ensuring we continue to impress the new customers visiting our sites. We have increased our professionalism through PRWD and we are currently dealing with many blue chip organisations throughout the UK. The weekly, monthly constant contact with PRWD has enabled them to totally understand our goals and together Contact Packaging is moving forward. The previous 2 years have been very productive and to see such results makes the experience a very enjoyable one.”

Further Client Quote

“PRWD has expertise in search engine optimisation, and this has proven to be vital with online advertising with Contact Packaging. Our various micro sites appear on the first page in natural listings throughout the www. The on-going search engine marketing campaigns are getting stronger everyday seeing us receive countless enquiries for our products and services. “

Company Contact

Jon Lynch – Director
Contact Packaging Plc
0844 499 1200