Paul Rouke - Usability Professional

We have published 2 case studies of our Advanced Google Analytics training, which is a 3 hour intensive session delivered in-house for our clients.

Take a look at the Speedy Hire and VoucherSeeker case studies.

Client Testimonials

Both case studies feature client testimonials, some of which are below:

VoucherSeeker

Within 30 minutes of our 3 hours session we were sure it’d paid for itself.

Neil Ainsworth, Director

The training course on analytics provided by PRWD was excellent. It gave our team a good insight of analytics and the useful tools available. We’re more equipped with tools to analyse visitor behaviour than we were before

Duke Tanson, Director

PRWD helped me to realise the power behind Google Analytics whilst, at the same time, enabling us to understand and simplify the way we use it. Up until the course, we had all had a go at using certain parts but, mostly, without success. With the help of PWRD we will now be able to better assess and improve our sites and, in turn, their conversion rates.

Mark Dunne, Senior Affiliate Marketing Executive

Speedy Hire

I have been consistently impressed with Paul’s very practical approach to helping us improve our online offering. In the Google Analytics training session, Paul kept the training to the key areas which he felt we should focus on initially, according to our level of understanding and having taken the time to understand the needs of our business.

Shelley Kemp, Head of Marketing

Well delivered, thought provoking, providing us with useful tools.
As we develop our campaigns, web content, digital marketing programmes etc it will be good to use what has been learnt to ensure we are going out at the right times, to the right people, using the correct words and then being able to report back to the business.

Leanne Ferry, Marketing Communications Manager

Since my last post there has been a fair bit going on at PRWD, some of which I can talk about and some of which we can’t make publically available as its work through partner agencies.

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.

Along with providing public training courses, most notably for Econsultancy with a course entitled “E-commerce Usability and Best Practice For Online Retailers” I also provide in-house training and consultancy, especially for retailers.

Most recently I provided a full day of in-house training for The Scout Association. What was most interesting with this work was that they where embedding usability at the very start of their new e-commerce and ERP platform development project, rather than putting a focus on usability and customer experience at the latter end of the project, which is often the case.

In the words of E-commerce and ERP Project Manager Mark Selwyn,

In order to deliver the system within budget, my objective was to build “usability” into the design of the new web stores, using industry best practices, rather than have to rework at a later stage as a result of usability testing

E-commerce Areas Covered

The areas that I provide training on for the in-house e-commerce training are as follows:

• Homepage
• Search
• Navigation
• Category page
• Product page
• Persuasion architecture
• Cross-selling and up-selling
• Shopping basket
• Checkout process
• Web forms

Case Study For In-house Training

We have recently published a case study for the training course I delivered for The Scout Association which provides plenty of detail in the following areas:

• Background to The Scout Association
• Objectives for The Scout Association
• What I Delivered
• The Benefits and Impact for The Scout Association
• Testimonials
• Training Course Feedback Ratings

I must say I was delighted to receive the feedback that I received and its great to see how they are progressing with the project since I delivered the training course.

Are You Looking To Up-skill Your Internal Team?

If so then please give me a call and I will be delighted to provide a quote for delivering training and consultancy for you and your business. Typically one day of in-house training costs around £1000 plus expenses, and if a bespoke training course is required then planning time will also be charged. Please note prices exclude VAT @ 15%.

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:

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