Paul Rouke and PRWD on User Centered Design

We’re recently added a new page to our main business site which you may be interested in looking at, which provides an overview of UCDcommerce, our best practice driven, user-centered e-commerce platform.

Usability Testing and Usability Evaluations for Retailers

The new page also features links to our e-commerce research services, usability testing and usability evaluations, which can be invaluable for existing retailers who are looking to develop the business case to replatform.

I am currently developing an intensive 1 day training course which I will be delivering through E-consultancy early next year, entitled:

E-commerce Best Practice for Maximising Conversion Rates

E-consultancy

E-consultancy.com provides information, training and events on best practice online marketing and e-commerce. They are the UK’s leading online publisher of best practice internet marketing reports, research and how-to guides. They also publish buyer’s guides and have the largest directory of UK e-marketing suppliers.

Founded in 1999, they now have over 42,500 registered users and around 150,000 unique site users per month. Their weekly newsletter is sent to 20,000+ e-marketing professionals.

E-consultancy also provides a range of public and in-house training programmes, which is where I will be involved in. Take a look at the training area at E-consultancy for more detailed information.

Course Description

Usability for e-commerce sites is one of the largest contributors to customer conversion rates.

By applying best practice usability principles throughout the customer journey site owners can increase the amount of visitors who convert from browsing to shopping. In turn, increasing in customer conversions leads to increased returning visitors and average lifetime value, which subsequently establishes greater brand credibility.

Focusing on 3 key stages of the buying journey, Product Page, Shopping Basket and Checkout Process, this interactive workshop will expose some of the most important best practice techniques which retailers can adopt in order to maximise their conversion rates.

Further Course Information and Booking

Full details and course content hasn’t yet being finalised, but what I can say is that if you are in some way involved with or responsible for an e-commerce website then the course content will provide a variety of key best practice techniques which you can adopt in order to maximise your conversion rates.

Further Usability Training Courses

Aside from this specific training course I will also be delivering other courses on the following topics:

• Advanced Navigation and Findability for Blue Chip E-commerce
• Adopting User Centered Design Principles for E-commerce
• Achieving Lean Manufacturing through User Centered Design

If you would like any further information on these training courses then please give me a call in the office on 0161 918 6729.

Yahoo and Intel have just unveiled plans to make a television “Widget Channel” allowing online features to be added to shows and advertising. Quoted as the end of TV as a “passive experience” this move could prompt some very exciting opportunities for advertising, e-commerce and media planning.

It will be interesting to see how and when these features such as following a sports team or chatting with friends will appear without compromising the viewing experience. The move is an indication of how consumption and buying behaviours are changing. E-commerce will greatly benefit from applications such as this, which offer new channels of opportunity to sell and communicate with their consumers.

A precise launch date has yet to be determined, but the list of companies developing widgets for the channel includes Twitter, Toshiba, Samsung, eBay, CBS, Blockbuster and Disney-ABC Television Group.

E-commerce has broken down barriers to trade – it’s not uncommon to order your wine directly from France or order books from sellers in America. But e-commerce has brought some rather unusual services and products to an even wider audience.

Early last week it was reported that eccentric Lord David Piper was selling his title and property on eBay which attracted bids of over three million pounds. This is nothing in comparison to some of the weird and wonderful items listed over the years on the likes of eBay. In fact there appears to be some sort of competition to think up even more bizarre sales.

Here’s a list of some of the more interesting online sales of recent times

1. A man willing to fly anywhere in the world and let anyone punch him in the face for one million dollars
2. Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich. The item was purchased for $28,000
3. Ghost in a jar
4. 18 Year old British Girl’s Virginity
5. Doritos Cheese Pope Hat
6. The meaning of life which sold for $3.26 however the seller would only ship within the U.S.?
7. Stuffed squirrel in mini racing car dressed in racing outfit
8. John F Kennedy Assassination Shooters Perch Window: the winning bidder paid $3,001,501.00
9. First name of a couple’s unborn child
10. Singer James Blunt’s sister. Listed as a damsel in distress seeking a knight in shining armour. Her Knight flew her to Ireland after she couldn’t make a relatives funeral. She married her hero last year!

You don’t need to be a Wall Street trader to work out we’re going through a bit of an economic sticky patch. Businesses and consumers alike are finding it hard in the current climate. So how can you make your online business work as hard as it can in these times of woe?

Firstly, turn down the panic button; online spending is on the increase (sales in the first quarter of 2008 are up 50% on last year, NMA 15.05.08), so there’s currently a good opportunity to earn your keep, but you’re going to have to work extra hard for your share, as competition online is hotting up.

Here’s my 3 primers on how to do it

1. . Position your business for long term growth and opportunity. Many businesses go the wrong way by not taking advantage of opportunities they would have otherwise snapped up. Don’t forget things can only get better! You’ll need to be ready to swoop in and pick up all the business your competitors won’t be prepared for after this period by pushing forward with your business growth instead of shying away.
2. Invest but wisely. There’s no point simply having an e-commerce website unless it is efficiently converting your traffic. Ensuring the usability of the site is at its best so that consumers have a problem-free shopping journey is a must. But spending your pennies to make improvements can seem like a hard call in times like these. That why here at PRWD we drive cost savings by using the open source web frameworks built with PHP. Investing in web improvements using such technology will save you money whilst providing substantial return on your investment, if a User Centered Design approach is used.
3. Take advantage of marketing you business online for free by using social networking and blogs to stimulate interest in the online world. According to research by Hitwise (Hopkins, 2006), social networking site MySpace is responsible for more Traffic flow into the HMV.co.uk music portal than both the Yahoo and MSN UK search engines.