Paul Rouke and PRWD on User Centered Design

It’s only a taster of what in store, but comes not a moment too soon.

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.

I am delighted to welcome Katie Brunt into the PRWD team, as our new marketing and brand development executive.

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”!

Following hot on the heals of our e-commerce platform launch, I am delighted to welcome Rob Knight into my team as Lead Technical Architect for PRWD.

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!

The business website for PRWD, our user experience consultancy and web application development agency, has recently been updated to provide potential and existing clients with detailed information on PRWD’s key services and facilities.

Key services PRWD provide are:

Improving User Experience

From expert usability critiques, eye-tracking and usability testing, through to wireframing and delivering full user centred design processes

Building Innovative Web Applications

Harnessing expertise in user interface design and leading edge web development, PRWD deliver innovative online applications and develop partnerships with businesses looking to engage their visitors and increase their market share.

Providing Online Marketing Strategy Consultancy

Using their extensive commercial experience PRWD work with businesses looking to innovate in their industry, providing expert consultancy services to deliver engaging, long term online marketing strategies.

Further key pages from PRWD include:

• How PRWD deliver Return-on-Investment
• User Experience and Customer Engagement Training Courses
• User Testing and Research Facilities
• User Experience Resources, including white papers, case studies and links

If your business is looking to improve its online user experience and subsequently the effectiveness of converting traffic into customers, feel free to give me a call at our Manchester office on 0161 918 6729.

Its been a while since my last post, due mainly to the intensive project work currently underway with my user experience agency PRWD, as well as an excellent holiday in New York (check out the new header image which captures 1 aspect of the unique Big Apple) for my 30th birthday.

Best Practice Driven E-commerce Platform

At PRWD we are really excited about the e-commerce platform we are currently developing for a client from the ground up, which is based very much on e-commerce best practice and is using considerable amounts of my past experience from Littlewoods Shop Direct.
Some of the key features which are being incorporated into the scalable platform for phase 1 are as follows:

• an information architecture which was derived from user input and card sorting exercises
• a dedicated tag engine which will allow visitors to navigate through the products in a fluid and dynamic way
• a user interface which started from paper prototyping, all the way through to final interaction and visual designs
• a personalisation engine which will provide returning customers with personalised products and offers
• a layer of richer user interactions to enhance the user experience, whilst remaining cross-browser compatible and fully accessible
• a checkout process derived very much from research, awareness and understanding of best practices in ensuring checkout abandonment rates are reduced where possible, and therefore providing the client with greater conversion rates
• intelligent methods of targeting product promotions to specific target customers, which we have established by working very closely with our client in fully understanding their existing and potential client needs

Along with this platform development we are working for one of the largest direct marketing agencies in the UK to deliver their new online marketing platform, which is generating huge enthusiasm between the clients project team and PRWD’s team, which I am heading up along with providing the user experience and managing the user centred design process.

These current projects follow some high-end user experience consultancy based work which I personally have been providing some large design agencies in Manchester, which I intend to provide some relevant posts on in due course.

So coming back to my blog, unfortunately content has been very sparse over the last few months, apart from the well received user experience review of the new House of Fraser e-commerce site, but at least the lack of posts aren’t due to the lack of work being put in on the key areas of usability and information architecture recently!

User Experience Training and Knowledge Sharing for 2008

Looking ahead to 2008, at PRWD we will be starting to provide User Experience and Online Marketing Training, at both our modern Manchester offices and in-house working directly with clients and their employees. We have seen a considerable demand from our clients, in particular blue chip retailers and established design agencies, to up-skill their in-house staff and therefore ensure user centred design processes are adopted on large projects, whether transactional or informational.

This blog will certainly be apart of the marketing strategy for promoting these new services during 2008 and in addition I’ll look forward to continuing with posting articles on all aspects of online user experience.