Paul Rouke - Usability Professional

Following the recent launch of our UCDcommerce platform, we’re now beginning to brainstorm potential straplines for the platform, which will feature on the new logo (hold your horses, we’ve not got to that yet!) and website (when designed and developed).

Straplines Following My Blue Chip Retailing Background

To recap on my reasons why I decided to begin developing UCDcommerce 12 months ago, this came off the back of my 7 years commercial experience in User Centered Design for Shop Direct Group, the UK’s biggest shop at home group. PRWD certainly wasn’t going to settle for any off-the-shelf or mid level e-commerce platform, instead we were going to be in complete control of how our platform will evolve, based upon client, but most importantly users, requirements.

With a continual evolvement of UCDcommerce planned, my initial strapline ideas very much revolved around our aim to deliver enterprise level e-commerce solutions to blue chip clients (both existing and new), and I must admit I was very happy with these 1st ideas.

If you’d like to see my ideas 1st hand, download a pdf mindmap of my initial strapline ideas for UCDcommerce.

Alternatively I’ve listed them out below:

• blue chip e-commerce intelligence
• user centered enterprise e-commerce
• remarkable e-commerce solutions
• harnessing consumer intelligence
• user driven e-commerce
• where business goals meet user goals
• consumer driven e-commerce
• engage, convert and retain customers
• results driven e-commerce
• enterprise level intelligence

What do mean they are corporate and boring!?

Following my personal initial brainstorming the team got together, and although the consensus was that these straplines certainly encompassed the vision and strategy for UCDcommerce, they have a strong leaning towards being corporate and ultimately boring. In addition Katie felt that although users/consumers are key drivers for our platform, these straplines lacked more of a commercial focus. To quote Katie,

“Most of these straplines aren’t selling the benefits to the seller, only the user, and they could be more fun!”

Not one for ignoring constructive criticism, I embraced our teams views and we swiftly moved on to thinking of how to combine the user benefits and the commercial objectives for our User Centered Designed e-commerce platform.

Oh and adding some fun and personality into the strapline where high on the agenda!

Straplines Following Group Brainstorming

You can download a pdf mindmap of our group strapline ideas for UCDcommerce.

Alternatively, they are listed out below:

• converting shoppers to buyers
• driving shoppers to buy
• from shoppers to buyers
• from surfing to spending
• user experience drives sales
• more than a shopping solution
• selling, the right way
• consumer driven e-commerce
• engage and convert shoppers
• because happy users spend more
• because satisfied users increase sales
• because users want to enjoy shopping
• if they enjoy shopping they’ll buy

And the new strapline is…

We’ve not decided yet! Alongside the strapline we are developing the long term strategy for UCDcommerce, and therefore we’re making sure that we don’t rush in making the right decision.

We’d be interested in finding out your views on which straplines resonate best with you, knowing that UCDcommerce is all about delivering user centered shopping experiences which provide engaging shopping experiences, resulting in increased conversions, referrals, basket sizes and repeat visits for our clients.

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!

So its been almost 3 months since I first started blogging and a lot has happened. In a way I feel it has provided a kind of butterfly effect for me personally and my digital agency, so much so that our new business cards and stationery promote this blog as a resource for best practice advice on usability, user experience and information architecture.

So below I have provided a personal summary of why the inception of this blog has being a real success on a number of levels…

1. I have really benefited from focusing some of my energy specifically on my core skills on user centred design and usability
2. I am really happy with the articles I’ve been writing, with a good mix of purely my own thoughts along with comments and links to other relevant and interesting articles
3. When I’m promoting my user centred design and usability services, in addition to promoting my digital agency website I pass on my blog details which gives a prospective client or associate a much clearer idea of my experiences and expertise which I can bring to a user experience project
4. I am now starting to develop an online identity (a quick search for myself on Google (I can’t be alone in doing this surely!) provides an indication of where I have been and what I have been commenting on recently) along with establishing strong networks of great people
5. I have stepped up my visibility at industry events such as Internet World, Business Startup Live and Open Coffee
6. I have started taking on some exciting projects with forward thinking and innovative clients through PRWD which will allow me personally to further focus on my core user experience and interaction design strengths rather than including actual web programming, as we are looking at taking on highly skilled developers using the likes of Ajax and Ruby on Rails
7. PRWD’S clients are really benefiting from services we have provided, such as significant increases in online enquiries and search engine rankings
8. And not to forget whilst still working very hard I am trying to find a better work/life balance, which is beneficial to my wife, myself and friends and family alike – view a comment I made on this subject recently

So to rewind back to my very 1st post, I certainly won’t be blogging back, instead I’m looking ahead to what should be a very productive and rewarding 2007 (for the 6 months or so that are left!). I certainly intend on posting many more articles on all areas of online user experience which I am passionate about in order to continually build this resource of best practice advice and personal commentary…

Finally, if you’ve got this far thanks for reading, and I’ll be very interested to find out how you have found my blog so far?!