Regular follows of our blog will know that this project has been delivered using very much a user-centered design approach, something which our client C&O Powder Coatings knew absolutely nothing about until we introduced the concept to them back in April last year.

It is fair to say that if we didn’t use this user-centric approach to deliver bespoke web and business applications we would not have won the contract in the 1st place, as our client has heard countless horror stories of off-the-shelf business systems causing productivity and efficiency issues, in extreme cases nearly bringing some businesses to their knees.

2 months before the application has actually being installed, key members of the management team at C&O Powder Coatings shared their thoughts on a few key business areas:

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

If you haven’t seen the video then I’ve embedded it below:

You expect to hear much more on this project over the coming months, such as a case study and a run through of the technical development process of the Adobe AIR application from Rob.

In the meantime below are a few more related links:

• slideshow on usability for internal business systems
• AdobeAIR official website
• AdobeAIR showcase applications – Mini, Aol, Ebay

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…

Event Details

• Title: Usability: What’s The Use?
• Date: 28th January 2009
• Time: 6.00pm – 9.00pm
• Venue: CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment), 113-115 Portland Street, Manchester M1 6DW
• Cost: FREE!
• Official Event Page: http://usabilitywhatstheuse.eventbrite.com/
• Manchester Digital Page: http://www.manchesterdigital.com/event.asp?action=view&id=68805

Quick Registration

Overview

For the digital sector, usability and user experience are more than new fads.

These topics, and their perceived value to businesses, have been talked and written about many times, but lets get it straight: just exactly what is the use of usability to a company looking at improving their performance, ROI and staff efficiency?

In this FREE event Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD, and 2 guest speakers Judith Garman of AbilityNet and Pete Bagnall of SurfaceEffect, will be providing a range of real-life examples and industry insights which will help reveal some of the tangible benefits businesses can gain by embracing usability and user experience.

Through the course of the evening you will see why usability can play a significant role in the likes of e-commerce websites, B2B websites, lead generation sites, intranets, internal software systems and the development of bespoke web and software applications.

The event will be followed by drinks, some food and networking.

Itinerary

18.00 registration
18.30 seminar
19.50 discussion
20.15 drinks, food and networking

Who Should Come

• Procurement staff
• Business owners
• Heads of IT
• Heads of marketing
• Consultants
• People wanting to know about usability and its importance to businesses

Target Sectors

• Public sector
• Retailing
• Manufacturing
• Digital and creative
• Leisure and Tourism
• Business and Consumer Services
• Financial Services
• Education and Training

Event Leader Paul Rouke of PRWD

Paul is the User Experience Director at PRWD.

Having worked for 7 years in user experience at the UK’s biggest home shopping group, Shop Direct Group, Paul Rouke founded PRWD in 2006. PRWD is an acronym for ‘Productivity without Difficulty’, which reflects their approach to developing online platforms and systems which focus on allowing users to be more productive and efficient with their time whilst having an enjoyable, problem free experience.

Paul has led the development of PRWD’s best practice driven e-commerce platform UCDcommerce, as well as leading the design and development of an internal resource planning system. All platform and system development work PRWD carry out follow a User-Centered Design process, an approach which will be explained during the course of evenings event.

Paul has worked in a range of sectors including the public sector, financial services, travel and tourism, retailing and manufacturing.

Paul has applied his usability experience and expertise on well know brands such as Kays, Littlewoods, JD Williams, The Co-op, The Cotswold Company and Additions Direct, as well as a wide range of SME’s.

Paul is a member of the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) and an active member of the Northern User Experience Group.

Guest Speaker Judith Garman of AbilityNet

Judith is a usability and accessibility consultant with AbilityNet’s web services team.

Judith’s background is in software development and HCI (Human Computer Interaction), she has a Masters of research Degree in Usability from Lancaster University. Judith is a strong believer in user engagement being critical to the development of usable and accessible systems and champions this belief in all her work.

Prior to joining AbilityNet Judith worked for HSBC for 2 years as a senior usability consultant working on national and global projects across a range of devices and software. She has also worked with Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and Orange in usability and customer experience. Her work has included e-commerce sites, Intranets, staff-facing applications and mobile devices. Judith has experience of a wide range of user testing techniques both lab-based and in the field.

Judith is a member of the British HCI group and the Northern User Experience group.

Guest Speaker Pete Bagnall of SurfaceEffect

Pete is the Principal Interaction Design consultant at SurfaceEffect Ltd. He’s a strong advocate of user centered design, and has taught user research methods at Lancaster University, and at the British Computer Society’s Human-Computer Interaction conference for several years.

He’s also a practicing designer, and has worked on projects ranging from online pharmacies to project management systems, in the UK and the USA, for bluechip to small clients.

He can advise clients on developing solutions based on firm user needs, providing radical or conservative design as appropriate. Despite being a technologist by training he insists that technology must serve human needs, and not become a straight-jacket

“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

I would recommend having a read as the usability issues that I talk about are what we have all experienced during our working lives, and there is extensive research provided which proves that the majority of business systems and software solutions in the market don’t value usability anywhere near as highly as we would always advocate.

The article includes my:

• evaluation of the enterprise level software market
• industry analysis on the lack of importance placed on usability in software
• advice on how businesses can attempt to improve the usability of their existing systems
• advice on how User-Centered Design should be embraced for businesses looking at bringing in new internal software systems
• summary of why usable internal business systems shouldn’t be a pipedream

Further reading

• User-Centered Design for Lean Manufacturing Business System Improvements
• User-Centered Design and Agile Development
• User-Centered Design Process Overview
• PRWD Press Release – Bringing User-Centered Design Into A Manufacturing Business

The Usability Professionals Association, an international industry group, provides a definition of user-centered design which includes the following development cycle, codified in the ISO standard 13407:

1. Specify the context of use
   Identify the people who will use the product, what they will use it for, and under what conditions they will use it.
2. Specify requirements
   Identify any business requirements or user goals that must be met for the product to be successful.
3. Create design solutions
   This part of the process may be done in stages, building from a rough concept to a complete design.
4. Evaluate designs
   The most important part of this process is that evaluation – ideally through usability testing with actual users – is as integral as quality testing is to good software development.

This process still leaves a substantial part of the development process open to discussion. In particular, it doesn’t make any specific reference to the technical implementation of a project. Since that’s my responsibility, that’s where my interest lies! However, there are many development methods which are a good fit for UCD, and this includes the ‘Agile’ development methodologies.

Agile software development comprises a group of related approaches to software development which attempt to overcome many of the problems faced by traditional software development processes. The fundamental tenets of Agile Development are set out in the Agile Manifesto, and the approach is summarised as follows:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

In short, Agile development is based on the notion that software development processes can be unpredictable and that the bigger they are, the less predictable they become. Agile offers us some important insights into how to manage that process on a dynamic basis, rather than try to eliminate all uncertainty with a huge and detailed up-front plan. As a result, Agile development can cut costs and cut delivery time by placing the emphasis on delivery and quality, working with customers on a good faith basis rather than by setting down overly strict requirements at the start which may bind both parties in ways that neither wants. And this is a very good fit for user-centered design, because it leaves open the possibility of incorporating user feedback as the project gets underway.

One of the 12 principles of Agile Development is this: Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage. User input and user testing are perfect examples of that kind of late change. Imagine that you’re setting up a major new e-commerce store; your company needs to boost sales but can’t extend the marketing budget. User testing reveals that the new system does improve slightly on your old one, but with a few more improvements – perhaps to increase the user’s trust in your system, or to improve the system for recommending related products – you could gain a few more percentage points on your sales. At that point, you need a software development process that can react and incorporate those new insights into the site development.

Agile development puts an emphasis on delivery of working prototypes early in the development cycle, giving customers and users a much better idea of what will be delivered at the end. And because these prototypes are delivered early, it’s much easier to incorporate feedback into the finished product. Having worked in software development for some time, I’ve seen plenty of frustration from clients who want to make changes at the last minute, causing even more frustration amongst the software developers who see weeks or months of work being re-written to accomodate them. Projects go over time and over budget when that happens, and Agile development excels at preventing these problems.

It is by combining the two approaches outlined above that we deliver our projects at PRWD. As a developer I’ve found the Agile mindset to fit much better with the problems that I have to solve and with the need to react to a variety of inputs, from clients and system users alike. Being that responsive to user requirements does require a change in mindset from that of a traditional software developer: it’s no longer safe to assume that I always know best about how something should work, and I have to be more flexible to cope with the requirements of the users. But this is all worthwhile as it reduces the pressure associated with delivering a piece of software – if the users and the clients have been involved in the development, you know that they will be happy with the end result.

Impressive Look, Speed and Ease of Use

Ignoring my initial hesitance I downloaded the browser and I have to say I’m impressed with the look, speed and ease of use.
I’m also please to see Google have created a URL box which also works as a search function, called the omniBox. A great example of applying user centered design. The browser is a lot less cluttered also meaning that more appears above the fold and its faster to load. Another nice feature is that you can grab tabs to open them up as new windows.
Chrome, which is still in beta version, has had a few teething problems; its unable to use some plugins and is currently only available for Windows. Also if you type :% into the search bar it makes Chrome crash, but I’m sure these will all be ironed out in the near future.

Google, The Big Brother

My real shock was when I opened up my history. It had listed my history pre-Chrome, showing information such as who’s profiles I had viewed on Facebook, emails I had sent and documents I had opened on my desktop (with exact times) and the option to open them direct from the browser. Its a useful feature and there is the option of ‘incognito mode’ but it a little too scary to think what people could do with such information if they got a hold of my laptop, not to mention what Google can do. I’m all for intuitive search but for me however, it’s a little too far – I think it’s time to de-Google.

If you have already tried it, how are you finding this new web browser, and what are your views on the advanced history functionality that can track your daily activity to such depths?

Please note, some of the terminology used may not be too familiar to some readers, but rather than describing each service I wanted to keep this post more to the point. Feel free to call us for further information on a particular service or terminology used.

The 4 Phases of User Centered Design

• Analysis
• Design
• Implementation
• Deployment

You will notice that there isn’t an order assigned to the 4 phases, as UCD is a process of continual improvement. For the development of completely new business systems, applications and e-commerce platforms, the process would start with the analysis phase and work through the remaining 3 phases, but during the deployment phase on-going evaluation of the system and the users does mean that the process can then be continued, back in to the analysis phase (but to a lesser extent).

The Analysis Phase

Definition

This phase ensures all business and user requirements are taken into consideration, prior to the start of the design phase

PRWD Services

• stakeholder analysis
• competitor benchmarking
• persona development
• defining user scenarios
• conducting field studies
• defining usability goals

The Design Phase

Definition

This phase provides a comprehensive approach to the design of the system, ensuring the design meets all user and business requirements

PRWD Services

• navigation models
• screen flow samples
• information architecture
• card sorting
• paper prototyping
• wireframing
• interaction design
• user testing

The Implementation Phase

Definition

This phase takes the user tested system and interaction designs and implements them into working systems ready to go live

PRWD Services

• object orientated design
• user interface integration
• server implementation
• heuristic evaluations
• user testing
• documentation

The Deployment Phase

Definition

This phase involves continuous evaluation of the new system, monitoring the performance against usability objectives

PRWD Services

• user/customer surveys
• field studies
• performance analysis
• improvement scoping
• continuous analysis

And finally, a UCD definition as seen on our UCDcommerce site

In broad terms, user-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of an interface or document are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process.

Further Reading

Below are a range of links which will provide additional information on User Centered Design

• User Centered Design and Web Development Article
• What is User Centered Design – from the Usability Professionals Association
• Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User Centered Design
• The Role of User Centered Design and Usability in a Project

Variations in UCD methodology- what are yours?

There will always be slight variation’s in the process with other usability and software development agencies, and I’ll be interested to hear comments on these differences.

On saying this, one thing is for sure – when following User Centered Design principles, users need to be an integral part of the complete design and development process.

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.

The DMAIC framework is an essential guide in conducting process improvement projects, and DMAIC is used by Six Sigma Black Belts. It is an acronym for Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control.

What soon become clear when we conducted the pre-analysis of our clients business is that the combination of the UCD process and the DMAIC framework will provide us with an exceptional process improvement model which will deliver ROI on a complete range of Key Performance Indicators that will be affected during this project, from both our clients internal processes to their customers relationship with our client and their account management.

Below I have visualised how the UCD process and DMAIC framework will be used simultaneously by PRWD for this and many more clients.

I’d be interested to hear of any other software development and usability companies who are using UCD and DMAIC together during projects to deliver lean manufacturing processes for your clients.