Paul Rouke - Usability Professional

Just a short post even though if there were more hours in the day I’d be writing about quite a few key topics at the moment, with lots going on the retail space.

Having recently delivered in-house e-commerce training and on the eve of a public training course with Econsultancy, I thought I’d share a fine example of an online retailer following usability and best practice principles to drive improvements to their conversion rates and customer retention.

Enter The Boook Depository. Only a young pureplay brand, launched in 2004 and with a recent redesign in 2009, The Book Depository certainly does alot of things right when it comes to providing an enjoyable, intelligent and usable shopping experience.

A screengrab of The Book Depository website, good usability and best practice

Using our new e-commerce benchmarking application I’m looking forward to comparing how The Book Depository fair to other online book sellers. One thing is for sure though, their approach of always tackling the question “what do our customers want” has led their e-commerce experience to be a fine example of good usability and following best practice.

Which online retailers would you put forward as more examples of a great user experience?

Having had our 1st client meeting back in April 2008, I’m delighted to confirm that we are now on the verge of launching phase 1 of our clients new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system.

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

The videos from my presentations from Usability: What’s The Use? are below for watching.

My presentation slides and further usability resources from the event are also available for reference.

Manchester Digital Introduction and Usability Primer

Usability – Stripped Bear from Paul Rouke on Vimeo.

An introduction to Usability: What’s The Use? by Shaun Fensom from Manchester Digital, followed by a short primer to usability by Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD.

No matter how many job titles there are in the usability and user experience field, at least all professionals share 1 common goal…

Usability – The Importance For Internal Business Systems

Usability – The Importance For Internal Business Systems from Paul Rouke on Vimeo.

Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD, talks about the importance of usability for internal business systems, specifically around staff productivity and process efficiency.

The presentation touches on common barriers to staff productivity, some of the main reasons for these barriers, plus a short video of a manufacturing company who are embracing user-centered design as a way of combating the traditional software development issues on a companies productivity.

The presentation also asks business owners a few key questions, such as do you listen to your staff, do you staff waste valuable company time doing repetitive tasks, and do you know what is the on-going cost to your business if you use un-usable software systems.

Usability – The Importance For Websites and Online Marketing

Usability – The Importance for Customer Facing Websites from Paul Rouke on Vimeo.

Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD, talks about the importance of usability for businesses communicating with both new and potential customers.

Featuring a case study of how a company improved their revenue-per-employee by 95% over a 2 year period, along with some attendee participation, this 17 minute presentation touches on a wide variety of websites and activities, such as lead generation sites, information portals and search engine marketing campaigns.

Most significantly conversion rates for e-commerce websites are discussed, where usability can have a remarkable affect on a companies bottom line, if the right decisions are made in making improvements.

Thanks to everyone who came to last nights usability event that we sponsored in Manchester, Usability: What’s The Use? There was around 100 people in all which was great to see.

Full event details and resources

You can view further information from my presentations, including the video clip on User-centered design from a companies perspective, at the events page on our main business site.

In addition below are the presentations I gave on the night…

An introduction to usability

Usability for customer facing websites

Usability for internal software systems

Manchester Digital present a FREE usability event sponsored by PRWD.

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