Paul Rouke and PRWD on User Centered Design

Developing the business case for adopting usability as an integral part of your sales and marketing strategy is something which we work with our clients on, and below is a quote from one of these clients:

“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

We have recently produced a downloadable 1 page process overview for User Centered Design (UCD). I felt that it will be good to share this with our blog readers rather than this just been part of our consultancy process with our direct clients.

Below I have pulled out all the definitions of each phase in the UCD process, along with a summary of the services which are delivered during each phase.

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.

Yesterday evening I was in great company at the Just The One (JT1) Summer BBQ, chiefly organised by Ian Jindal, at Flow Interactive’s offices in Clerkenwell, EC1.

Along with exchanging views on the UK retailing industry and the usability market, I was down in London speaking to E-consultancy about potential collaboration between them and PRWD. More on this in due course.

I must firstly compliment head chef for the evening Ian Worley, Director of User Experience at Flow, for providing a superb feast from the BBQ (the Beef Skirt marinated in Chimichurri sauce was devine!) along with a couple of others from Flow.

Moving on to the conversations, Ian Jindal’s influence in bringing together the likes of the MD of Bazaarvoice, the Head of E-commerce at Otto and the Head of Web Services at WPP allowed for some really stimulating conversations. Coupled with the fact the hosts Flow are usability advocates and dedicated to User Centered Design, it was no surprise that user experience was one of the primary topics being discussed, which naturally meant I had plenty to say indeed!

My only regret from the evening was not having the time to speak to all the attendees, although I’m sure at the next event this can be addressed. For the people I did spend time chatting to, a few follow up comments from me..

Theresa, we should definitely talk more soon on me potentially becoming part of the Customer Engagement Unit. The Q&A session I mentioned which will be of interest was on Findability for Web Design and Marketing over on Dave Chaffey’s website.

Rob, to confirm I would be very interested in exploring collaboration opportunities between cScape and PRWD in areas of user centered design and customer experience. Lets talk some more.

Gavin, it was great to chat with you about some of the usability and accessibility challenges you are faced with when managing the WPP website, and the move towards Sharepoint 2007 at some point in the future sounds like one meaty challenge! Oh and on a lighter note, Buzz Quiz TV should definitely be added to your roster of interactive and engaging PS3 games - it will give some of your fingers a rest from Guitar Hero!

Camilla, thanks for your kind words about me having the drive and ambition to build my own business, and it was great to share stories on different areas of buying psychology. And keep seeking that killer idea that will allow you to develop your own business!

Geke, it was great chatting to you about product and user research, and thanks for your keen interest you had in our usability methods and our business model, not to mention our recruitment strategy centered around psychometric profiling. Our recruitment partner in this is Psycuity.

Lee, sorry we didn’t get too much time together before you headed off, and once you’re back from your extended holiday we should definitely get together to further discuss collaboration opportunities - I also need to take you through our business model for UCDcommerce, our blue chip retailing capability and e-commerce platform.

Joris, after seeing your name many times on Fred Hopper literature during my days at Shop Direct Group, it was great to chat with you and share views on the state of the blue chip retailing sector, and the penetration (or lack of) of highly experienced usability experts within the UK and European market. We most certainly need to explore collaboration opportunities!

John, its great to hear the scale of demand you have for UCD services at Flow, and I’ll look forward to exploring opportunities for PRWD to provide additional consultancy and UCD resource for your business. As I mentioned the Manchester based agency we provide these types of services for is Fast Web Media, recent winner at the NMA awards in the Consumer Products and Services category for their work with Coors.

Chris, it was great to finally meet you in person, and it was interesting to compare the challenges faced by Otto Group and Shop Direct Group in attracting the younger, more web savvy shoppers through the likes of your Oli brand. Congratulations on the launch of your new Freemans website also - following my user experience review of House of Fraser which Ian found extremely useful, if time permits I will look at doing a UX review of your new site!

Carol-Ann, it was great to catch up with you and reminisce on our Shop Direct days, and best of luck with your involvement in the re-platforming of the Otto group retailing sites - a necessary evil I’m sure!

Last but not least is Ian himself! Once again Ian it was unfortunate that my train back up north trimmed my evening (don’t mentioned the 1.5 hour delay I ended up with!) but I was intrigued with your explanation of how P-XML is one of your new passions. Oh and not to mention your totally merited trupet blowing (and live demo) for the new viral iPhone game for Carling!

And that’s a wrap. Just seeing the length of this post its probably for the best that I didn’t speak to everyone!

So to all you attendees, feel free to add your comments on how you felt the evening went…