we are: London

At best Intranet design is a challenging task for most, at worst it’s a thankless job that sits at the bottom of many companies priority lists.
Taking ownership can be a daunting prospect, especially as many intranets are unfocused, sprawling repositories of content and ideas, grown organically over a long period. But taking ownership is the first step in putting a tool in place that can quickly become a high priority on the business comms list.

Over the past couple of years, intranets have become a hot topic within large and small businesses, and within the world of digital design. New platforms, techniques and an ever blurring line between the Internet and company Intranets driven through the integration of social, UGC, multimedia and semantic technologies has led to more stakeholders, with more requests and usually less budget.

Persuasive design

One of our most common findings during user and stakeholder research is that reason an intranet is unused and unloved is due to the fact that it’s never worked and never been adopted by the business.

Every task users are asked to complete online should at least as easy as off-line methods, or easier, otherwise users will always fall back to the default of asking a colleague, phoning a department or worse not doing anything.

The reason behind this is that existing staff have learnt their way round the system over time, usually years and new joiners are forced to struggle through anyway they can. A recent client’s intranet is so bad that new joiners are given a guided tour as part of their induction and then offered a CD-Rom or online video tutorial. I doubt any owners of an Internet site would expect a tutorial on how to use the site as acceptable; just make it easy to use.

I’m ready to be engaged

Whilst your intranet is unlikely to become “the” destination for your staff and should not try to replace other sources of external information, it should be functional and engaging in equal measures.

Features that rank highly from a users perspective usually include:

• Buy, sell, rent
• Interest groups (sports, social, clubs)
• Lunch menu

For business engagement, these features rank highly:

• Ask the management (live Q&A)
• Personnel contact finder
• Collaboration tools (wikis and connectors)

It’s important to remember that many of the tasks that your staff use the intranet for can only be completed online, so usage should not be confused with satisfaction. Providing tools and services that help staff to become engaged with the business and each other will prove invaluable in driving uptake and long term use of the site.

“Don’t underestimate the power of the intranet for fostering a sense of culture & belonging - it may not be a core ‘money-earner’, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

How to guide

A few points that may help you in planning and designing your intranet include:

• Governance to avoid organic growth - The key to providing a consistent and usable experience is providing a strict governance model to ensure quality control. Intranets by nature are created and controlled by many people and departments and without solid governance grow organically into a combination of different style and experiences.
• Ownership and stakeholder involvement - Many challenges are faced throughout the redesign of an intranet as there is often no clear owner. Different sections and content are owned by different departments and stakeholders. It is important to include all stakeholders to both understand content and to promote a feeling of inclusion and acceptance of the work within the various content owners. This can present many challenges within time and cost restraints.
• Content - Large volumes of content can make it difficult for users to find what they need. Intranets can easily be into tens of thousands of pages. Content can generally be clearly split into two types. Content that is generated by a department specifically for employees of that department (IT generating content for IT employees) and content that is generated by a department for all employees (HR generating content aimed at all employees of the company). Splitting the information like this can dramatically improve the ease of finding content by isolating information only needed by a single department in a departmental section.
• Can’t find what you are looking for? - If content is difficult to find many users will resort to other channels such as asking colleagues to find important information. Information should be easily available so that users do not need to resort to other methods.
• Navigation - Navigation is key to providing a consistent experience and allowing users to find and move through content. In an environment where this may be defined by many different content creators it is important to ensure they follow a strict model, usually by service offered and not by business function.

Next steps

It’s important to have a plan when working on your intranet and it’s valid not matter what stage you are at, defining a new site or migrating to a new platform. Here are a few points to follow:

1. Take ownership; whilst often a daunting task, your ability to lead the project will ultimately deliver a very successful site.
2. Don’t under estimate the scale of the task in hand; updating, migrating or creating an intranet from scratch requires a lot of time, effort and support.
3. Use external consultants; they will bring a wealth of experience, offer an objective view and can help to mediate difficult decisions.
4. Don’t redesign standards; user staff are familiar with Google, eBay, Linked In and Facebook, use these interfaces rather than creating your own, bespoke ones.
5. Start collaborating now; get a range of staff involved in the redesign, they’ll become your champions and power users down the line.
6. Benchmark; creating some form of  measurement will help to justify the time and financial investments needed for short and long term success.
7. Don’t let the software control you; the platform is important but the business requirements and user needs should lead the design process.
8. Content strategy; know what you plan to do with the content and create a strategy for developing it long term.

If you have found this useful, then why not get in touch and see how we can help accelerate the success of your businesses intranet.

Content strategy, Intranet, global usability testing, information architecture, usability research, user centred design, user interface innovation, Intranet, research, usability, user experience

Last week, the World Bank announced that it was to free up 2,000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics that had mostly been available only to paying subscribers.

“It’s important to make the data and knowledge of the World Bank available to everyone,” World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Statistics tell the story of people in developing and emerging countries and can play an important part in helping to overcome poverty.”

This presents massive opportunities for developing countries, whose researchers will have access to useful and meaningful information that could well be integral to their future economic development. In the midst of the global financial crisis (yes, it’s still going on), access to this data has the scope to fit in well with the data ‘mash-up’ market that has grown since a number of governments’ recent initiatives (including the UK’s www.data.gov.uk) to free up data to the general public.

On a level closer-to-home, it’s exciting to have access to this level of detailed statistical information, as the ease with which it can be tracked, monitored and updated makes repurposing it not only more reliable in terms of reporting but also demonstrates that numbers and figures (when illustrated in an engaging way) have the ability to tell a story just as well as pictures and words.

Blog, Community, internet research, usability research data, Internet, research, world bank

Ever since Jakob Nielsen wrote his alert box column about the virtues of mega drop-down menus there has been a buzz around the web. I have put together a collection of interesting examples.

Action envelope:

Some of the best examples of mega drop-downs can be found on the action envelope site. They utilise them to their full potential using them to section or chunk options, including graphics and also using them to contain functionality such as login forms.

The options given to the user are clearly divided with bold headings. The use of graphics helps to engage the users.

The use of large graphics provides engaging content for the user.

The mega drop-down menus allow users access to functionality such as the account sign-in form. This reduces clutter on the screen however it must be clear to the user that this functionality is located here.

Samsung

Samsung have a large quantity of information contained within their site. They have used mega drop-down menus to display all options to the user. Doing this allows them to link directly to the information they require without drilling down several layers of navigation.

Gateway

Gateway makes good use of graphics. By providing graphics in their menu it not only makes the content more engaging but helps users to identify their desired product. This also helps to visually group the elements. The links at the foot of the menu provide access to options that may be useful to users at that point in their journey.

EA

The EA site utilises their menu space very well. They provide two clear categories for users to navigate the games section by while also providing related links relevant to a user looking at this section. The featured game promotion uses a sectioned area and image to catch a users’ attention and drive traffic to information on a particular game.

Blog, information architecture, usability design, usability research, user centred design Internet, navigation

We are:London has been lucky enough to have recently been involved in some exciting form design and research. From our recently conducted research some interesting design considerations have come to light. One of the main areas is user handholding.

User handholding is a double edged sword. A fine balance must be struck between useful support and wrapping the user up in cotton wool. Our recent testing revealed some interesting user attitudes towards the support of both inline validation and automatic inline help. Providing the user with inline validation gave the user a sense of achievement. It helped them feel they were walking the correct path, reassuring them.

When creating a password for a Google account the user is provided with reassurance of its security level.

Automatic inline help however had an adverse affect. While on first appearances help of this nature supports the user, holds their hand and aids the smooth completion of the form the user’s impressions however were not of this nature. The user felt this patronised them, that providing automatic help for every field treated them as if they were incompetent and unable to complete the form.

Do users of the British Gas site need prompting to enter their first name in the ‘First name’ field?

These attitudes develop into interesting design challenges. A form must provide a supportive environment for the user. It must help them when they need help and reassure them that they are on the right path. A form must also not patronise the user. It must not try to support when support is not needed. Inline validation helps to reassure the user while trusting the user that they are intelligent and aware enough to complete the form fields without support. Automatic inline help can be used sparingly but overuse makes the user feel they are being patronised. Users do not need help on how to fill out their name. Offering user activated help allows users easy access to support when needed but allows them to choose when they require it.

Blog, information architecture, usability research, user interface Internet, research, usability

Last night I had the pleasure to mix the elite of the global mobile industry at the 2009 Meffy awards in London.

The great and the good were there from O2, Vodafone, CommScore and many more. I had the honour of presenting the award for “Quality of Experience”, which in our view was the most deserved as it was picked by the public. The short list of entries were:

• Dolby Laboratories for ‘Dolby Mobile’
• Skyfire for ‘Skyfire Mobile Browser’
• Telenor Pakistan for ‘Telenor PhotoExpress’
• Thumbplay for ‘Thumbplay OPEN’
• Telefonica for the‘O2 mobile internet portal’

And the winner is…

The winner was Dolby Laboratories for “Dolby Mobile”, and although no official runner up was presented, O2 mobile portal was a definite second and much loved by the panel, but the new experience of Dolby surround sound on your mobile was just too good an entry for O2 to beat.

How the winner was chosen

We have been working with MEF for the past couple of years, setting up a panel, who are members of the public who review each of the entries and vote on their favourite experience. Their scores are complied and a winner is picked.

We have undertaken a wide range of mobile usability research along side web and interactive TV and have our own panel of participants in and around London, numbering over 7,000. We also have a large number of UK and global research panellists too as well as a proven network of recruitment agencies.

To find out more about our research services contact us here, or call Chris on +44 207 1991 321.

usability research future, insight, Mobile, navigation, Our news, social networking, usability

National Express Calendar

National Express launched their new portal nationalexpress.com on the 1st April along with a new lowest price fare finder.

Both were designed and tested by our usability and research teams here at we are:london and launched as part of our on-going work as National Express’ lead usability agency.

Kevin Milnes, Head of E commerce for National Express,  said:

“We set out to create a booking system with unrivalled simplicity and ease of use. The low fare finder delivers a wide range of £1 fares to the customer quickly and easily giving them the choice of when and where they want to travel within seconds.”

Read our case study or check out the National Express Group press release.

e-commerce, information architecture, interface design, market research, usability research, user centred design Design, e-commerce, Internet, Predictive, Travel, usability

Tobii eye tracker

During March and April we are adding eye tracking for free to all of our usability research labs.

The use of eye tracking to support other lab based research methodologies has greatly improved over the past couple of years with the development of reliable, stable hardware and software tools from Tobii.

Quick set up and the fact that the eye tracking hardware is housed in an unobtrusive way, in fact you can’t actually see it, means we can now integrate this research into our labs without the worry of system crashes half way through a session.

Leading experts

Becky Tindle, who previously worked at Bunnyfoot’s London research labs as Usability and Accessibility Consultant, has long been an advocate of eye tracking as a method of investigating user behaviour during lab based research.

Becky added, “eye tracking is an excellent tool that enables you to see your product through users’ eyes. Used whilst observing behaviour as users interact on screen and talk aloud, it can be a powerful tool. We also encourage the use of retrospective protocol where appropriate, for example, during summative lab sessions.”

BT Vision eye tracking

However, eye tracking is not a magic solution to the needs of all research projects and often we advise against testing using eye tracking as results can be misleading depending on the interface being researched and the audience researching it.

This approach goes against a number of established agencies who are guilty of pushing eye tracking on a client because it’s glamorous and tangible. Be warned, in the wrong hands or on the wrong project, eye tracking will do more harm than good.

usability research eye-tracking, eyetracking, navigation, usability

We love surveys. They are quick to create, garner invaluable insight and make us all feel that we really do understand our customers. But there is a problem, one which you have probably experienced many times, and that is inappropriate questioning during my online experience.

Yep, it sounds a little complicated, but really it’s about asking the right questions at the right time. Why ask someone at the end of the checkout process who well their visit went, when they are bound to answer well as they have just completed the task they came to your site to do?

Or even better, why ask someone how well things are going today with their visit when they have only just got to the site?

Our favourite is a survey that ran in the UK recently that asked customers why they were leaving and what could be done to improve their experience. Answer; nothing we all leave once we are finished!

Now of course there are some fantastic solutions to this dilemma that use amazing algorithms to track customers across your site before intercepting them at the critical point. But these are very costly to set up, run and report on, too much for most mere mortals whose dwindling budget can not cater for such expenses.

Opt-in, email out

The answer to our prayers took some finding and a little developing. The result is an enterprise level tool at a self serve price that allows us to do this:

1. Customer enters site, opt-in questionnaire is offered to xx%
2. A few simple questions are asked to understand their reason for visiting the site and their email is captured
3. They are then sent a post-visit email survey that they must complete within 24hrs of their visit

This emailed survey is linked to the initial opt-in, seamlessly joining both sets of data and is used to measure everything from what they actually did to how well it worked and their likelihood of return or recommendation.

High success rates guaranteed

The best part is that the users visit to the site is hardly interrupted and their attention is focused on completing their tasks not rushing through a survey. The resulting data is very high quality as we are able to compare initial drivers against actual tasks and outcome verses perceived success.

We have also seen a very high uptake of this type of survey due to the fact that it can be completed at a more appropriate time and in reflection rather than prediction.

Given the huge costs savings that this mini-enterprise survey provides, more and more clients are now running quantitative and qualitative research projects together, combing online surveys with lab based or remote usability studies.

customer insight, internet research, market research, usability research Internet, usability

How reliable are the views of six customers who fit a brief when it comes to feedback from a usability lab? The answer lies in the competence of the interviewer or moderator and the team who are implementing the research findings.

But six views are always going to be limited and, usually, geographically similar. Add to this the travel stress of getting to the lab, unfamiliar surroundings and someone else’s computer, only the best moderators can achieve good results from this audience.

Remote research, which follows the same one to one interview technique with moderator and panellist, allows a much wider reach in terms of audience location and numbers. The cost of lab hire can be used to recruit more panellists, typically twelve to eighteen.

These customers are now in familiar surroundings, using the same computer that they use to go online everyday and have much lower stress levels the only effort made is putting on the kettle.

When is a lab not a lab?

At this point we should state that lab based research does have a place and a need, and to be most effective can be run with remote research.

Lab research allows us to see how the customer is reacting visually, their change of posture, use of mouse and keyboard and facial expression which remote testing does not. It is also a great environment to use mixed media such as paper prototypes, card sorts, printed stimulus and multiple interactive models. And it’s a controlled environment where we know everything will work and a client can also watch the customer’s body language.

Results in days

The nature of remote research means that it is much quicker for us to recruit and run sessions as there is minimal effort required form the customers perspective. Even session lengths are shorter as there is no need for the panellists to take in new surroundings, familiars themselves with a new computer and get to grips with different screen sizes and browser settings.

Typically a project can be briefed on Monday, recruited Tuesday, run Wednesday and Thursday and reported on Friday. However, the more complex the audience, task or number of models the longer the recruitment, set up and facilitation takes.

We have run a lot of very successful remote research sessions during information architecture projects that we have been involved in, the most recent being a two day turn around on a travel portal prototype that we had been developing.

Client participation

Most importantly is the fact that the sessions are equal as accessible to the client and other stakeholders that are involved. Each one to one session is scheduled in advance, an email sent out and all that is needed is for observers to download a small plug-in, which takes seconds, and voila you can now see what we can see, which is the panellist computer monitor.

Two way conversation, in real time, between the panellist and the moderator is available through a conference call facility that everyone can dial into and direct chat with the moderator is enabled through the observation software. This features allows you, the client, to direct each session and get the most from it.

Finally, everything that is done on screen and said during each session is digitally recorded and can the video can be hosted in full, transferred to DVD or edited into highlight clips.

Ultimately, every method of research has a place and the agency pitching for your work should justify not only the methodology but also identify the best solution for you, often this may seem more complex but ultimately it will lead to far better results.

global usability testing, market research, usability research usability

As unlikely as is it may sound, now is the time to spend money on your website with particular focus on your customer’s experience. Chris Averill, MD of we are:london explains how a small spend now will result in a much larger return on investment in the very near future.

As reported early this year, companies like M&S saw a big rise in online trading up to and including Christmas, whilst their high street stores saw a worrying drop in over the counter sales.

Yeah, I know everyone knows about this, but what most don’t or aren’t thinking about is the fact that as money gets tighter for marketing budgets, less is invested in their websites and more in advertising to drive customers their.

Recently I wrote about the fact that most sites waste  up to 80% of their marketing budget as only 20% of people achieve their tasks online. Combined with the finding of a recent research project by Harris Interactive that shows more than 50% of people who experience problems with online shops will not return to that site, more often than not dropping that brand for a rival.

This makes for some interesting reading, and what worries many of our clients the most is the fact that the first budgets to go are in web development.

So to combat this, we have partnered with Maxymiser to provide a range of rapid prototyping tools and reporting services that allow us to help you try out new ideas online, with very little spend and guranteed results.

If you would like to find out more about:

• User centred design
• Rapid prototyping
• A/B testing
• Multivariate testing / research
• Eye-tracking
• Dynamic content deployment

Then contact Chris or call on +44 207 1991 321 after all we are here to help you succeed.

customer insight, e-commerce, usability research, user centred design e-commerce, Internet, Predictive, SEO, usability