we are: London

National Express, as the Official Travel Partner to Wembley Stadium and Official Supporter to the England Teams, sought to “make travel simpler” for fans of the beautiful game. we are:london were appointed to design and build a CMS-driven microsite, National Express Football world, that would provide football fans with exclusive football news, travel solutions to their favourite games and the chance to win money-can’t-buy prizes, whilst integrating a simple booking system.

Working to set a set deadline to deliver the full site, we utilised our knowledge of Wordpress, having just re-launched our website on it, whilst working with National Express’ internal design team to create a flexible site that met the challenges of an adaptable layout and flexibility of updating the content by a third-party marketing agency.

The site launched on time and to budget and proves that high value sites can be built with low budgets, yet still provide a robust and reliable CMS platform. We worked closely with National Express’ technical development team to integrate key booking functions from the main portal site, offering a seamless browse-to-buy experience.

The whole project was run using an agile approach and delivered to provide the best experience for both customers and content providers. Ongoing optimisation will be undertaken using Maxymiser behavioural targeting tools.

If you would like to find out how you can implement high value, low cost projects, from design to usability research the please call now on 0207 1991 321 or drop us an email.

Design, National Express Agile approach, information architecture, rapid prototyping

Information architecture development

We have been successfully delivering information architecture projects for the past 8 months, directly to O2 and in partnership with Agency Republic. During a project that we were leading in early 2008 for a travel client, we started to investigate a new process for delivering complex information architecture and interface design projects in a more effective and efficient way. After working on a number of projects for O2 based on a traditional approach to IA development through Visio wireframes and multiple sign offs, we were able to pioneer our new approach on a live, cross platform project.

Our agile process

Our approach to rapid prototype delivery is based on a workshop or hothouse where key stakeholders discuss their requirements and, when applicable, start to define elements such as objectives, personas, user flows, navigation, behaviour, etc.

Week 1

An initial prototype is then built and hosted online for the client teams and 3rd parties to interact with prior to a review.

Week 2

A prioritised list of changes in agreed and the prototype is updated to reflect these changes, whilst new features and functions are added.

Week 3

A sign off review takes place to lock down agreed functionality and scope.The prototype is then either frozen, or developed in parallel to a detailed set of Visio documents.

Advantages

The main advantages of implementing our rapid prototype methodology are much faster UI development and sign off times; typically one third of a traditional IA project. Earlier input from stakeholders based on a tangible product rather than complex IA documents. Real-time changes during review sessions and workshops; this is key to reducing timescales. The delivery of a functional prototype that can be used for technical spec, demonstrations, usability research and marketing.

Nigel Suddell, project lead for O2 added: “we are:london delivered a very impressive managed service that dramatically reduced the amount of time usually required to develop an information architecture design. The interactive prototype was an invaluable tool, that led to a much better understanding of a complex set of process and interactions, across the O2 development agency teams.

By providing a clear definition of the functionality in a succinct manner there was little room for interpretation and little need for clarifications. This directly impacted the production of other project deliverables (requirement specs, technical designs, etc) and was of great benefit in the overall timelines. We will be communicating this example, across our business, as a best practice approach for similar projects.”

Design, O2 Agile approach, information architecture, interactive prototypes, rapid prototyping