Our User Experience Approach

We start by working with our clients to clarify what you want to achieve in the online space. Then we develop a strategy to get you from here to there. We also recognize that your web presence isn’t a walled garden. It extends across a wider internet ecology. We help you leverage existing functionality from the social web, spread the word via your user’s social connections, and make your site findable by search engines.

Why Invest in User Experience Services?

Effective user experience design is completely invisible. Navigation is intuitive, search is powerful. A well designed interface is easy and fun to use, and the content and functionality are right where you need it. You know it's working when your customers get what they want to do done in a seamless and pleasurable way. The way that users interact with your product while they are online builds your brand and supports your users so that you succeed. They buy your products, consume your content, play your games, contribute to your discussion. They spend time on your site and they return more than once. Your Return on Investment (ROI) from a positive user experience can be measured in 2 ways: • A direct increase in your bottom line: cost savings, increased productivity and generated revenue for increasing product sales, market share, and revenue. • Indirectly, but just as powerfully, in “soft dollars” from improved brand awareness, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, word of mouth and earned media.

How does UX work to solve your website problems?

When you are designing or redesigning a web site every aspect of screen designs and feature sets should be based on strategic design decisions. To us, design is a strategic tool we use to influence your users’ behavior. The goal of user experience design and strategy is to align your users’ actions with measurable outcomes that support your organization or business. The bottom line? Excellent design makes it a pleasure for your customers do what it takes to make your web project a success.

Our Services

Our team has experience in a wide range of user experience disciplines. These are tightly integrated with our design and development process. We also offer these specialties on a consulting basis for clients who want to benefit from our user experience expertise.

Strategy:

As part of the discovery process we use proven methods that analyze your audience, the competitive landscape, your business goals, and the short and long term goals for your web product. These activities are focused on building the right product in the right way. The strategy components can include: Business and user needs assessment, product requirements, competitive analysis, a product evolution plan, a user experience strategy brief.

Information Architecture:

Information Architecture organizes the core structure and functionality of every web site. Our expertise in navigation design, searching and browsing systems, social architecture, user task analysis, web application design and content strategy ensure your site organization makes sense from the overall architecture to the fine details. We make it easy for users to engage with your site and do what they want to do. Examples of Information Architecture components can include: Site map, wireframes, page stories and page description documents, task flows, content inventories, site microcopy scripts, navigation, and search designs.

Interaction Design:

Interaction design is the art and craft of delivering content, activity, and social interaction in an effective UI. We combine excellent technical and usability practices to make the experience enjoyable. We go beyond the fundamentals and best practices in user interface and social design to create unique online experiences. Our interaction designs are based on an in-depth knowledge of interactive systems, innovative collaborative processes, online social and community spaces and emerging trends in online experience. Examples of Interaction Design components: Paper and interactive prototypes, page layout wireframes, user interface visualizations, interactive concepts.

Usability Review and Testing:

Usability, as the name suggests, is the quality of being easy to use. Good usability ensures that when we come to a website, we can easily find the important content on a site and complete any tasks without confusion, frustration, unnecessary steps, or complicated interactions. Good usability is becoming critical as users and sites get more sophisticated and web budgets need to show results. When web users take 6 seconds to decide to stay on your page, you can’t afford to have bad usability. Everyone on our team is passionate about usability. It’s part of our DNA. It is never an add-on in our design and development process, and we conduct usability reviews throughout a project. Our usability consulting services include: Heuristic and expert reviews (detailed recommendations on your existing home page, or full site), usability consulting, formal usability testing with target users (planning, testing, report).