Usability testing – Does it apply to me?
13 Nov 2008 1 Comment
in customer experience, design, ui, Usability, user experience, user interface, User Interfaces Tags: customer experience, customers, simple user testing, Usability, users
What makes a good website? Is it the slickness of the look and feel, the features that the site offers, the interesting content or the ease of use?
The look and feel of your site maybe sensational, but what’s the point if it does not accomplish its purpose, which is to lead people to its content? The features that the site offers may be varied and interesting, but what if the user cannot get to them?
An established firm can probably afford the services of a usability consultant, but what about any of us regular people… what are the basic rules that we can follow to have a usable website? More
Best Practices – Online Customer Experience
10 Jun 2008 Leave a Comment
in customer experience, design, Usability, user experience Tags: best practices, customer experience, customers
In my previous post, I attempted to define customer experience. This post however will actually prove how important it is to pay attention to the customer.
Lets take ecommerce consumer electronic sites for example. Research in this area states that the best consumer electronic site is more than 50% easier to use as it is informative & more persuasive – Source: change sciences kantuit reports.
The area of research may vary but the solution for a good customer experience will be the same. The following are ways to improve customer experience.
Put it all out there
Offer customers an easy way to browse all products/services on offer. A strong search option, that is intuitive, can go a long way. Promoting new products or services is fine though you might want to back this up with a good catalog that the customer can scan at one go.
Help customers locate content
Minimalize content. Do away with unnecessary graphics. Ensure a clear navigation so that users do not get lost in the site. Display important content ‘above the fold’ so that users don’t have to look for it.
Do not overdo the homepage
Don’t bombard the homepage with promotions and special offers. Instead, concentrate on getting across the website’s message to your users.
Ensure that link and title names are accurate
Amazingly, you will find this simple rule violated. Title and link names must correspond to the content they indicate.
Focus on the customers need
Customers call the shots, so decipher what they need and give it to them. For example in ecommerce sites, customers want a quick and easy yet safe check out process. Attempt to complete the checkout process within 2 steps.
Cross sell and up sell carefully
Ensure that offers are targeted to specific customers. This way cross selling and up selling is more effective and customer loyalty is increased. Over-communication or irrelevant communication reduces the impact and instead might turn off the customer.
These are some suggestions to make your site more customer-friendly. If you feel that there
are some more that can be added, feel free to comment. I shall add them to this post accordingly.
Customer Experience… what is it?
05 May 2008 Leave a Comment
in customer experience, Usability, user experience Tags: customer experience, Usability, user experience
Customer Experience… the term gets thrown around quite a bit of late… but what does it mean and how does it translate into a discipline & something that anyone can relate to. So what is customer experience?
Customer experience is the ‘journey’ of the customer through various interactions with an organization and their perceptions therein.
In order to develop the perfect customer experience, the organization would have to
. Understand the customer journey
. Constantly design the right offers for the right customers
. Exceed customer expectations in all interactions
. Aim at pleasing customers by revamping the customer experience regularly
It’s important to note however that to develop a good customer experience, one must be aware of all the experiences on offer to the customer.
7 more steps for successful online advertising
26 Apr 2008 5 Comments
in design, user experience Tags: ad banners, ads, adsense, Brand identity, branding, contextual advertising, keywords, online ads, online advertising
As a follow up to my article “Four Steps to Successful Banner Ads“, it’s only apt that I address some best practices that should be followed for online advertising in general. From a usability point of view it is necessary to follow these best practices so that user’s are attracted to your ad and actually click it.
Target your audience
In order to drive traffic to your website the first step would be to identify a target audience and build your ad accordingly. For this you will have to take into consideration the relevance of your ad to your customers. Advertise only in areas where your business or service is available. Your ad should be clear and concise and have your company’s name in it.
Dove targetted real women without regard to age, shape, height or nationality, replacing the customary statuesque supermodels in this ad campaign.
Use keywords to narrow down customers
When you use specific keywords in your ad, you automatically weed out those who aren’t your customers. On the other hand it lets your customers know that your ad is relevant to them.
Focus on your product/business’ strengths
Highlight a special feature or a unique offer that your product or business has to offer. This will help you stand out from the rest of the competition. Make sure you include your brand name/logo in your ad. This helps give the customer a sense of trust in the brand.
Giving information about your product along with displaying the company’s logo will help the customer trust your brand
Keep it simple
Keep your ad simple, easy to read and grasp. Avoid the use of jargon, long sentences and complex punctuation. Do not attempt to advertise your product entirely in the ad. Leave the user enough curiosity to click the ad and read more
13 steps to effective user/stakeholder interviews
11 Feb 2008 2 Comments
in Usability, user experience Tags: interviews, stakeholder, user, user experience, user testing
I had the good fortune to conduct user and stakeholder interviews with regard to an application that the client had developed 6 months ago. The application was up and running and this project was launched in order to look at streamlining the application and making it more intelligent and easy to use.
This is where I came in… My job was to personally fix interviews with the interviewees. The only problem was that the interviewees belonged to several different countries across the world. I must accept however that I have never a more satisfying experience where work was concerned. It was actually enlightening to speak to so many of these people around the globe.
So here’s how an interview is conducted. More
10 User Centered Design blogs you ought to read
06 Dec 2007 1 Comment
in design, information architecture, Interaction design, Usability, user experience, user interface, web 2.0, web design Tags: customer experience, design, information architecture, interface design, Usability, user experience, user-centered design
Just thought I’d share my favorite UCD blogs with you. These are sites I read to keep in touch with the research on usability. They also make for very interesting reading.
Experience Dynamics: Frank spiller’s blog is something that every User experience professional should read. Frank has the happy knack to hitting the nail on the head with every post. Very practical info out there.
Boxes and Arrows: In the words of David Moore, Boxes and Arrows is an “Intelligent peer-written journal on information architecture and user-centered design. Lots of practical information as well as conceptual back-up”.
Seven87: With a unique outlook on usability, marketing and customer experience, Charlie Nichols presents usability in a business environment.
Webword: John S. Rhodes operates the WebWord Blog, providing More
Web 2.0 Master’s Degree!
29 Nov 2007 1 Comment
in design, web 2.0 Tags: degree, design, master, master's degree, web 2.0
Apparently I have earned myself a master’s degree in Web 2.0! You might wanna try it out yourself… its fun. You get to figure out the trademark features of web 2.0 sites. It will make you think for sure!
Information Architecture simplified
17 Nov 2007 Leave a Comment
in design, information architecture, Interaction design, ui, Usability, user experience, user interface, User Interfaces, web design Tags: articles, bad design, bad UI, card sorting, hueristic evaluations, information architecture, interface design, personas, Usability, wireframes
Our user experience team in office decided to form a small group that promotes the awareness and usage of usability. With this focus, we got to work brainstorming on the best way to put usability, interaction design and information architecture, in laymen’s terms.
We decided the best way to do this would be to start a newsletter. For the articles, we came up with the theme of “Weave a story”, More
What kind of blogger are you?
15 Nov 2007 1 Comment
in blogging, Creativity Tags: blogging, blogs, Creativity
Stumbled on this interesting website today. Its got a nifty little quiz that determines the kind of blogger you are!
I found that
