Welcome to our February newsletter. Since last month a fair bit has happened at PRWD, so this months newsletter is full of links, news and upcoming events. Enjoy!

Event Speaking

This month there are 2 events that Paul Rouke is speaking at:

• Usability & User Experience 101 – tonight, 10th Feb – register for FREE here – http://bit.ly/UX101 (twitter event tag #UX101)
• Conversion Thursday Manchester – Thursday 24th Feb – register for FREE here – Conversion Thursday Manchester (twitter event tag #CTMan)

Tips & Best Practice articles

This month we have published 2 articles on external sites:

• Smart Insights – User Testing 101 – Should we go guerrilla?
• Econsultancy – Shopping basket best practice from ASOS

The ASOS article include comments from ASOS eCommerce Director James Hart, including a 3% uplift they have seen through changing the wording on their proceed to checkout button. Interesting stuff if we do say so ourselves!

In addition Paul has been interviewed for comments which will be appearing in an Internet Retailing supplement within the Sunday Telegraph on the 20th February.

Usability Resources

This month we’ve published a blog post providing links to a wide range of best practice articles, usability tools and industry commentary posts on usability and user experience.

• Usability & UX Resources, Tools and Presentation Slides

Training

Over the next few there are 2 training courses that we are delivering for Econsultancy:

• Usability & User Experience – 16th Feb in Manchester – details & booking here
• E-commerce Usability & Best Practice – 1st March in London – details & booking here

Client News

Over the last four weeks we’ve been working with some fantastic clients on some pretty diverse usability and user experience projects.

• Lakeland – User Testing
• Lakeside Hotel – Expert Evaluation and Page Redesigns
• TicketSense – Wireframing, Prototyping and Visual Design
• Smart Insights – Information Architecture and User Interface consultancy

Over the next month or so we’ll be adding further details of both these projects to our client pages, and we might even get a press release out… for the time being you might like to take a look at the new website for Lakeside Hotel, one of the most prestigious hotels in Windermere, which we have helped in improving the customer experience (although there are still many of our recommendations that require implementing).

In the meantime we have published a case study of one of our recent projects with Speedo.

New Partner – What Users Do

Over the last month we have developed a partnership with remote user testing service What User Do. Along with our lab based, moderated user testing that we provide for our larger clients, by providing remote user testing through What Users Do makes a lot of sense for us, and we are already working with them on a very exciting customer research project.

Take a look at more details of What Users Do and our other partners.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your week.

The PRWD team
PRWD

Articles – Lead Generation & E-commerce

• Booking.com: improving conversion with best practice persuasive design – View Article
• 67 questions usability testing can answer – View Article
• Answer user questions = increase conversions – View Article
• WTF does usability best practice actually mean? – View Article
• Why asking for more not less can increase enquiry form conversions – View Article
• The benefits of predictive/suggestive search for retailers – View Article
• User Testing 101 – Good, Better, Best Approaches – View article
• 5 Tips When Conducting User Research – View Article
• What Does User-Centered Design Mean? – View article
• User-Centered Design – in lamens terms – View video (3 mins)
• Lab Based User Testing – Objectives, Methodology, Deliverables – View Article
• MMU’s User Testing Lab – View Article
• Traffic segmentation: humble or sliced, which pie are you having? – View Article
• Take five seconds to test your call to action and USP – View Article
• Traffic Generation versus On-site Conversion Optimisation – View Article
• Best practice for multi-faceted navigation – View Article
• The business benefits of user testing – View Article

Articles – E-commerce Specific

• Persuasive checkout best practice from ASOS – View Article
• How ASOS, Lakeland and Speedo increase new customer conversion rate – View Article
• 9 women x 9 hours = 9 usability insights – View Article
• Tips to increasing e-commerce conversion rates – View Article
• Shopping basket best practice from ASOS – View Article
• Increasing new customer conversion rate – View Article
• Amazon relying on brand credibility instead of good usability – View Article
• Pureplay and high street fashion retailers – who values usability more? – View Article
• How to reduce checkout abandonment and increase customer registrations – View Article
• Are retailers following best practice to improve conversion rates? – View Article

Presentations and Slides

• E-commerce Best Practice Tips & Persuasion Techniques – View Slides
• Remote versus Moderated Usability Testing – View Slides
• 8 Essential Usability & Conversion Optimisation Tips – View Slides
• ASOS and their Bitchin’ Shopping Basket – View Slides
• Usability and User Experience 101 – View Slides
• Three steps to improving online performance – View Slides
• Usability: What’s The Use? – View Slides
• Usability – Whats The Use? – View Videos
• Website conversion optimisation masterclass – View Overview and Sample Slides

Conversion Rate Optimisation Case Studies

• Conversion Rate Improved by 86% Through Split Testing – view case study
• Speedo E-commerce Conversion Optimisation – view case study
• Isabella Oliver User Testing – view case study
• Online Sales Increased by 400% Through User-Centered Design – view case study
• Change of Marketing Message Improves On-site Conversion Rate by 215pc – view case study
• The Scouts – In-house E-commerce Usability and Best Practice Training – view case study

Tools

• Remote User Testing – What Users Do
• Five Second Test
• Remote Usability Testing – Loop 11
• 10 free usability testing tools (via Econsultancy)

User testing (or usability testing) is one of our primary services that we provide our clients, and we tend to carry out the testing in London where there are superb user testing facilities. Although there are user research facilities in Manchester, its fantastic news for PRWD and North West based businesses that Manchester now has its very own user testing laboratory. In addition this is great news for retailers who will benefit from having user testing carried out in Manchester rather than the capital or other test facilities in the UK, of which there are very few, ensuring test participants can be sourced from the capital of the North.

Location of Manchester’s Usability Testing Lab

The new user testing laboratory is located at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) on Oxford Road. The lab location means that it is within 5 minutes walking distance from Oxford Road train station as well as the network of tram lines running through Manchester city centre.
The full address is: MMU Usability Laboratory, John Dalton Building E148, Chester Street, M1 5GD Manchester

Facilities at MMU’s Usability Laboratory

The MMU user testing lab provides all the facilities needed to carry out a range of user testing projects, and there has been significant investment in equipment which provides a wide range of insights into user behaviour and feelings as they are interacting with websites, games and other media.

The lab is set up with full video camera capture of all user behaviour, using Noldus Observer XT data capture and analysis. MMU have also invested further in an eye tracker plus physiological data capture such as heart rate to measure engagement/excitement etc.

Eye Tracking Facilities

Eye tracking adds important information to observational studies. Eye movements reflect emotions and cognitive processes, which add extra value to your research. The Noldus Observer® XT allows you to analyze the eye tracker’s video output and enables you to record the context in which the eye movements occurred.

• Analyze eye tracking videos
• Relate mental processes to behavior
• Synchronous display of behavior, gaze data, and video
• Analyze the combination of behavior and gaze data
• Discover that additional modalities are possible

View full details of eye tracker and the benefits

More Information Usability Testing

• PRWD’s usability testing services
• MMU’s Usability Testing Laboratory Facility
• Business Benefits of Usability/User Testing
• PRWD’s expert usability evaluation services
• PRWD Case Study – Usability Testing for Fashion Retailer Isabella Oliver
• PRWD Case Study – User Testing for The Hyde Group Intranet Diagnostic Project

Are You Looking for Usability Testing Services?

If so contact Paul Rouke at PRWD on 0161 228 0585. You can also find more details about PRWD’s usability testing services as well as our expert usability evaluation service.

PRWD, An Acronym for ‘Productivity Without Difficulty’

Typical Areas Where We Help Improve Productivity Of The User

Without Difficulty – An Answers.com definition

Something not easily done, accomplished, comprehended, or solved. A laborious effort; a struggle.

Types Of Difficult User Experiences We Rectify

• removing unwanted distractions on lead generation websites
• making unclear calls to action a more prominent part of a page or pages within a website
• making the reasons why visitors should use the company whose site they are visiting more clearly promoted
• removing confusion when submitting a checkout form online
• removing confusion when submitting an online application
• removing concerns of trust and privacy when considering an online purchase
• removing complexity when navigating through large sets of information or products
• removing frustration when a website doesn’t do what you need it to do
• removing being overwhelmed when using a business system
• removing frustration that the business system makes your job less productive
• removing frustration at internal processes being too complex and wasting valuable time

As you can see from the examples provided above, combining productivity and ease of use can relate to any number of websites, web applications, business systems, marketing activity and brand experiences.

PRWD Case Studies Demonstrating Return-on-Investment

By focusing on improving productivity of web users and system users whilst removing difficulties for them, we deliver return-on-investment in many ways, which can be seen on the following case studies.

• Conversion Rate Improved by 86pc With Google Website Optimiser
• Intranet Usability Evaluation and User Testing for The Hyde Group
• E-commerce Usability Testing for Fashion Retailer Isabella Oliver
• In-house E-commerce Usability Training for The Scout Association
• Change of Marketing Message Improves On-site Conversion Rate by 215pc
• Advanced Google Analytics Training for Speedy Hire
• PRWD Increase Clients Revenue Per Employee by Over 95%

Along with thanking Rob in person for his significant contribution to the development and sales growth of my business during his time with me, I’d like to take this online opportunity to thank Rob for all his hard work.

Being a micro business working through a recession, with a proposition which as yet isn’t in too much demand, especially in the North West of England, has meant we certainly experienced a rollercoaster ride over the past 2 years. Thankfully, as our December 2009 newsletter demonstrated, last year was actually more successful than we dared to imagine at the time.

Amongst Rob’s many technical achievements, including BenchmarkingApp, our user-centered design Adobe AIR application and the Drupal website for our client ResPublica, the Conservative Party Think-tank run by David Cameron’s philispher king Phillip Blond, I was very proud to see Rob presenting at a variety of events to showcase his technical and commercial skills. Prior to joining me I think Rob would be one of the first to say that speaking in front of large audiences wasn’t somthing he was looking to start doing! One such presentation was at an Adobe AIR event, where Rob spoke about designing business systems with Adobe AIR.

I wish all the very best in his new Drupal consultant role and if you are looking for a Drupal expert in London then Rob is your man! I’m sure our paths will cross in the future too…

Onwards and Upwards

Having replaced Rob, we are looking forward to continuing with Rob’s fine work by developing more user-centered websites using both Drupal and Magento E-commerce.

• Jobs at PRWD
• Financial Sector Training
• Retail Sector Training
• All Sectors Usability Training
• Google Analytics Training
• SME Masterclass
• Usability Testing

Developer and Designer Required

We are still currently advertising for the following positions. Take a look to view details and please pass on if you know anyone who might be interested.

• PHP Developer
• User Experience Designer

Financial Sector – Usability and User Experience Training

This intensive course is aimed at financial companies and banking institutions who are looking to identify opportunties where they can improve the conversion rates of their websites. This can include account application processes, credit card application processes, loans, mortgages and savings accounts.

View full details of the training course and how to book

Retail Sector – Usability and E-commerce Best Practice Training

Usability for e-commerce sites is one of the largest contributors to customer conversion and retention rates. Can you afford not to be following best practice?

The course objective is to expose and explain a wide range of vital best practice techniques taken from SME and blue chip retailers which you can implement into your organizations’ own e-commerce platform in order to drive improvements of conversion rates.

Focusing on 3 key stages of the buying journey, Product Page, Shopping Basket and the Checkout Process, this training course will provide you with a wealth of knowledge and industry-leading insights that can be utilised to make iterative usability improvements to your e-commerce platform.

View full details of the training course and how to book

All Sectors – Usability and User Experience Training

Many website owners are identifying usability as a primary way for them to improve online revenue. In particular businesses are looking at ways to improve the ROI they get from their acquisition spend.

This training course aims to give a solid foundation to this wide-ranging subject through case studies taken from ecommerce and non-commercial websites as well as hands-on experience through workshops on the key principles of usability and user experience. This full day in-house training course is also delivered for Econsultancy.

View full details of the training course and how to book

All Sectors – Advanced Google Analytics Training

This training provides you and your team with the knowledge of how best to use Google Analytics on an on-going basis to gain the most valuable visitor insights and commercial value

View full details of the training course and how to book

SME Masterclass – Generating More Leads and More Sales from your Website

Paul delivers this masterclass aimed at SME’s looking at ways in which they can improve the performance of their websites and online marketing activities.

We have a Masterclass page onto our website which:

• Explains what the masterclass is about
• Provides a range of testimonials from people that have attended so far
• Provides some sample slides
• Provides details of what you will learn
• Provides examples of who should attend

View full details of the masterclass and how to book

E-commerce Usability Testing Case Study

We have recently published the case study of the usability testing project we carried out for online fashion retailer Isabella Oliver.

View full details of the usability testing case study.

The fact that I would repeat the usability tests in the future is testament to the invaluable findings from the tests and the level of expertise provided by PRWD.

Claire McNulty, Senior Marketing Manager

Background

Isabella Oliver was launched in 2003, and has since become home to two essential women’s wear collections; Isabella Oliver Maternity and Isabella Oliver 365.

The brand was founded by Baukjen de Swaan Arons, Vanessa Knox-Brien and Geoff van Sonsbeeck; three passionate individuals whom aspired to create a clothing brand that women would love to wear.

Isabella Oliver trialled usability testing in the past without much success, so they were looking for a usability testing project which would identify significant improvements on how they deliver their e-commerce proposition and overall user experience.

Objectives

PRWD were asked to plan, deliver and present a usability testing project with a small sample of women who match their target audience. The test sessions were to be observed so the Isabella Oliver project team could gain the most valuable customer insights.

Approach

PRWD carried out a range of activities to deliver the results required: -

• Identifying users who best fit the target demographics
• Determining key tasks and journeys which users will be asked to experience
• Encouraging users to think out loud for the most valuable insights
• Ensuring project team can observe each test session
• Allowing additional questions to be asked at the end of each session
• Capturing both audio and visual feedback from each session
• Asking each user to complete a satisfaction survey at the end of their session
• Delivering a final presentation and detailed report of the findings and recommendations

Scenarios, Journeys and Questions

There were three key scenarios that were developed which would provide key user insights, and each scenario presented a range of opportunities to ask timely questions:

1) Initial customer experience – what does this retailer do, what are your first impressions, what are you thoughts on the range and quality on offer
2) The purchase journey – what ways do you typically browse a fashion website, what are important factors in making a decision, where is delivery and returns information
3) Advice and inspiration – how important are rating and reviews, where would you look to be inspired, how important is style advice and recommendations

For each user additional questions from the Isabella Oliver team observing the usability tests were also captured and asked at the end, which provided further unique customer insights.

Deliverables and Results

Prior to the final report and recommendations being presented, the Isabella Oliver team had already made improvements to the website by simply having observed users during the test sessions.

Following the test sessions PRWD delivered a presentation to the team supported by a comprehensive usability testing report, identifying a wide range of high prioriy recommendations to improve the usability and user experience of the e-commerce website.

Isabella Oliver are continuing to improve their website based on the recommendations.

Testimonials

PRWD delivered a particularly insightful review of the Isabella Oliver website, whilst being a pleasure to work with. Overall they were professional, thorough and responsive to Isabella Oliver’s requests.

Zoe Pearson, Marketing Manager

The fact that I would repeat the usability tests in the future is testament to the invaluable findings from the tests and the level of expertise provided by PRWD.

Claire McNulty, Senior Marketing Manager

Further Information

You can download a pdf of the e-commerce usability testing case study for Isabella Oliver, and if you would like more information on our usability services please give us a call on 0161 918 6729.

PRWD have delivered exactly what was required of the project and done so in an extremely efficient way.

The information gained from respondents, both qualitative and quantitative, helped to reinforce the need for change and gave a clear direction for travel.

David Boardman, Communications Director

Objectives

Provide usability consultancy and user research to identify improvements to Hyde Housing’s intranet system, Hydewide.

This was the first such research carried out on the usability of Hydewide, and would form a major part of the future development strategy for the intranet.

PRWD were asked to conduct a range of qualitative and quantitive research into the usability of Hydewide, in order to produce a report detailing potential usability improvements.

Background

Hyde Housing Group is one of the UK’s largest housing associations, managing over 43,000 properties, principally located across the South of England. Hyde employs over 1,600 staff, based at their Head Office in London and at branch offices in a wide variety of locations. Hyde also coordinates with local and national government agencies.

Hyde’s intranet system, Hydewide, provides vitally important information to staff members and helps to keep staff across the group in touch with each other and with the latest developments. Prior to PRWD’s involvement, the intranet had grown organically with no user testing or usability analysis.

What We Did

PRWD carried out extensive user research, using the following methods: -

• Interviews and user testing, with employees from across the group
• In-depth questionnaire sent out to all employees
• Expert evaluation of Hydewide, carried out by Paul Rouke

The interviews involved visiting several locations, including London, Peterborough, Southampton and Brighton. The staff members interviewed held a range of different positions within the group and had different perspectives on the usability of Hydewide as it related to their role. The interviews involved building trust and confidence, ensuring that all interviewees offered their thoughts. Where possible, interviews also included ‘guerilla’ user testing, where users carried out simple tasks using Hydewide in order to identify problems.

The questionnaire was designed in collaboration with Hyde’s Communications Department and the internal Communications Champions, staff members who have special responsibility for supporting change and improvement within the group.

The expert evaluation was based on a comparison of Hydewide to industry-standard best practices, identifying weaknesses in the concept, design or implementation of the intranet.

Finally, all these findings were collated into a detailed report and presentation for Hyde’s executive management team.

Results and Next Steps

The questionnaire received a response rate in excess of 20%, and along with the enthusiastic response of staff members in interviews, provided valuable feedback from Hydewide users. Many of the findings from user feedback were supported by the expert evaluation, which identified many similar improvements and others beyond.

The final recommendations were divided into three categories, based on the extent of work required to implement them – quick wins, improvements and new developments. This provided immediate actions to be taken, some of which were implemented immediately.

The report now forms part of the plan for future development of Hydewide, and the process of staff involvement has ensured that staff throughout the business are fully behind the planned changes.

Client Testimonials

PRWD have delivered exactly what was required of the project and done so in an extremely efficient way.

The information gained from respondents, both qualitative and quantitative, helped to reinforce the need for change and gave a clear direction for travel.

The reporting enabled us to highlight quick wins together with a vision for longer term improvements.
The feedback from the people who were involved in the analysis was extremely positive. They all felt that Paul and Rob were approachable and really understood their needs.
The resulting report was presented to the senior managers and the recommendations approved.

It was a pleasure working with PRWD and I would highly recommend them to add value and deliver real results.

David Boardman, Communications Director

It was especially useful to get feedback from the interviews as colleagues seemed to be more
candid with PRWD so hopefully gave a real insight and so will appreciate changes made even more.

PRWD’s professionalism and knowledge has made this project a pleasure to undertake and I am confident that the resulting information will prove invaluable to the development of our intranet.

Ruth Appiah, Communications Manager

Further Information

You can download a pdf of the usability case study for the Hyde Group, and if you would like more information on our usability services please give us a call on 0161 918 6729.

A very valuable morning’s work. A good balance of information that catered well for a mixed ability group. Money well spent!

Becky Jasper, Marketing Director

Company Background

Isabella Oliver was launched in 2003, and has since become home to two essential women’s wear collections; Isabella Oliver Maternity and Isabella Oliver 365.

The brand was founded by Baukjen de Swaan Arons, Vanessa Knox-Brien and Geoff van Sonsbeeck; three passionate individuals whom aspired to create a clothing brand that women would love to wear.

Isabella Oliver use Google Analytics to track visitor behaviour and overall website performance on their e-commerce website, but they were looking for ways in which they can improve how they use the system.

Objectives

Below are some of the primary objectives the Isabella Oliver team had before the training:

• “I’m looking to learn new techniques and improving on what I do now”
• “I’m looking for better ways of working, finding out more about Google Analytics, reducing time spent on reporting”
• “I’m looking how to utilise Google Analytics to make my reporting less time consuming and how to set up our goals correctly”

What We Did

PRWD delivered their 3 hour in-house Google Analytics training session for Isabella Oliver focussing on the most important areas of Google Analytics for retailers looking to get the most value from this powerful analytics system.

Training, expertise and recommendations were provided in the following areas:

• Personalisation
• Annotations
• Goals and Funnels
• Advanced Visitor Segmentation
• Event Tracking
• Custom Reporting
• Analytics Intelligence
• Marketing Activity Accountability
• Google Website Optimiser

Results and Next Steps

Following the training, all attendees from Isabella Oliver now have a much better understanding of how they can personalise Google Analytics to their own specific requirements and areas of responsibilities. Even more importantly, they have learnt a wide variety of advanced techniques which will save them time and effort on a regular basis, as well as using Google Analytics to obtain more valuable customer insights.

Based on the training course feedback, attendees are now using their new knowledge and understanding on a daily basis, which in turn is ensuring they can save valuable time and effort in understanding how visitors are using their website and where opportunities to improve the site exist.

Comments From Attendees

A very valuable morning’s work. A good balance of information that catered well for a mixed ability group. Money well spent!

Becky Jasper, Marketing Director

I found the training provided by PRWD very useful and extremely insightful. Learning how to set up customer reports and automating my reports will save me time and effort in the future.

It was really great to hear about the new features that have recently been released and to see how powerful a tool Google Analytics can be. The Goals and Funnels section really helped me to understand where we were going wrong in terms of tracking our conversions.

The further reading and extra resources at the end will really help me gain even more knowledge about Google Analytics as well.

Amy Jackson, Web Manager

The PRWD training course was well structured, easy to understand and worked for both google analytics beginners and more advanced colleagues within the group.

Claire McNulty, Senior Marketing Manager

The training course provided a fresh burst of excitment to Google Analytics that has helped to be able to go on and measure relavent information that will help to improve the company.

Hannah Barker, Online Marketing Executive

View More Information on our Google Analytics Training

Case Studies on our Google Analytics Training

Looking back on our 2009

Working through a recession

So here we are on the final lap of 2009, a year that will remembered by many for when the current recession made its presence fully felt. There is no denying that at PRWD we have felt the full effects of the recession, as both existing and potential clients reduced or in some cases completely froze their marketing spend. On reflection we have noticed a tale of two halves, where the first 6 months of the year was especially downbeat throughout the industries we operate in, whereas the last 6 months has certainly seen an uplift in confidence and willingness to invest.

As a very young business we are proud that we have worked through the recession thus far, and the experiences gained for us as a business (and the changes we have subsequently made) will certainly stand us in good stead going forward.

Our clients

Since starting out in 2006, this year has been our best so far in terms of both the variety and size of the clients we have worked with. In no particular order, we have worked with the likes of The Scout Association, Speedy Hire, VoucherSeeker, ResPublica, The Royal Mail, The Translation People, Econsultancy, Manchester Airport, Citibank, Contact Packaging, C&O Coatings, Red C and Flame Digital, along with a few more businesses. A full overview of our clients (both direct and through third parties) can be seen on our website.

Services provided

This year has seen us widen our service offering to cater for client requirements. Along with providing usability consultancy like we always have, delivering training has been one of our new services, in particular training on e-commerce best practice and advanced Google Analytics. We have remained flexible by providing both public training for Econsultancy as well as providing in-house training to larger groups of employees.

Developing websites using the Drupal content management system has also become an integral part of our service proposition, and our highest profile client has been new public policy think-tank ResPublica.

Continuing on the development front, Magento is now firmly in place as the e-commerce platform that we specialise in, both in delivering complete solutions and providing technical consultancy for existing Magento websites that need some TLC and high end technical expertise.

In these ‘tough economic times’, the likelihood of clients having budgets available for us to deliver a complete user-centered (UCD) design process to deliver new websites and applications is for the select few, but our UCD approach, explained by one of our clients, remains very much at the heart of our company philosophy. In fact, with UCD encompassing so many various services, we are often finding clients are using us for specific areas in order to embrace a more user-centric approach to a project.

Through our conversion optimisation services for clients with existing sites, we have been able to deliver significant improvements to on-site conversion rates, and a pat on the back must go to Google for providing a powerful tool for us to provide split and multi-variate testing projects for clients extremely cost effectively, using Google Website Optimiser.

Training

As mentioned already delivering both public and in-house training has become a core proposition during this last 12 months. Following on from a new course developed and delivered for Econsultancy entitled Usability and Best Practice for Online Retailers, we have developed and delivered a bespoke usability course for Financial businesses, and this has most recently been delivered to finance giant Citibank at their head offices, through Econsultancy.

Our in-house training course on Advanced Google Analytics has proved very popular, and the satisfaction we get from helping our clients fully understand the power, flexibility, personalisation, value and accountability that Google Analytics helps deliver for online marketing is overwhelming. Our only problem is ensuring our training course keeps up with Google who are constantly implementing new features and functionality, such as even greater intelligence and monitoring tools!

Case studies

We have made a concerted effort during this year to produce more case studies, especially for our conversion optimisation work and training. The only problem with delivering these types of services is that there is no tangible ‘end product’ compared to when we deliver websites such as ResPublica, so the best we can do is develop case studies showcasing what benefits, impact and ROI our work has delivered for the client.

Our case studies include e-commerce best practice training for The Scout Association, Advanced Google Analytics training for Speedy Hire, conversion optimisation for The Translation People and conversion optimisation for Contact Packaging.

Events we have spoken at

Alongside making more effort to produce case studies off the back of conversion improvement and training services, it also became clear this time last year that speaking at events was a vital element for us to demonstrate the importance of usability to business owners.

Our two most notable event presentations were Manchester Digital’s event Usability – What’s The Use? (which we also sponsored) and How Do’s Speeding Up In A Slowdown, which featured other speakers from Google and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Coming off the back of an Adobe AIR desktop application we developed for one of our clients, we also spoke at an event dedicated to Adobe AIR, and this included a presentation by Adobe AIR’s evangelist Andrew Shorten.

2010

So crystal ball time! As we look ahead to next year we have a good sense of where we will be focussing our efforts, with all our work sitting under the umbrella of usability and helping businesses increase their online sales, leads and profits.

Website Conversion Improvement

This is no brainer, but working with clients to improve the conversion rate of their websites will continue to be a primary service for us. Ironically, we are also hoping that in the North West, 2010 will be a year where more competitors enter the market which will in turn raise the awareness and appreciation of how important this type of activity is for businesses, especially those who invest in traffic generation (SEO, PPC, social media etc).

We expect that our ROI calculator for e-commerce sites and for lead generation sites will be pretty popular, and we will certainly be making good use of them when demonstrating to potential clients ‘how much profit per year you can expect from a 10% improved conversion rate’, for example.

Expect 2010 to be the year that the free testing and optimisation tool Google Website Optimiser is truly embraced in the online world…

Drupal Website Development

Building on the back of a series of Drupal based websites we have delivered, and with many years experience of this CMS and its capabilities, where suitable Drupal will be our CMS of choice for our clients. By also using our wireframing and prototyping approach during the design phase using the excellent Axure RP, development costs are kept to a minimum and we can invest more resource into the usability and conversion performance of our clients content managed sites.

Magento E-commerce Platform

Our Magento services and expertise, including the development of Magento Connect modules for the community, will play an important role in our business during 2010, and when combined with our e-commerce best practice knowledge and expertise, our fit with Magento e-commerce websites is very snug indeed.

Google Analytics

Along with using Google Analytics daily to monitor website performance for ourselves and our clients, building on the back of our Google Analytics training course we are certainly expecting to be spending even more time both using the tool and helping our clients learn how they can use it more effectively for their business. Client empowerment and website performance accountability are two of our major objectives, and allowing our clients to better understand Google Analytics is a really rewarding experience for us.

Training

We already have quite a few in-house and public training courses booked in for 2010, and to summarise we are expecting to focus on the following training courses:

• Advanced Google Analytics (in-house)
• E-commerce Usability and Best Practice (in-house and public through Econsultancy)
• Usability and User Experience (in-house and public through Econsultancy)
• Financial Services Usability and Best Practice (in-house)

Event speaking and masterclasses

When there are suitable opportunities for us to present at events we will certainly be looking to share knowledge, insights and case studies, and 2010 is also expected to be when we start delivering masterclass events. One thing we are acutely aware of in the north west is that at present there isn’t anything like the type of demand for usability, analytics and conversion optimisation services that there is in London. We therefore have to do what we can to create the demand, and event speaking and delivering masterclasses are two primary ways for us to do this.

Summary

In wrapping up, just by producing this review and therefore reflecting on this past 12 months has been an enlightening experience for us. Whereas its been a tough year in business, at least this summary helps us to realise that we have actually done alot more than what it has sometimes felt like as the year has sped by.