PRWD

After just over 2 years working alongside me at PRWD, in March this year Rob decided it was time for him to move on and pursue consultancy opportunities, starting in June 2010 with contracting for Capgemini in London on one of the largest Drupal platform developments in Europe. Rob’s Linked-in profile explains more…

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.

Please Note: This position has now been filled

Who We Are Looking For

We’re looking for a PHP developer, someone who has gone beyond the basics and is looking for a new challenge.

You should be confident with PHP 5 and object-oriented programming, familiar with frameworks such as Zend Framework, Symfony or Drupal and with a good awareness of common open source PHP packages. You should also be competent with modern HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You don’t need years of experience, but you do need curiosity and enough knowledge to apply what you learn.

Your primary duties will include development of content-managed and e-commerce websites for our clients. Working closely with our user experience director and user experience designer, you will deliver highly usable, user-centered websites which combine usability best practice with solid technical foundations. You will be expected to expand your knowledge and offer your own input in determining the best solution to a problem – this is a role for someone who is looking to push themselves.

You will also be involved in further development of our benchmarking application. This application allows us to evaluate and benchmark websites based on usability principles and best practice. In addition you will be involved in the development of other web applications that we choose to develop based upon commercial opportunities.

Your salary will depend on your experience although we aren’t looking for someone with years of industry experience – instead you will be expected to build on your existing skills and experiences, and learn and develop as your experiences and expertise in web and software development increase.

If this sounds like you, please email through your CV a little more about yourself to developer@prwd.co.uk so we can assess your suitability for the position.

Please note we won’t be dealing with recruitment agencies.

Full Job Specifications and Responsibilities

Preffered technical experience and capabilities:

• Strong PHP 5 skills
• Strong understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Familiarity with jQuery
• Experience with open source PHP packages, such as Zend Framework, Symfony, Drupal and Magento
• Experience with LAMP server administration
• Understanding of on-site search engine optimisation approaches and techniques
• Coding semantic, valid HTML and CSS websites by hand (without having to depend on software such as Dreamweaver). Ideally you’ll have worked with HTML 5, CSS 3 and tools such as TypeKit, but equally be able to build HTML websites and email campaigns with backward compatibility

You will benefit greatly from having:

• Experience developing using Drupal
• Experience developing using Magento
• Experience with Google Analytics
• Experience with Google Website Optimiser
• Experience of rich internet application development with Adobe AIR

Key responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain Drupal content managed websites
• Develop and maintain Magento e-commerce websites
• Collaborate with user experience director and user experience designer
• Develop some expertise in relevant business domains
• Work as part of project teams to deliver to demanding user requirements and timescales
• Provide accurate and realistic effort estimates and manage resulting expectations
• Challenge established thinking and make suggestions for improvement
• Be a trusted point of contact for all technical queries for all of our client websites
• Manage our Linux Business Server
• Contribute to website architecture decisions and performance analysis/tuning
• Own the codebase and build and implementation processes
• Investigate, evaluate and recommend new technologies as appropriate
• Meet and speak with our clients throughout all project stages
• Write articles for our blog relating to your work and other business activities where suitable
• Implement advanced configurations for Google Analytics on client websites, including search monitoring, traffic filters, defining and setting up goals and funnels and setting up full e-commerce monitoring
• To undertake other duties as necessary including duties appropriate to the effective running of the business, include other none directly related housekeeping tasks

Due to the challenging nature of this role, further key responsibilities may be added over time where necessary.

About you

The successful applicant will be:

• Comfortable speaking directly with our clients
• Enthusiastic – somebody happy to be working and wants to go the extra mile to create quality work
• Passionate about providing first class service and support to our customers
• Somebody who can have fun and is happy to help out with other jobs when called upon – and can also pro-actively pitch in with clear ideas in open discussion
• Keen to work with and try new technologies
• Up to speed with the latest developments in the industry – somebody who uses social media, social networking and other techniques to keep on top of the latest developments
• Somebody who brings in new ideas, has a passion for what they do and wants to be at the forefront of their profession

We are looking for an individual whose honesty, integrity, initiative and hands on approach to problem solving shines through. Key personal characteristics include a confident ability, reliability, flexibility and a willingness to contribute to a team working environment.

Personal development

You will have a strong desire to develop yourself personally whilst continually advancing your technical capabilities. In addition you will be expected to play a significant role in the development and growth of our business.

What we offer

• Salary appropriate to experience
• A relaxed dress code, although there may be occasions were more formal appearance is required
• Modern working conditions at PRWD’s office, close to Manchester city centre
• Standard working hours of 37.5 hours per week
• 25 days holiday per year (plus statutory bank holidays)

Are you interested?

If so, please email through your CV with a little more about yourself to developer@prwd.co.uk so we can assess your suitability for the position.

Please note we won’t be dealing with recruitment agencies.

We have recently launched 2 new lead generation websites for one of our longest term clients, packaging company Contact Packaging.

Strapping Machines

This new lead generation website has been developed to provide their potential customers with all the information they need to know about the each of the machines. They sell both automatic strapping machines and semi-auto models EXS 205 and EXS 206, which cater for all the different warehouse and factory requirements.

As with all our client websites this new website has been set-up with Google Analytics, and configured to track all key conversions as well as any outbound links to their other lead generation websites. In addition we have set-up initial Google Adwords campaigns to begin driving targeted traffic to the website. With all these factors now in place it will allow us to start carrying out split testing to improve enquiry conversion rates.

Finally the site was developed using the Drupal content management system (read more on our Drupal development services).

Non-adhesive Barrier Tape

Following on from the hugely successful lead generation website for printed adhesive tape, including their popular custom printed tape service, Contact Packaging now have a dedicated website promoting their non-adhesive barrier tape service.

This new enquiry generation website has been developed to provide a comprehensive overview of both their custom barrier tape and standard barrier tape service.

It features a detailed enquiry form which allows visitors to specify exactly what their requirements are, both in the specification of their tape plus the ability for them to upload their logos and artwork which will be used on their custom tape.

Once again this new website has been set-up with Google Analytics, and configured to track all key conversions as well as any outbound links to their other lead generation websites. We will be monitoring closely the conversion rate of the website, and if we have half as much success in generating enquiries as the printed adhesive tape website, both Contact Packaging and ourselves will be very happy indeed!

As with the strapping machine website this site was developed using the Drupal content management system (read more on our Drupal development services).

Padded Jiffy Bags

Prior to the launch of the strapping machine site and the barrier tape sales lead generation website, we also undertook a small budget project developing a new e-commerce website for Contact Packaging’s padded jiffy bags, or bubble lined mailers as they are also known. This Magento e-commerce site included PRWD’s auto-shipping module developed by PRWD’s lead technical architect Rob Knight, which has since become a highly popular module on Magento Connect.

Magento E-commerce is our e-commerce platform of choice and you read more about our Magento e-commerce services.

Our December 2009 newsletter (register here) featured a review of our 2009 as well as looking ahead at our plans and focus for 2010. Below is this review in full..

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.

Over the last few months, we’ve begun using the Magento e-commerce platform. As leading suppliers of usability analysis, training and evaluation, as well as software development, we’ve worked with a wide range of e-commerce platforms and technologies and are now focusing on Magento as our primary e-commerce platform.

What is Magento?

Magento is an enterprise-ready open source e-commerce platform. What that means in practice is that it provides an equivalent feature set to big-budget e-commerce platforms, but at a substantially lower cost. In place of a single vendor selling licenses and support, there is a global network of providers with skills and knowledge necessary to create and maintain new sites using Magento, headed up by Varien Consulting, the founders of Magento.

What does PRWD bring to Magento?

What we bring is our relentless focus on creating effective user experiences. We’re the North West’s leading usability company – the only North West company to be listed in Econsultancy’s buyers guide – and we’ve also provided training to other digital agencies based here. Visitors to your site might not know anything about the technology you’re using, but they will care about how easy the site is to use. Our usability work ensures that once people are on your site, everything is set up for them to buy as much as possible, as easily as possible.

PRWD’s User Experience Director, Paul Rouke, has written extensively about best practice for online retailers, and gives a training course in that subject. You can find Paul’s blog here – be sure to check out the ‘Most Popular Posts’ in the top right-hand corner for some instantly applicable insights for retailers.

We also bring the technical expertise necessary to get the best out of your Magento site. We’ve begun developing Magento modules which extend the functionality of the system. Having the design and development capacity in one firm means that we can work quickly to update and improve websites once they’ve launched.

How flexible is Magento?

Whilst there are certainly best practices to stick to in e-commerce site design, there’s nothing worse than a fashion site that looks like it should be selling fridges, or a cookie-cutter e-commerce store that fails to build on a company’s brand and marketing strategy. Magento’s modular design means that we can customise design and functionality without limits. Custom shipping charges? Discount vouchers? Twitter or Facebook integration? Advanced analytics and CRM? All of these are possible with Magento, often much more easily than they would be on any other platform.

How can I find out more?

If you want to know more about Magento, or about our e-commerce usability training and consultancy, give us a call on 0161 918 6729 or contact us via our website. Our offices are in Manchester so we’re well placed for anyone in the UK, especially the North West.

Update: you can find more information about our Magento services here

We’ve recently delivered an e-commerce site using the Magento e-commerce platform, which has been very enjoyable to work with. But one key concern for us, with our focus on usability best practice (PRWD’s Paul Rouke delivers a regular training course on exactly that subject), is to ensure that the sites we deliver meet the same high standards that we would recommend to others. Fortunately, Magento provides excellent usability in many of its features and with some careful work on the site design and layout, building a high-usability site proved fairly straightforward.

However, we did encounter one serious usability issue. One of Paul’s recent tips for increasing e-commerce conversion rates was to ensure that delivery costs are displayed to the customer before the checkout process has begun. A last-minute shock during the checkout, as the price leaps due to shipping costs and taxes, can be one of the key factors causing a high drop-out rate during checkout. And Magento does not, by default, show shipping costs on the shopping basket page. What it does show is a ‘shipping cost calculator’, but this is much too complex for ordinary customers, and is unnecessary in most cases. For the case of a retailer shipping within a single country, the standard shipping costs are likely to be predictable and there is no good reason for not showing a standard shipping cost on the basket page.

With that in mind, I set out to create a Magento module that automatically applies the most suitable shipping charge to the customer’s order before it has been placed. This turned out to be a bit more complicated than I imagined, but it has been very educational for me and has resulted in our first open-source module for Magento: the PRWD Auto Shipping module.

How it works

What now follows is a fairly technical description of how the module actually works. If you’re just interested in how you can use it on your own sites, follow the link to the module and read the instructions there.

Magento provides an implementation of the ‘observer pattern‘, a software design pattern which is used to allow different elements of a piece of software to ‘observe’ events that occur elsewhere in the software. In my case, I was interested in observing the events that occur when a customer adds a product to their shopping basket, or updates the contents of the basket. Only once we know what’s in the basket can we calculate which shipping option to use.

Setting up an observer in Magento involves specifying the class and function to call in an XML configuration file and once this has been done, that function will be called every time the event occurs. The Auto Shipping module has a function set up for precisely this purpose; when either a new product is added to the basket, or the contents of the basket are changed, the function is called and the shipping costs are calculated. Thus, when the user visits the shopping basket page, the costs are ready to be displayed.

Magento includes a system for specifying shipping methods and for ranking these shipping methods in order of preference. For example, a ‘Free Shipping’ method may exist for orders over a certain price, and if this method is available (that is, if the order qualifies) then we want to apply that shipping method. We therefore rank Free Shipping as #1. The second option might be a default Flat Rate, a standard shipping charge for normal deliveries. If we rank this as #2, it will be applied only if Free Shipping is not available.

Let’s assume that we’re applying free shipping to any order over £50 in value. If the customer adds £40 worth of goods to the basket, free shipping does not apply and so the standard flat rate for shipping is displayed. However, if the customer adds an extra item to the basket, taking the total over £50, free shipping is then automatically applied. Conversely, the customer then removes an item from the basket and takes the total value below £50, the free shipping will be removed and the standard rate applied in its place.

It’s not a hugely complicated module, but it takes good advantage of Magento’s object-oriented and patterns-based design to provide a usability benefit which should help to boost conversion rates. If you’ve used the module yourself and find it useful, it would be great if you could leave a comment or give some feedback. And if you’re interested in talking to PRWD about Magento-based e-commerce sites, or e-commerce usability needs, you can contact us to discuss those further.