News
End of financial year
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
YES, you can pre-pay for usability services for your website by June 30 and receive a discount of 10% on a range of services including Usability Testing, Information Architecture development and validation, Online customer surveys, Expert usability reviews and Accessibility audits. UX Research will work with you to provide a scope of work prior to invoicing and adjust this according to your requirements once fully known. Contact us on 1300 88 65 20.
Digital Customer Experience Strategy
Friday, April 17th, 2009
Recently when talking to a client I was explaining how we’d just completed a piece of work defining requirements of a customer segment, and how the outcomes were of strategic importance to the company, and they said they didn’t know UX Research did that sort of work, thinking of us as doing more ‘nuts and bolts’ usability testing. In fact I’ve been involved in that type of work for many years - nearly all usability work we do has some strategic component, it always considers the business goals of a system, analyses how its users interact with it, and informs management about product positioning and direction as much as the IT staff about detail improvements. So, I thought I had better make it clear, and have added this as a specific service in the Services Section.
We provide strategic advice to organisations on how they can effectively optimise their online product to meet customer expectations. This is known as Digital Customer Experience Strategy. It involves an understanding of your organisation’s business goals, the expectations of the target market, their current interactions with your online product - organisation - brand - (and those of your competitors), and how to improve it in line with best practice.
Introducing Canberra-based partner Couch Creative
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
UX Research’s Canberra-based creative partner is Couch Creative. Following successful work delivered for Government clients that involved a combination of user research and testing and creative design, it was decided to formalise the association between the two organizations. Couch are particularly valued for their scientific approach to a broad range of services to provide integrated solutions.
Couch Creative provides clients a versatile and valuable suite of services that span the lifecycle and covers multiple aspects of the way any business communicates and transacts with its customers. Their team comprises highly experienced consultants, creative directors, writers, designers, information architects, editors, artists, producers, programmers and poets. All are formally trained and applies a great deal more science and disciplined analysis to the development of than traditional agencies have ever done. Higher quality analysis translates into higher quality creative execution.
In 2009 it’s about business strategy and cost efficiency through customer centric design
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
In a time of financial uncertainty and recession, some companies are taking steps to increase business efficiency and reach new markets - increasing online sales, allowing more customer self-service and positioning themselves as best of breed. They can do this by understanding their position relative to their competitors, finding out what their customers want and expect of them, and then making online systems easier to use. Customer centric design is good business strategy and ultimately it saves money.
In 2009 UX Research will continue to provide expert outsource consultancy services that will improve online systems for business. We can do this better and more efficiently than other companies because we have the experience and a light ‘footprint’ that means you deal directly with the expert.
Merry Christmas
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
The team at UX Research wishes you a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday. Thanks to all those clients and friends who have supported us during 2008. The year has seen an expansion of our network of expertise to include other services, and the delivery of increasingly strategic consulting advice that adds directly to an organisation’s bottom line. Next year we have some interesting projects lined up involving both improving the user experience of online signup processes and undertaking interaction design on large transactional websites. So see you in 2009!
Major Telco benchmarking study completed
Monday, December 1st, 2008
UX Research is proud to announce the completion of a major usability study for Vodafone Australia, benchmarking the quality of the user experience on the website through a comparative evaluation against local competitors Telstra, Three, Optus and Virgin against a range of usability criteria. The analysis also involved a 20 person task-based usability study with eyetracking and an accessibility compliance audit. This work provides Vodafone with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their website with structured recommendations for improvements in line with best practice. It aims to position Vodafone as best of its kind for customer satisfaction and significantly increase ecommerce and self service via the web. The work demonstrates the increasingly strategic nature of usability work.
Testlab - Our new alliance partner
Monday, November 10th, 2008
UX Research is pleased to announce a new alliance partner, Testlab. This means we can now offer a full end-to-end service covering technical aspects of quality assurance. TestLab provides rigorous, independent testing that lowers risk and maximises ROI when developing or introducing new technology. This includes systems, hardware, software, product comparative reviews, benchmarking and performance testing. Their expertise covers broadband performance, wireless systems, security, RFID, anti-spam, anti-virus, content filters and the design/build of specific test facilities. Testlab are an impressive group with experienced staff and solid methodologies.
Usability in Agile Development White Paper
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
The industry presentations about Usability and Agile Development showed how usability can be successfully integrated into short development timeframes through techniques such as usability consulting and multiple iterations of fast turn-around, lower-cost testing that is more accessible to the business. As a follow-up, UX Research has published a whitepaper Usability and Agile Development (1.6 Mb PDF file) in the Resources Section of this website.
DEEWR Tender Win
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Successful in bid for a recent major Government tender, UX Research is working with Canberra-based design partner Couch Creative to redesign the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) web presence in line with best practice and user requirements using Agile methods. The work will develop a user-centred portal that rationalises a large number of disparate websites, using the latest in Web 2.0 to promote increased customer interaction.
Agile and STANZ
Saturday, August 16th, 2008
UX Research was among the presenters at STANZ (Software Testing Australia New Zealand), which was attended by around 150 delegates. See the program here
This is Australia’s premier conference for software testing which was attended by all organisations serious about using quality methods in testing. The presentation on how Usability Testing integrates with Agile methods was well-received, and somewhat novel being the only talk about usability. However there were many other sessions about new paradigms in development and other methods like SCRUM.
