Information visualisation
One of the big challenges of providing usability, accessibility and analytics consultancy services to help businesses improve their customer experience, is to ensure that information is digestible and therefore more readily usable and practical.
There is a trend, particularly in the web analytical arena, for some consultancies to simply create more and more metrics for businesses, rather than working on their clarity. Unfortunately, there is also a tendency for many people to suffer from ‘data blindness’ when confronted with rafts of metrics churned out by multiple tools and technologies. Advertising campaign management, web analytics, CRM, and other intelligence tools should enable businesses to interact better with their customers, but for many actually understanding all that information – particularly across wide portfolio websites – proves very frustrating. Read more…
eBooks – a conversion?
I do not have an eBook yet but being an avid reader, I have been closely watching the developments in that field. I try to keep up with the different types of eBooks and have even tried the Penguin app on my iTouch, but found the eye strain too unpleasant to even read the first page. Not a great user experience for me then. I have so far not been convinced of the need to part with my cash, and there are a few additional reasons for this. Read more…
Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’
“Never try, never fail, those are the words I live by”, or so says Drew Carey’s character Crank in the animated kids film ‘Robots’. I heard these words coming from the back of the car a few days ago as I headed off on holiday with the family for a week in North Devon. You could run a business by that motto but I’m not sure it would last long or be an exciting place to work.
On the contrary, it is the belief of both my team and I that we must try, that sees Foviance opening for business in China this quarter, with a new office in Shanghai. Read more…
Localisation is required when you’re lost in translation
As geographically separate regions of the earth are brought ever closer together by the pervasiveness of the World Wide Web, it is only natural that businesses attempt to extend their reach beyond national boundaries via their online presence.
However, ‘internationalising’ a site is a far more involved process than merely translating it, and without intelligent international research with native users, it is not possible to truly localise a site. Read more…
lowcostholidays.com website conversion ratio increases 17% after implementing Foviance recommendations
London, UK, 13 January 2010 – Foviance, the experts in multi-channel customer experience, were appointed in October 2009 by lowcostholidays.com to evaluate the user experience of their website, ensuring their position as key differentiators in the Travel industry.lowcostholidays.com had conducted research with Foviance in the past and the further opportunities for improvement identified through the latest round proved the benefits of regular interactive testing for enhanced website performance. The direct influence and importance of the design recommendations made was immediately evident by measuring the impact of changes to key areas of the site. Read more…
Customer expectations delivering disappointing experiences
During a recent power failure at home, we all presumed it would be a short term problem; yet more than 12 hours later it was evident that this wasn’t going to be the case. By 4.30am it was time to find out what was going on so my initial thought was e-mail my electrical service provider, of course without power there was no internet so next option was to telephone them. Although I could have found a telephone number from a previous bill, I was reluctant about getting out of bed. Fortunately the blackberry came to the rescue, and with its service package I was able to get internet access and found the electricity company’s website. Read more…
All that money, and still there are usability faults
There has been a new parking barrier set up near to where I live, which was very expensive to install yet has a significant design fault. When queuing up for a ticket, I would notice people in their cars sitting and waiting for a considerable amount of time in regards to collecting a parking ticket and for the barrier to open. The driver and the passengers were also as astonished as myself for their prolonged waiting time, which was down to one simple fault. Read more…
Self-serve or self-frustated?
By Katie Buchanan
Self-serve checkouts/kiosks are transforming the purchasing experience; some shops are beginning to go as far as replacing all of their staff with self-serve machines. These machines are ultimately asking, or sometimes forcing, people to change their habits of a lifetime. From a motivational design perspective, these machines are a benefit as they promote autonomy – our ability to do our shopping ourselves. However it is absolutely vital that our first experience of using these machines is a good one, otherwise we are likely to lose faith and if we are given the choice, will revert back to staff-operated checkouts. Read more…