What Foviance learned in November

With so many channels used for communications and customer service today, there’s a risk that the brand experience will appear fractured. If website visitors cannot see the catalogue, TV advert, email newsletter and online presence as being part of the same journey or conversation, they are unlikely to pursue the relationship.

Following the launch of WebAbacus 5.2, we’ve been able to make better use of analytics to track marketing campaigns across different channels. We’ve been able to evaluate how each channel contributed to the flow of website traffic. This not only allows us to identify the most successful channels, but also to understand the journeys that different user groups take through the brand experience. This sort of insight can really improve the overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

We’ve been mapping our minds this month too, which is a scary thought! People don’t think in a linear fashion, so mindmaps are a great way to model many projects. They help to make links, both mentally and visibly, between topics and groups of findings in a way that is far more difficult using pages of linear notes. Everything is visible at a glance, and using mindmapping software you can filter by tags so that you can focus on one thing at a time. Mindmaps can make the process of analysing test results much easier and can help everyone to remember the big picture.

We’ve also been working on rapid prototyping. This involves working alongside designers and developers in the usability labs to quickly implement recommended changes and test their impact. It’s an iterative process that is ideal when developing an interface from scratch and when time and budgets allow. In such a fast-moving project, there’s no room for politics and it’s essential that someone from the client company is on hand to sign off on business requirements.