1. Informing Decisions through Feedback
How testing reveals what isn’t working before investing in development
Business problem
Over the past four years, our client partner,
a major banking company, has come to us
with redesigned website pages and concepts
describing the future of their banking
business. Prior to launching each website,
they needed to ensure their concepts were
valid, website flow was uncomplicated
and, most importantly, that their products
resonated with their target audience.
Solution
Before spending time and money on
implementation, it is important to understand
users’ reactions to a proposed product.
Through user testing, we observed actual
bank customers using prototypes, sketches,
ideas and mock-ups. These sessions employ
a number of different methods depending on
the type of information our client is seeking
to explore during the particular test. Eye-tracking
helps us understand what draws the
most attention on a site, task-based studies
let us evaluate the usability of a workflow,
and concept testing allows us to validate
ideas before moving into design. Our usability
testing sessions are framed by a discussion
that provides insight into current user
behavior and informs future design changes.
IMPACT
Over the course of project work, user testing
and analysis has helped our client shape
decisions concerning the best concepts
to pursue and which to abandon before
wasting time and money on development.
Simple changes to labeling and architecture
improve usability and ultimately customer
satisfaction. Our research has also surfaced
strategic insights about meeting customer
needs in the future. In every project, we not
only improved the ease of use of the specific
product, but also identify numerous tangential
opportunities for improvement.
The tools to make strategic decisions
We shape our testing methods to answer questions that our
clients have and gain valuable insights from customers across
all types of projects.
A. Provide valuable user-informed recommendations about
which combination of features makes sense to move
forward with and implement.
B. Evaluate the usability of existing designs or concepts to
increase ease of use and customer satisfaction.
C. Compare competitor applications and websites to current
designs to help our clients better position themselves in
the marketplace.
Quantifiable results
The designs we test are almost always informed by some form
of initial research, however that research can only guide a
design and we need to test it in order to validate its usefulness.
By testing before implementing, we not only saved our client
hundreds of hours of wasted development time, but were able
to adjust layout, content and visual design to create a better
customer experience for improved long-term retention.
50%
Increase in ease of
locating essential
site features
70%Increase in comprehension
of site labels
“… we launched our site last Wednesday [and] the new site [blew
away] the old site in just about every metric we tracked.”
-Project Stakeholder
7X More opportunities for improvement
identified outside of original scope
Recommend
Evaluate
Compare