Usability and User Experience
Phase 5 has been helping organizations use the Internet to achieve
business objectives for more than a decade.
Our international experience spans a range of sectors including
government, banking, insurance, health, publishing, media and retail.
We take a unique approach to the online user experience called
Usatility™. Usatility combines traditional
usability research, quantitative modelling and advanced data collection
techniques.
Learn more about:
Usatility™
Our experience has taught us that it takes more than usability
to create a winning online user experience. It takes an understanding
of what creates a valuable online user experience that achieves
business objectives.
Based on research with tens of thousands of online users in sectors
spanning government to banking to retail to media to law and health,
we have developed Usatility - a proprietary methodology to help
organizations meet their business objectives.
Usatility takes a more holistic view of the online experience and
employs leading edge methodologies in usability testing, online
visitor profiling and quantitative modelling.
Usability Capabilities and Experience
Phase 5 can help you ensure that your online product, service or
channel is user friendly. We work with market leaders in several
sectors to assess the usability of existing online offerings and
build user-friendly new ones.
Our services include:
- Market assessment and requirements analysis.
Phase 5's quantitative and qualitative research professionals
ensure that your online product or service is based on a clear
understanding of user needs and market and audience dynamics.
As research experts, Phase 5 uses a range of techniques including
quantitative surveys, in-depth interview, focus groups, contextual
enquiry and best practices identification.
- Strategy and Business Requirements Planning.
We work with your core team and stakeholders inside and outside
your organization to develop a strategy for your online offering.
Our skilled facilitators and strategists have worked with groups
in many sectors to clarify their thinking and plan strategies
before online ventures move into production. We can capture and
synthesize the best of your team's thinking and act as user advocates.
- Paper prototyping. A preliminary technique
for assessing usability, paper prototyping involves depicting
a future application with nothing more than a pencil and paper.
Fast and low-cost, paper prototypes can help you identify issues
before the application is even designed - saving valuable development
effort.
- NEW! Information
architecture. Usable online offerings are built on solid
information architecture that marry your objectives and users'
cognitive psychology. We build site schematics and interaction
designs based on users' conceptualizations and taxonomies. Learn
more about our information architecture services in this case
study for a major media organization.
- Expert heuristic reviews. Based on our years
of usability testing experience, Phase 5's usability consultants
can review your Web offering and provide a thorough assessment
of potential issues and solutions.
- In-person lab-based usability testing. Lab-based
testing offers the most thorough approach to identifying usability
issues for existing offerings or those in development. Our interviewers
have conducted thousands of lab-tests and are trained in a variety
of techniques to elicit the most valuable feedback from participants.
Phase 5's on-site, state-of-the-art testing facility provides
the ultimate venue for qualitative feedback.
- NEW! Remote usability
testing. When distance or budget prevents you from being
there in person, remote usability testing enables you to test
users where they live and work. Through cutting-edge software
and a secure net-based connection, Phase 5's remote testing solution
ensures a high level of qualitative feedback.
- NEW! Automated
usability testing and benchmarking. A valuable way to
validate qualitative testing, track the user experience or obtain
benchmarks, automated testing tracks users as they perform tasks
on your site or your competitors'. Automated testing is a cost-effective
way of obtaining data from larger samples of users and integrated
behavioural information with users' perceptions.
- Trials and Pilot Testing. Before launching
an online service, many organizations release a trial or beta
version to customers to gain feedback on the product and make
any final adjustments before full roll-out. Phase 5 has expertise
in organizing trials and collecting and analyzing feedback from
trial participants.
Performance Measurement for Online Ventures
Is your online channel, product or service meeting its objectives?
Phase 5 develops and implements Internet performance measurement
programs that help clients understand how their online ventures
are performing and what specific attributes they need to manage
to hit performance targets.
- Developing Metrics. Knowing what to measure
is a critical first step that is sometimes not given the attention
it deserves. Phase 5 works with clients to identify the key performance
indicators for critical business objectives.
- Benchmarking. Once metrics are identified,
Phase 5 develops a customized research solution to gather and
analyze the appropriate data. We draw on internal and external
data sources and use a variety of techniques such as visitor surveys,
automated usability testing and benchmarking.
- Tracking. We track performance on key indicators
to ensure that you meet your objectives and track changes in evolving
user expectations.
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