User Experience
You want to ensure that your customers make purchases on your web site. You want to ensure they find the information they need. And that they keep coming back. For a B2B site you will want to make sure that your customers can go about their tasks with ease. For a shoot-em-up game you'll want to ensure your users feel stretched, even exhausted after an arduous game. There is a range of disciplines that are needed to make this happen - involving user-centred design, information architecture, interaction design, and graphic design, to name a few. Understanding the business need, the customers, users and other stakeholders, and developing the site map and wireframes, are all necessary to design to the required user experience. We provide all these services.
Information Architecture
Web site design very quickly become complex. What is the best structural organization of the set of pages? What are the best labels and titles? What navigation scheme will work best for all our user groups? And what are the best names for the many calls to action (the buttons, links, and menu items)? These questions must be posed and then considered early in the design process. And stakeholders from Marketing, Brand, Strategy and Development must be brought in to help expose the ramifications of candidate designs before any working implementations have been built. We can create the necessary models, such as site maps, that facilitate early feedback.
User Centred Design
By user-centred design we mean the involvement of users throughout
the design process - from the very outset.
Pre-conceived notions of users must be discarded - instead we
must get to know them as individuals. To do this we apply a range
of techniques. We interview and observe the intended users in their
place of work, we develop models of their tasks, and we develop
descriptions of user groups. Through this we gain insight into users,
and into their tasks. All this feeds directly into the design of
the software or web site that is intended for their use. Our experience
on numerous projects has proven this to be the best way to create
customer satisfaction.
Usability
Usability is a measure of the support a software product or web
site gives its users in helping them complete their tasks effectively
and efficiently.
Before product release as part of Customer Acceptance Tests, you
will want to ensure the system can be used efficiently by the intended
users. Are the menus clear and understood as intended? Are your
users able to use the system to achieve their objectives and to
do so efficiently, and even enjoyably? The specification of usability
in terms of tangible measures that enable your development staff
to aim for clear goals, arises out of a clear understanding of users,
their tasks, the environment they work or play in, and the systems
they already use. Both objective measures i.e. productivity, and
subjective measures i.e. those which users will apply, can be determined.
We base our work on international standards (including ISO 9241
and ISO 13407) and on best practice arising
from our experience on a range of projects in many industries for
various clients. Read about this work on our case studies page.
User Interface Process - Assessment & Improvement
The "look and feel" of your product is the "user interface".
They are one and the same. This requires both graphic design and
interaction design. And more. It is a multi-disciplinary process;
a user-centred design process. Are you able to specify usability
criteria correctly for each product developed, and do your development
groups meet these criteria repeatedly and consistently? Do your
project plans and Quality Manuals ensure the correct User-Centred
Design activities are scheduled and resourced? Do the intermediate
project deliverables and design documents contain the correct information?
Are your document templates comprehensive? In short, does your
development process as actually followed by your staff, adhere
to best practice in user-centred design? We can assess your organisation's
web site and software development processes and if required to,
also assist with implementing improvements.
User Needs Analysis - User Research
A sound basis for developing software and web sites, requires
stakeholder needs to be understood and then to be documented. The
resulting "User Requirements" document must state the necessary
functions the system must provide, and the overall characteristics
known as non-functional requirements, such as usability, performance,
response times, security, maintainability etc. Are you able to determine
your users' requirements and to specify both their functional and
non-functional requirements? Are you able to extend this to the other
stakeholders? We can ensure your development teams begin product
development from a sound footing by starting from a correct Requirements
document comprehensively specifying the requirements of all stakeholders
including users.
Software Engineering
Developing software applications and web sites requires
conducting many activities - Requirements, Analysis, Design, Build,
Test and Maintenance. Delivering products to time, budget and quality
criteria require a thorough understanding of each of these activities
so as to tailor them to particular characteristics of your product,
the skills of the development team, and the industry segment or
competitive market. We can assist you in making the right decisions.
Additionally, with experience in the Unified Modelling Language (UML),
we can support your development teams in specifying, modelling, writing,
and validating software models and specification documents.
Software Process - Assessment & Improvement
Are you able to deliver software
and web sites to plan and to budget? Are you confident your project
plans and intermediate deliverables reflect best practice in the
industry? Are your software quality manuals understood and followed
by your development staff? With experience in the Capability Maturity
Model, we can set you on the road to controlling your software
development process, so that you can reliably and predictably deliver
software applications and web sites.
In each of the above areas, ash-consulting.com
can offer:
Bespoke Training
On-site Participation in Team Work
Workshop Facilitation
Assessment