Wickedweb's established user-centered design (UCD) process ensures the user is considered all the way through the project, resulting in much loved websites and digital solutions.
Delivering the perfect user experience for your customers, is how we meet your objectives.
A website, intranet or any web based application built around our user-centered design process will have a clearly defined strategy, with users at the heart, which ensures site visitors complete the goals you set for them easily, whether the aim is to allow them to find information quickly, encourage them to get in touch, or click to purchase.
All of Wickedweb's design projects follow the same user-centered design process which makes use of techniques such as user research and persona creation, card sorting and sitemap reaction, wireframe analysis and usability testing.
There are four key parts to Wickedweb's user-centered design process:
1. USER RESEARCH AND PERSONA CREATIONOur user research is specifically designed to form the foundation of your entire website strategy and planning. The aim is to understand who the target users are, and how they will use your website. This stage can include stakeholder interviews to gain an understanding of business objectives, user interviews and usability testing, to see first-hand how users complete tasks on your existing website, and your competitors' sites, contextual enquiry, to get even further into the minds of users, and questionnaires, to validate the results of our research.
In addition to a full report and presentation, the main deliverable from the user research is a set of personas. Each persona is a fictional character representing a set of your users and is created after rigorously analysing and categorising the data from the user research. Personas are brought to life and made credible by including personal details (such as a name, age, background and a photo).They capture the most important information about each user group such as goals, behaviour, attitudes and motivations and are a powerful guidance for any digital strategy.
Focus groups are an ideal way for you to find out what information site visitors want (and don't want) on your website, to discover what your website should be doing and to gather feedback on ideas for your new online offering.
A focus group involves a group of 6 to 8 participants discussing a range of topics, led by a highly experienced Wickedweb moderator. The invited participants belong to the demographic groups your site visitors fall into, as discovered during the user research phase. The output from focus groups feeds directly into future website design and strategy decisions.
The focus groups usually take place in our purpose-built meeting room, complete with microphones and cameras. There's an observation room next door with a large two-way mirror between the two rooms so you can watch the focus groups live, in real time, in addition to receiving a full written report outlining findings and a summary presentation.
Card sorting and sitemap creation - Card sorting is a great way to find out how your site visitors expect the information on your site to be structured and labelled. By organising your website around how your users think (and not around how your organisation thinks) your site visitors will be able to find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently. Ultimately, this will increase task completion and conversion rates, improve user experience and encourage repeat visit.
Card sorting involves writing down the name of each piece of content from your website on to its own card and then asking participants to place cards into logical groups. Once they've done this, participants assign a label to each group. They can also suggest new cards for groups and highlight where content is potentially missing.
Wickedweb's highly experienced consultants facilitate the card sort at all times, always encouraging participants to think aloud.
Wickedweb will create and present to you a sitemap, in-line with user expectations, based on a combination of the output from the card sorting process and your business goals . This is in the form of a hierarchical diagram depicting the pages within the site and their relationship.
Using its usability expertise, Wickedweb can construct wireframes for the key pages on your website. The wireframes are specifically designed to make it easy and intuitive for site visitors to achieve your goals for them.
Wireframes are 'sketches' of page designs that contain all the information, content and navigation of a real page, without any graphic design. The information on the wireframes is positioned in a way that allows users to find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently. Wireframes work in much the same way that architectural blue prints define a building's structure.
Wickedweb will convert the wireframes into a working prototype and carry out usability testing on the prototype. We recruit a small number of individuals from your target audience and ask them to complete typical tasks that they would carry out on the finished website.
Based on the results of this usability testing of the prototype, the wireframes are adjusted accordingly.
Wickedweb can provide any of these services in isolation, advising on the most effective techniques to suit your budget, or can deliver a full user-centered design project, on its own, or, as a full service digital agency, as part of a complete digital solution for you.
