Success on the web begins with a clear compelling message and succeeds with good usability. Whether your goal is increased profit, customer education or signups, good usability will help. If you truly want to improve your site's user experience, we can help reach your goal.

We offer several services to measure and improve both the persuasive content of the site and the sites usability engineering or "user experience".

1. Heuristic Review -
We do an in depth expert review of the site checking for compliance with our set of usability guidelines which measure:

Content
Persuasion
Navigation
Technical
Usability
Graphic Design

Using screen shots and clear descriptions, we outline all areas of non compliance. We make specific recommendations for improving these issues along with projected ROI. We define which issues give the biggest return for the least effort and define the "best practice" approach to improving your site.

2. User Testing with Video
Direct User Testing with video capture of the screen and the test candidate, is an ideal tool for improving your site either during the design stage or after your existing site has been launched. If you are still in the design stages, user testing is an ideal way to reduce design costs and dramatically improve the conversion rate at launch time. Our prototyping tools can also allow rapid testing of a variety of messages and protocols before any code is written.
For an existing site, user testing will provide the insights you need to make significant improvements to the site. Our user testing goes well beyond what many labs offer. Most labs focus on task completion alone. We also measure: motivation, brand impact, risk. incentive, clarity of message, graphic impact and more. We rarely test in a lab since people behave differently in a lab setting then in a 'normal" setting. We do not subcontract our testing to grad students or novices.

Deliverables include full video tests including event logs to allow easy review. Every click, keystroke and application launch is recorded and indexed, along with our tags to quickly locate clips which relate to tasks or questions asked. Highlight clips are often prepared and typically video test results are delivered in person to your web marketing team.

All user tests include personality profiles, customer demographics and learning styles research on each test candidate to improve understanding and persona analysis. We believe that this aspect is essential and also a unique offering in the usability world.

Testing your site when there are major usability flaws often wastes time and money because the test candidates are unable to get past these obvious barriers. An expert review will identify the barriers and remove them prior to user testing to provide deeper insights into a site's persuasive abilities. The initial assessment is free. You may wish to read our short article on the typical stages of site evolution.

Usability testing - Download a 3 minute video showing examples of usability testing.
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- Awarded in 2008

3. Site Architecture - Conversion Point Architecture
We architect your site using our copyrighted approach named Conversion Point Architecture. This process recently received a top ten Web Designers Award in the Northeast in Entrepreneur Magazine (june 2008).

First we identify the site objectives and from that point all design begins. We create the sales paths, identify the personas and incorporate the ideal message and content (along with your direct input). Your web designers will receive detailed architectural designs which outlines all page elements, sales paths, decision processes and site components and behaviors. Next the graphic design team develops site look and feel and we merge the wireframe design with your look and feel. Next step is to user test the prototype. We check our concepts and messaging and assumptions. With all this information in place, the site is ready for coding and final user testing.

Conversion Point Architecture delivers: quicker design, lower design costs, lower revision costs, and higher conversion rates. Call us to find out more about this sensible, sales oriented and usable approach to web design or read our brief article on the subject. Read in full.