This document discusses creating user-focused websites and applications. It introduces iQ Content, a user experience consultancy, and their expertise in user research, design, analytics, and continuous improvement. The document emphasizes three golden rules for creating lovable websites: being ruthlessly user-focused through user research and design, committing to continuous evolution based on user feedback, and ensuring organizational alignment behind user-centered strategies and processes. Case studies and examples throughout illustrate how to apply these principles.

1. Beyond usable: creating lovable (and
profitable) websites and applications
Morgan McKeagney, Managing Director, iQ Content,
T44U, 21/11/08

2. Introducing iQ Content
 Leading European user-centred design
consultancy
 Better websites for everyone: users and
organisations
 Core areas of expertise:
• User-centred strategy & design
• Usability
• Content
• Web analytics
• Search
 Architects and builders
 Researchers, innovators & teachers:
ongoing R&D underpins everything we do
 Ireland’s only Google enterprise &
analytics partner
Clever organisations use iQ:

3. Selected clients

4. Some of our work with T4 (1/1,000)

5. Some of our work with T4 (2/1,000)

6. Some of our work with T4 (3/1,000)

7. But we don’t just work with T4….

8. Let’s go back in time…

9. Back in 1996, we used to search with
tools like this…..

10. Then these guys came along….

11. And gave us this:

12. Most my life, my book shopping
happened in places like this…
Remember Hanna’s?

13. Circa 2000, I fell in love with Amazon

14. What have these two got in common?

15. Google’s Philosophy: Users First
1. Focus on the user and all else will
follow.
From its inception, Google has focused on providing the best user
experience possible. While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able
to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly
refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site
By always placing the interests of the user first, Google has built
the most loyal audience on the web. And that growth has come not through TV ad
campaigns, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another.
Extract from Google Philosophy

16. Customer focus: the Amazon way
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO
“The Institutional Yes”, Harvard Business Review, October 2007

17. User focus: better for everyone – the
customer and the business

18. Simplicity is genius
“Why can’t everything be as easy as Google?”

19. User experience hierarchy
“Desirable Online Experiences: Taking Web Sites Beyond Useful And Usable”,
Forrester Research, August 2007

20. Mini-case study: iQ lovable
banking

21. Most banking experiences suck…
“Desirable Online Experiences: Taking Web Sites Beyond Useful And Usable”,
Forrester Research, August 2007

22. Understand the customer: meet Susan

23. Understand her goals

24. Create interfaces that make it easy (and
pleasurable) to address these goals

25. Make everyday things a pleasure

26. Surpass expectations – anticipate and
over-deliver

27. Given time & smarts, even bankers can
be made (semi) lovable
“Desirable Online Experiences: Taking Web Sites Beyond Useful And Usable”,
Forrester Research, August 2007

28. How? Magical tour through a
user-centred design process.

29. Typical user-centred project lifecycle
 Each phase builds on what happens previously, with
iterative feedback loops going both ways
 User testing and internal validation at each stage
 Project doesn’t end when site goes live
 Users kept centre-stage at all times: Decision to make –
what works best for Carmel?

30. Design: not just about pretty pictures
 Design isn’t pretty pictures
 Rather, it’s problem solving
 Specifically, creating interfaces that
work
• for organisations (higher conversions)
• for customers (easy and intuitive to use

31. Analysis: user definition - moving from
general to specific

32. User analysis & definition: personas

33. Sample Personas

34. Analysis: content organisation before

35. Analysis: content organisation after

36. Design: Information architecture

37. Design: Information design and
wireframes

38. Design: From Wireframe to Visual Design

39. Visual Design: From wireframe to
graphical interpretation

40. Visual Design: same wireframe, another
interpretation

41. Get your customers involved – listen to
what they tell you…
user test clip # 1: who’s disabled?

42. Measure what matters – and act on what
you find (a conversion story)
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1. GA setup
2. GA review
3. Client makes
web site changes
Without GA
With GA = 3x

43. Do once, repeat often: embrace kaizen
….“kaizen” – continuous improvement

44. insight + action = continuous improvement
Kaizen techniques….

45. Sample kaizen programme
1: Monthly web analytics analysis

2: Monthly analysis of support queries

3: Quarterly customer engagement

4: Quarterly peer and sector analysis

5: Quarterly analysis of internal & external feedback

Output? Prioritised plan for incremental CMS enhancements.

46. Wrap-up: Being Lovable -
Golden Rules

47. Rule No 1: The best sites are genuinely
& ruthlessly user-focused.

48. Know your customers
…and give them what they want.

49. Rule No 2: Evolution, not
revolution - continually
evolve in response to customer
needs and changing priorities

50. Rule No. 3: A site can only be as
good as the organisation (and the
people) that creates and maintains
it.

51. Get the organisation organised….
Don Norman, Principle, Nielsen Norman Group
“The Invisible Computer”, MIT Press, 1999

52. Being lovable: 3 golden rules
 No silver bullet, but three golden rules:
 # 1: Be ruthlessly user-focused: understand and
engage with your customers; follow a user-centred
design process
 # 2: Commit to continuous improvement: Kaizen!
Evolution not revolution; demonstrate systematic
progress
 # 3: Get the organisation organised: appropriate
strategy, resources, skills, processes and buy-in
essential

53. Thanks for your attention & good luck!
Contact Details:
Morgan McKeagney
Managing Director
iQ Content Ltd
Visit us online at iqcontent.com:
 Get in touch: discounted rates for T44U attendees
 Sign-up for free monthly newsletter: iCubed
 Get useful user experience tips from our blog: iQ Blog
 Find out more about User Experience at the iQ Bootcamp: Dublin, April 2009
e: morgan@iqcontent.com
t: +353 1 817 0768
www.iqcontent.com

54. Better websites for everyone