redesigning tcs.com with remote research
DESCRIPTION
This case study will demonstrate how remote user research shaped the redesign of TCS.com.TRANSCRIPT
Redesigning TCS.com with Remote Research Chris Farnum | Senior Information Architect | Enlighten
Internet User Experience 2008
April 2, 2008
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About the Client - TCS
IT Services, Business Solutions and Outsourcing HQ – Mumbai, India Part of Tata Group, one of India’s largest industrial
conglomerates and most respected brands TCS has over 108,000 IT consultants in 47 countries TCS Annual Sales: $4.3 billion (2006-2007 fiscal year) Known for quality results – CMMI Maturity Level 5
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Project Goal – Redesign TCS.com
Global Message: Position TCS as a global company and highlight the message of the Global Network Delivery Model™
Brand building: Firmly establish TCS positioning and support the “Experience Certainty” campaign now and into the future
Demand generation: Create an environment to support Demand Generation using the new website
User-centric Design: Design and Develop site based on key user needs and tasks (i.e., ‘outside in’ vs. ‘inside out’)
Technical Infrastructure: Develop the new site on a scaleable Content Management System to facilitate content development & maintenance - Microsoft Sharepoint 2007
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Project Overview
Engagement Plan
Facilitated Work Sessions
Analysis of Key Internal and External Factors
Conduct User Research
Project Requirements
Strategic Assessment Project Requirements
Information Architecture
User Interface Functional Specifications
Technical Specifications
Art Comps
Test Plan / User Acceptance Testing
Launch Specifications
Site Specification
Art Production
Programming
Integration
Quality Assurance
User Acceptance Testing
Staging
Deployment
Final Site
Update
Monitor
Measure
Report
Improve
On-Going Improvements
DEFINE DESIGN BUILD
Feature / Scope Definition
Technical & Implementation
Recommendations
Preliminary UI
Art Comps
Strategy Requirements Design Build Maintenance
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Research Step One – Stakeholder Interviews
Enlighten and TCS staff conducted 28 group interview sessions on site in Chennai and Mumbai and by conference call with:Practice LeadsDelivery HeadsBusiness Unit ManagersSales LeadersHuman Resource LeadersGlobal RepresentativesExecutive Leadership
Estimate: 60-70 participants
Photo courtesy of Scott Mills
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TCS.com Site March 2007 – Home
Long, crowded, and overwhelmingHigh abandonment rate
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Original Site’s Organization & Navigation
Left navigation
Overlapping choices
Options not grouped by type – apples and oranges
Prioritization of choices could be improved
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Original Site – Services Channel Landing Page
Calls to action need to be improved
Channel navigation has no on-states
Content could use more structure and editing
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Interim Site – Launched Spring 2007
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Interim Site Channel Content
Channel navigation within a closed page element.
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User Research Part One - Overview
Research goals – to gain a better understanding of… Buying cycle and research process Site content and features Brand attributes and positioning How users see the relationships and grouping between different types of content19 Participants Customers representing North America, Ibero-America and UK (15) Analysts (2) Career Seekers (2)User Segments Customer: C-Level Customer: Business Unit Manager Industry Influencers Career Seeker (Mid-career)
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User Research Part One - Methods
Remote user research allowed us to connect with users in their own offices while we remained in ours.
Sessions consisted of: Interview questions
Likert Scale questions (scale of 1-10) to measure the importance of site features and content
Discussion questions about buying cycle and brand perception
Online card sorting observed in real time to inform organization of content Remote user testing tool: UserVue
http://www.techsmith.com/uservue.asp Online card sorting tool: WebSort
http://websort.net/ Analysis with EZ-Calc
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Remote Research with UserVue
Moderator(Enlighten, Ann Arbor)
Participant(US, S. America,
Europe…)
TCS Observer(Chicago)
TCS Observer(Mumbai)
Desktop sharing via UserVue
Voice via conference call line
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UserVue Kung Fu
Normally UserVue places a call directly to the participant – domestic calls ONLY.
For international calling, have UserVue dial an international conference call bridge line.
Send detailed instructions to particpants with invitations for accessing the prototype and the conference call.
Watch out for spam filters! Be flexible in case of poor connections. Leave plenty of time between
sessions if you want to capture video. Practice!
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Card Sorting Online with WebSort
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User Research Part One - Findings
Top 5 Features Ranked by Average “Importance” Score (1 – 10) Case studies (7.8) International locations/language (6.9) White papers (6.4) Articles about Innovation/R&D (6.4) Press Releases (6.3)
Recommendation: Provide easy access to these basic types of content and make certain that they are well structured and well written. Also, take care to NOT overplay the marketing message.
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User Research Part One – Findings cont.
Key Observations: Overall, users were comfortable sorting content into groupings by Industries and
Services/Solutions. Products, enterprise software, development environments formed reasonably
cohesive groupings but were more difficult to place within the whole organization. Case studies were easily recognizable and often grouped together on the basis of
document type. Certain individual topics like eLearning and enterprise software were more problematic.
Recommendations: Create a site structure and navigation system that equally supports users who wish to
browse either by horizontal services or vertical industries. Provide alternate ways to find content by type (case study, white paper, etc.) TCS Products are relevant both within their industry contexts and also aggregated as a
type of offering. Create special categories as needed to accommodate topics like Enterprise Software
(e.g. SAP).
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User Research Part One – Card Sort Diagram
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User Research Part One - Outcomes
Key Outcomes Strategic recommendations and
prioritized feature set Report to client stakeholder
governance board Personas for high-priority user
segments CIO Business Unit Manager Career Seeker Industry Analyst
High level information architecture recommendations
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Proposed High Level Information Architecture
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User Research Part Two - Overview
Goal - get feedback on initial idea for key pages and features:HomeSolutions/Offerings landing pageServices description detail pageAbout, Contact TCSTCS Worldwide.
Participants - 9 participants (volunteers from part one)6 customers1 analyst1 career seeker1 TCS stakeholder
After five interviews, we updated the prototype to incorporate the feedback we had received so far.
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User Research Part Two – Prototyping Methods
Remote user testing with a clickable prototype IA + Design collaboration = Medium Fidelity Prototype created with Visio + SWIPR http://www.swipr.com/ Task based user testing sessions Measure feedback via Likert Scale Questions
Ease of Use: 1-10 Usefulness: 1-10
Clients and internal team members observe live remotely and watch video captured from sessions
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Prototype Version A - Home
Industries not expected here
Useful feature but not noticed
Too much duplication
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Prototype Version B - Home
Industries and Offerings split, “Solutions” gone
New layout with Flash promo area better shown, No main navigation bar on Home
Content filter tool now more prominent
Thought Leadership instead of Best Practices
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More Prototype Pages – Channel Landing
Global Navigation bar
Interactive channel landing pages
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More Prototype Pages – Topic Node
Channel navigation
Calls to action
Channel content
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More Prototype Pages – Interactive Map
Details available via user user interaction
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User Research Part Two - Outcomes
Overall Acceptance of the prototype was good. Scores improved from version A to version B Overall combined average score was approx 7 out of 10 Some concerns about usefulness of article content
Revised site architecture – Solutions Offerings and Solutions Adjusted labels – e.g. Best Practices Thought Leadership Repositioned tool for finding Case Studies and other resources Adjusted site navigation and approach to main channels on Home Worldwide map concept proved very popular Contact Us scores improved dramatically in version B
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Revised High Level Information Architecture
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Next Step - Designing the Solution
Next steps: Revised wireframes and created a Functional Specification Content types and descriptive metadata attributes 9 Core Page Types for the content management system
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Designing the Solution – Functional Requirements
Global Page Components Wireframes & Page Requirements
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Designing the Solution – Moving from Design to Build
Design Comps Production Art Site Inventory Site Copy and Content Creation of HTML page templates Content Management System implementation Flash development QA Testing UAT Hosting…
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The Big Moment Arrives!
TCS.COM Relaunch – February 2008
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TCS.com Relaunch - Home
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TCS.com Relaunch – Channel Landing
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TCS.com Relaunch – Topic Node
Screenshot – with callouts?
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TCS.com Relaunch – Content Article
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TCS.com Relaunch – Worldwide Locations
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TCS.com Relaunch – Worldwide: Google Map
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TCS.com Relaunch – Contact Us
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Web Analytics & Measurement
Our scorecard so far…
Home page abandonment rate is down Offerings is the most popular channel Industries Channel funnels traffic to Offerings About isn’t often the first section visited, but gets the second highest
amount of traffic Worldwide pages – 8% of site traffic Thought Leadership gets the fewest visits of any of the main sections, but
includes all main visitor groups: investors, careers, client content. Often followed by white papers and case studies in the same visit Visits occurs late in sessions, not right away
Before After
Ave Pages Per Visit 3.43 pages 4.5 pages
Visit Length 2:35 mins 3 mins
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Web Analytics – Home Page “Heat Map”
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Final Thoughts
Prioritizing features within a large distributed organization is challenging - user research helps in making tough decisions
Try remote user testing: When local users are hard to recruit
and schedule When user segmentation requires
geographic diversity, but you are on a tight schedule
Prototyping is a great way to make your mistakes earlier and get your internal team and the client engaged
Go to India if you get the chance!Photo courtesy of Scott Mills
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In Closing
Questions and Comments?
Download:
This presentation is available online via Slideshare:http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisFarnum
Contact:
Chris Farnum, Senior Information [email protected]
EnlightenInteractive Marketing | Web Development | Strategic Consulting
Ann Arbor, Michigan | www.enlighten.com