We get asked this question a lot, especially when we suggest that a client needs to run some usability testing to make sure the solution we’re proposing works for their target market.

The reason we get the question

“I’m paying you to design and build the right website for my target market. You’ve done the research into the market and you’re also the professionals. Surely if you have done your job right, then it will work great and doesn’t need usability testing?”

It’s actually a pretty fair argument when you think about it. It’s not quite accurate though. No one ever truly knows everything about how a particular target market works or behaves, especially when introducing something new to them.

The answer

Recently, I heard an analogy on why you need usability testing. I can’t remember who exactly said this although I’m certain it was while I was at SxSWi this year. It’s this:

It’s the story of the tailored suit. You can select the fabric, take the measurements, select the style, and create the suit. But it hardly ever fits first time. That’s why you go for a fitting and the master suit maker nips and tucks around you while you’re wearing the ‘nearly there’ suit. Usability testing is that fitting session. It helps us before those nips and tucks to make the experience perfect.

It was the best explanation of why you need usability testing I’ve heard for a while.

A few weeks ago I attended a UKFast roundtable talking about the marketing mix and how it’s changing especially with more and more digital marketing channels opening up. Check out the video below to see me rambling on with a few other clever Manchester people.

This week I attended one of the Marketing Industry Network events in Manchester which discussed the future of the independent digital agency. The panel including agencies like Cool Pink, Code Computerlove and Chapter8 and come question time I asked whether the change within the industry is been driven by clients or agencies. It was interesting discussion and inspired this post which will explore how the structure of the two sides of the agency/client relationship seem to affect the working relationship, projects undertaken, and results gathered.

We’ll cover this is this order:

• Agency structure
• Client structure
• How this affects projects and results
• The future

Agency structure

Agencies can obviously be structured in many different ways and there are probably more ways than I could ever think of. Having said this however we can normally say that there is what is seen as a standard agency model driven by departments.

One department does the creative, one the technical build, one the testing / QA, one media planning and so on. Projects are passed from department to department to be worked on and generally go back and forth. The departments don’t always communicate that much with each other. They are lead by the account director or executive who’s the communication path to the client. This model is a pretty natural output of a growing company in it’s attempt to cope with scale.

I will call the above the silo approach. Team’s are quite separate and not all that collaborative.

The other way of working is focused much more on collaboration. Whether it’s a lot of smaller teams with someone from each discipline in each, or, in the case of a smaller company, one giant collaborative team.

Client structure

A similar situation exists within clients as well. A spectrum between collaborative and silo based organisations. The difference with clients is also where the decision makers lie for different projects. Where they lie can make a dramatic difference to what projects are prioritised and why, and how the relationship can be affected.

First lets discuss structure. In my experience there are a lot of different structure possibilities within organisations and a lot of this is dependent on how they have grown. Here’s a couple that we have come across in charge:

• Business managers / Business development
• Direct Business (If the company has a retail arm)
• Managing director / CEO
• Marketing
• Ecommerce
• IT

It makes such a huge difference who is responsible for a digital/ecommerce project as to the results which we’ll discuss later. The stereotypes of the above departments / decision makers can be very true. IT are generally more interested in how much work it means for them and security (rightly so), business development and CEOs are very much about the bottom line and marketing tend to be more aesthetically orientated.

The key with how the client is structured however is less who is the point of contact, and more about the level of collaboration within the organisation. If each part hardly ever talks, it means something very different to if they have regular catch up and joint planning.

How this affects projects and results

If you’ve worked at any agency for a period of time, you know some projects go better than others, some seem simpler, even hen the project is more complex. Often the less complex the project, in a paradoxical way, can be harder.

I believe that the alignment of client and agency structure can play a big part in how well they work together. You could argue that a good account handler should protect the agency and client from any differences that can cause friction. To a certain extent that’s true. I do believe though, that the underlying structure and therefore culture of the organisations will always come out.

Combo One – Collaborative client, Silo agency

If a collaborative client tries to work well with a silo’d agency, they will become frustrated that things cannot be more collaborative. They will crave to have good, productive meetings with all of their major players, and all of the agency’s major players.

Combo Two – Silo client, Collaborative agency

If a silo’d client tries to work with a  collaborative agency, the agency will become frustrated by the fact their ideas and forward thinking fall often on deaf hears depending on the contact within the client. Ideas and work are constantly filtered through their eyes resulting in their view dominating. When work is finally presented often other organisation stakeholders are disappointed as it’s so focused from one area. More work for the agency.

Combo Three – Silo client, Silo agency

If a silo’d agency works with silo’d client, things go very, very slowly. Communication is drawn out, Chinese whispers are prevalent. Work takes a long time to get done and there’s a lot of back and forth from agency to client and inter department within both client an agency. Even after a drawn out process, the work produced will end up not really pleasing anyone either side unless there’s on dominant personality as the client contact.

Combo Four – Collaborative client, Collaborative agency

If a collaborative agency works with a collaborative client, projects can go exceptionally well (in our experience). The stakeholders get round the table and talk out what they want from the project. Everyone’s views get aired and they feel like they have been heard. The agency then works together on the project, discussing the possibilities for the project. Again, all parts get heard and discussed. Projects move faster and results are generally better. There are a couple of caveats. Trying to get all the stakeholders together can be difficult and therefore slow things down waiting for a meeting. Sometimes both clients and agencies can get too many people involved with too many view, and a project can lose direction and clarity. You can never please everyone.

Conclusion and the future

So what does this mean? We can’t all magic the right clients or change our current clients, organisational change takes time. I think one of things all agencies need to realise is that one of the reasons digital agencies seem to be doing well is that their attitude to collaboration and change. Digital moves so fast as an industry, that the agency has to be collaborative and good at change. This helps them with clients as well, to learn and adapt.

In my opinion, all agencies must work hard to be as collaborative as possible and encourage clients to do the same.

Most companies are collecting data for no reason. Far too often we’re coming across companies that have some form of analytics but no idea why. They have had it put in (mainly because it’s free) and someone has normally shown them how to log in and told them what some of the numbers mean. They have never logged in again, let alone actually done any analysis of the data.

Data is useless without meaning. Meaning is useless without action. Companies need to be analysing their website statistics, finding out why certain trends are appearing or not appearing, and take action to change what they are seeing. Only then are you truly using web analytics, and not just being a data collector for no reason.

Here are some things you might want to know about your visitors:

• Where are they coming from? Which of these sources is the most profitable? What’s the trend of these visitor sources? Which are declining or increasing over time?
• What is my bounce rate? Which content gives the worst bounce rates (and therefore should be fixed)
• What content are they looking at on my site? Which pieces of content are the most popular? Which produce the most exits from the site?
• What keywords are people using to visit my site? Are they all brand led? If so what can I do to encourage people to visit my site that haven’t already heard of me?

There’s a ton of questions you can ask yourself. So why not start asking yourself right away. Stop collecting, start analysing.

Technorati: 3Z58EZ26P9TB

Lots of commentry on the web today about Firefox 3.5 being the most popular browser. Really, when you add up Internet Explorer, it’s still IE at 55.4% and Firefox at 32.1%. See graph below. There’s a problem though

This is not what you’re clients stats are like. See below two of our major ecommerce sites for big brand names here in the UK. Note the Internet Explorer total (and underneath how much IE6 is still important too).

Make sure you work with your clients visitors, not the web news deadlines.

“Current spend from advertisers is between 12% and 13% of total budget. However, the time spent onlone by consumers is approaching 20%. Clients need to address this shortfall” – Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP

Great quote and a very simple gap that needs to be filled. If advertisers continue this trend they will fall further and further behind consumers shopping habits and it will be very hard to catch up

This is a follow on from the ‘7 deadly sins of beginning a web project‘ which I posted last month, this post deals with what to do, as opposed to not doing.

1) Assign a website champion

This is crucial. There needs to be someone inside an organisation that is running the website project that will be responsible for it. And I don’t mean someone who just is the point of contact for the rest of the organisation, but someone who will drive the project, be passionate about the project, and is prepared to educate the rest of the organisation on the best way forwards, in collaboration with the agency helping to build the site.

2) Understand what you want from your website

Do not start a web project by just thinking ‘We need a new site because the current one is a few years old’. Really think about it:

• What is the website’s purpose for my organisation?
• What are the top 5 tasks we want our customers to accomplish on the site?
• What plans do we have to enhance the website in the future?
• Who will be coming to our website (demographics, purpose, reason for visit etc)

There’s a lot more questions but there are a few to get you started!

3) Understand what they want from your website

Your visitors! If you have a current website, ask them what they like and dislike about it, and given half the chance, what they would improve. That information is gold dust, and shows you what needs to be focused upon for the new project. If you don’t have an existing website – ask those that are likely to use the site what they need. It’s not about you!

4) Don’t over spec the technology

This is one of the craziest parts that we have seen happen. Instead of doing step 2, companies can just start looking at packages and what functionality they provide. Suddenly, it’s essential for them to have granular access control. Really? Is it? How many people are going to be editing the site? Only 2. Both in marketing. So what’s the need for access control? Exactly. That’s just a simple example – however it can get truly out of control and cost an organisation thousands it doesn’t need to spend. At least, not immediately.

5) Remember phasing

This is related to the above. A website is never a one off build project (or at least it shouldn’t be!). It should always progress in phases, building up the site and adding only what is necessary, and preferrably when your visitors want it. That way you can change often and quickly, and measure how the changes help or hinder your site. The days of massive complete redesigns (should) be nearing an end.

6) Get expert advice

Very important in my opinion. You may know your target market very well. You may know your own business inside and out. What you may not know is the web and what it’s potential is for you. A great agency who lives and breathes digital and marketing as a whole can take you strides forwards with your website. You need advice that challenges you, pushes you as an organisation and helps you leap towards your goals. You do not want to hire a ‘yes man’. In a recent pitch for a website I said that (paraphrasing) ‘If you’re just looking for an agency to push stuff around a page for you until you’re happy, or one that will just do as they are told, that’s not us. If you want that, we are not the right choice for you. If you want to be guided, helped and challenged, then we can help’

7) Set a strong project plan

With dates, milestones and targets to be achieved. Do not let yur project drift or go off course. Stick to the plan and things are much easier to finish and much less painful along the way.

Run of negative posts recently but some things send me nuts. Below is a screenshot of Virgin Money’s login screen. This error message would be all well and good, except for the fact that all the characters I entered were valid, it was just the wrong password! Talk about a confusing error message.

Back in the day when Webfusion weren’t owned by Pipex, they were pretty good. Good customer service, competitive prices and good technical support. Times, indeed, have changed. Since Pipex took over their technical support in particular but also their general service has become one giant failure.

Poor refund system

Yesterday, at Blueleaf, we wanted to cancel one of our services with them that had been accidentally renewed. It has been billed for the entire year and so I asked whether we would get any money back. As we hadn’t even entered the next year’s service yet – I would of though this would of been possible. Not a penny back. Even car tax discs give you money back if they aren’t need for heaven’s sake.

Poor cancellation process

Now the most annoying part. Their cancellation process. This is a technological company selling website hosting. So how do you have to cancel? Get emailed a cancellation form, fill it in, and fax or post it back. a paper process for an electronic company. Also, it takes 30 days to process this cancellation, so if you’re on a monthly plan, you will always pay another month. Sneaky, greedy, shockingly slow.

Horrible service

On calling saying I wished to cancel, I was transferred to their cancellation department (it has it’s own department?) the lady on the end of the phone asked what domain name it was for said she would send a form by email. Before I could even say thank you, good bye, ask a question or anything, she had hung up and cut me off. Amazingly rude.

But here’s the crux – at Blueleaf we still have a few minor accounts with them (most of them, thank heavens, are on a great hosts platform now with amazing customer service) – what do I think now – do I feel like a valued customer after that?

Do I heck. Webfusion Fail.

On friday night (the 13th I might add), Blueleaf were nominated for our work with Laura Ashley for the best ecommerce site at the DADI awards. The DADIs are digital indutry awards and so highly focused on websites as a whole. I’m please to say that we won!

It was a great evening – me and Adrian were say next to a few of the Drum girls and also a few of the guys from Fudge so it was good to have a chat to them about how things are going and the direction of the market. And also to observe the crowd shall we say. The place was chocker with great digital agencies: Fudge, MadeByPi, Code ComputerLove, Fuse8 to name but a few of the award winners. It’s great to be even nominated let alone a winner in that kind of crowd and shows how quickly Blueleaf is really shooting forwards. Mega proud that’s for sure. They haven’t put up any results or photos yet however when they do I’ll update this post!

A couple of poor shots below taken on my iPhone’s ropey camera – I’m sure there will be some pro ones soon.