This service provides you with user-centered directions for the redesign of your product, based on empirical testing and our expertise. The description here assumes the redesign of a website, intranet, or web-based application.  But our methodology applies equally well beyond the Web, including the user interfaces of GUI designs, game design, consumer electronics, office machines, and information appliances.

You should take advantage of this service as a first step in your development project. Our process is intended to take a step back from your day-to-day involvement with your own project and consider the design from the users' perspective. This should be done before you have written a line of code or drawn a single pixel of Photoshop comps. These bigger steps need to come later because they limit your freedom to consider fundamental user needs, impairing your ability to successfully meet those needs.
 

Method

• Usability test of your current site and two competing sites (sites with similar complexity - not necessarily the worst competitors in your own industry, but sites that face the same usability issues). The goal at this stage is to learn from past mistakes and from the investments of the other sites. (People sometimes want to skip this stage based on the claim that they know that their existing design is bad, but we strongly recommend this round of studies since it always results in deep insights into user behavior and provides many good ideas based on the contrasting test findings from the alternative designs.)
• Parallel design: based on the usability findings we create three alternative directions for solving your problems. These directions are prototyped as mock-up designs that are sufficiently detailed to be subjected to user testing, typically employing a paper-prototyping technique. The goal in this stage is to explore divergent directions in the design space in order to avoid being locked into a single direction before we know more about what works well with users.
• Usability test of the three mockup designs. The goals in this stage are to get a reality check on the diverging designs and to learn what aspects are particularly successful with users and what aspects are better avoided in the final design.
• Converging design prototype that specifies the best approach to the final redesign given the usability findings regarding the three initial alternatives. The goal in this stage is to pick the best elements from the earlier prototypes and to unify them into a single design direction that can form the foundation for the implementation.

We typically have several members of Nielsen Norman Group work on this process, including a senior user experience specialist, an interaction designer, and additional specialized staff as necessary (user experience specialist, documentation specialist, international project manager, etc.).

Who Should Purchase?

If you do not know whether it is time to redesign your site, we recommend that you commission a design review to determine whether you need a fundamentally new design or can make do with minor tweaks. Don't worry, we won't recommend a redesign unless we really think current usability is a significant problem for your business.
 

Requirements

• who are the users?
• what are they trying to do?

Thus, before the start of the process for deriving the recommended redesign direction, you must provide us with a profile of the intended users, their needs and main goals in using the service, and the site's business goals. If this information is not available, we can provide consulting services (at an additional cost) on ways of deriving it.

You also need to allocate time during the process for answering clarifying questions. No matter how thoroughly the site goals and user profile have been prepared, there are always details that need to be worked out once we dig into the human-centered perspective on the site. You also need to allocate time for feedback on initial design ideas and test results outside the formal presentation sessions.

It will be helpful if a few senior members of your team can be present to observe the user test sessions. Typically, it is best if the project manager, the marketing manager, and the design lead and/or art director are come to the tests, but it is not mandatory for all these people to attend each test. Your entire client project team should be present at the presentations (user research and recommended new direction).

Schedule

Deliverables

Parallel design: three prototype designs. These prototypes can be helpful for understanding the detailed findings in the usability reports but they should not be used as the basis for implementation.

Converging design: a prototype of the final, recommended new design. This is the design you will use as the basis for going forward with your project and the implementation phase. Since this is a prototype, it will not specify every single page on the site, but only the main pages, the interaction flow, and the general template format for secondary pages.

Presentations: In addition to the written deliverables, we will provide verbal presentations of the initial competitive usability findings and the final recommended redesign direction. These presentations are very motivational and should be attended by your entire project team.

About the prototypes

Our prototypes specify high-level task flow and representative content of the main screens. Typically, each prototype includes 10-20 pages, covering the top-level interaction and samples of the most important types of pages.

The parallel design prototypes are not intended as the basis for implementation. They are deliberately stretching individual design directions into regions of the design space that have potential for supporting users. In doing so, they inevitably go too far. That's fine at this early stage.

The final recommendation is the only prototype that should form the basis for your subsequent detailed design and implementation efforts. This prototype specifies the interaction design without getting locked in to a surface appearance.  It does not specify a recommended visual treatment, because human-centered design must start from user needs and build to an interaction design.  Too many Web projects start with the looks and do not have the freedom to explore more fundamental interaction design decisions before it is too late.

How to Order

Please contact Nielsen Norman Group at info@nngroup.com if you would like more information or are interested in this service.