SAMPLE USABILITY _ USER EXPERIENCE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 1 Author: Gerred Blyth User Experience RFPs Guidance and Templates E-consultancy March 2007 Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 – not for distribution to non-subscribers without written permission User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 2 Author: Gerred Blyth Table of Contents About E-consultancy..........................................................................3 Contact..................................................................................................3 1. Introduction...................................................................................4 1.1 Other considerations.................................................................................................. 4 2. Example RFP: Improving usability of an e-commerce website.........................................................................................6 2.1 Background to website and business goals ................................................................. 6 2.2 Target Audience......................................................................................................... 6 2.3 Background to this project ......................................................................................... 7 2.4 Timescale and Budget ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.5 Approach .................................................................... Error! 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Bookmark not defined. 4.4 Approach .................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.5 Deliverables ................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.6 Related /planned work.............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.7 Other requirements of your proposal .......................... Error! Bookmark not defined. * Not available in Sample RFP User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 3 Author: Gerred Blyth About E-consultancy E-consultancy is an online publisher of best practice internet marketing reports, research and how-to guides. E-consultancy, which was recently named Publisher of the Year at the 2006 AOP Awards, also publishes buyer’s guides and has a directory of 100,000+ third party internet marketing white papers. Since moving to a paid-content model in 2003 E-consultancy has amassed thousands of paying subscribers, more than 50,000 registered users and 150,000+ unique users sessions per month. E-consultancy is popular among internet professionals around the world, for delivering practical, time-saving advice and insight. Subscribers pay from £149 per year to access the exclusive and highly practical content. E-consultancy has more than 100 events lined up for 2007, including roundtables and monthly Supplier Showcases, where six suppliers pitch to an audience of pre-qualified buyers in a Central London venue. E-consultancy also runs both in-house and public training courses. http://www.e-consultancy.com/about/Contact If you would like to know more about Corporate Membership and our roundtables then please contact us on +44 207 681 4053 or Peter@e-consultancy.com. If you have any comments or queries about this briefing then please contact Linus@e-consultancy.com E-consultancy URL: http://www.e-consultancy.com User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 4 Author: Gerred Blyth 1. Introduction There are many aspects to a good user experience. When engaging an external supplier to assist with your user experience, you should be very clear on what exactly you are trying to achieve as part of the engagement: • you may be looking to improve usability of specific processes or tasks (such as registration) • you may be looking to understand and improve the user experience of your site in general (which includes many aspects beyond usability such as how useful and compelling each of the functions or content areas are) • you may be looking to improve accessibility for audiences with disabilities or non-standard ways of accessing your site. None of these aspects of site design precludes the others. However, the approach that an external supplier will take will vary depending on what you’d like to focus on, so you should be clear about your needs. If you are looking for all three aspects to be addressed you should expect to pay for multiple research and analysis components -because no single approach will address all three aspects fully. There are three template RFPs in this document that cover each scenario separately. 1.1 Other considerations There are a number of other factors to consider when you approach user experience projects. Namely: • Do you have a preferred approach or are you looking for guidance from your supplier? Unless you have very specific requirements or are trying to recreate a previous piece of work to benchmark against, it is recommended that you ask potential suppliers to recommend an approach and justify it against alternatives. • What deliverables are you looking for? The full deliverable set will include picture-in-picture video clips and illustrated reports. However, these deliverables come at a cost and you may find it more useful to save money by having a line-item list of recommendations and then re-use this budget to run a second round testing. • Are you looking for primary research or an expert analysis? All of the template RFPs here include real research with representative end users. This is best practice: there is no real alternative to the insights gained from observing real users. However, depending on the point in the project lifecycle, it may be prudent to save resource by making changes recommended by an expert and retain budget for full testing when there is commitment to User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 5 Author: Gerred Blyth implement the broader set of recommendations that will inevitably come from this more thorough analysis. • Are you looking for summative or formative work? That is to say, is the analysis to focus on benchmarking against competitor sites or previous versions of your site (summative) or is the analysis geared towards design recommendations (formative)? If it is the former, you will want your supplier to score task completion for a larger number of users to make your measurements valid. If it is the latter, then conversations during more intensive sessions with a smaller number of users will better suit. There are many other factors that will shape the best approach to a user experience project. In completing your RFP, you should focus on describing your problem rather than spelling out an exact solution. Allow (in fact, encourage) the tendering suppliers to consult with you during the tendering process and propose the approach that they recommend. After all, they have more experience than you! If you take this approach, make sure that each supplier justifies their approach and is able to talk about alternatives – and why they didn’t opt for those. If their justification is not clear, then push back for more clarity during their presentation of approach. User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 6 Author: Gerred Blyth 2. Example RFP: Improving usability of an e-commerce website 2.1 Background to website and business goals Our site www.uk-gadgets.co.uk is an ecommerce site that sells products such as PDAs, Digital cameras, GPS systems and other similar electrical consumer goods. The site launched in 2002 and underwent a significant redesign in June 2005. The business metrics we measure our site by are: • Overall revenue generated by the site • Average revenue per user 2.2 Target Audience Our audience segmentation is as follows: • Convenience-loving professionals (Priority segment, estimated to represent 45% of our audience) • Gifters (Priority segment, estimated to represent 15% of our audience) • Committed loyalists (Priority segment, estimated to represent 5% of our current audience) • Tech-Savvy price comparers (Secondary priority segment, estimated to represent 35% of our current audience) More details on these segments will be provided to the successful supplier. Other audience details that may be useful for your proposal: • 86% of purchases are made by returning users; 14% by users who register in that session • Our socio-demographic breakdown is 40%ABC1; 30% C2; 20%D; 10%E and 79% Male; 21% Female • 95% of our purchases are from the UK; 5% from other countries (mainly Germany and Spain) User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 7 Author: Gerred Blyth 2.3 Background to this project We know that our site is underperforming compared to our competitors. We believe this may be due to specific usability problems with the registration process, the shopping cart mechanism, and the checkout process. As such, we would like to improve the usability of our site in an upcoming redesign. By ‘usability’, we mean: o The site must be effective. That is, users should be able to complete key tasks with few errors or problems. o The site must be efficient. That is, tasks can be completed quickly and easily. o The site must be satisfying. That is, users must be happy with the site as they complete tasks. Our metrics for success for these usability improvements are: • Reduce the percentage of users dropping out of the registration process • Reduce the percentage of users dropping out at the final stage of payment • Increase the number of users who successfully add a product to their shopping cart without error • Decrease number of users browsing but not purchasing (including across multiple visits) • Increase number of users registering for both the site and newsletter We are looking to engage a user experience supplier to complete a usability test that will inform this upcoming redesign. For this project, we are focusing on users using standard browser technologies (IE7, Firefox 6), who represent the majority of our audience. However, no part of our redesign should make the site less accessible for users with disabilities or using nonstanndar access technologies (mobile devices etc). User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 8 Author: Gerred Blyth 3. Example RFP: Improving user experience for an online magazine site 3.1 Background to website and business goals Our site www.popcornmagazine-uk.co.uk is an new media magazine site (Desktop /Web Browser and Mobile Browser versions available) read by 140,000 unique users per month. Our business metrics are: • Number of unique users per month • Number of returning users • Number of pages visited per user • Click-throughs to our sponsored or syndicated content • Number of users registering for premium content • Churn of premium content subscribers 3.2 Target audience Our audience demographic is: o 55% Male; 45% Female o 2% 0-12 years; 12% 13-16 years; 18% 16-21 years; 47% 22-30 years; 11% 31-40 years; 6% 41-55 years; 4% 56 years+ o 15% Over-representation of Guardian and 7% of Times readers o 11% Over-representation of BBC viewers o 22% Under-representation of users from Scotland and Northern England readers Our usage statistics: o 100% of our audience uses our site to research films o Of which, 70% check single reviews via inbound web search and 30% read multiple reviews by browsing the site o 25% of our audience contribute to the reviews either by voting, reviewing or commenting. o 5% of our audience buys tickets or film memorabilia through our partners 3.3 Background to this project User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 9 Author: Gerred Blyth We believe that our site is not fulfilling its maximum potential. We would like to improve user experience across the site, addressing such issues as: o What is the relationship between our browser and mobile products? o How do users want to interact with these versions differently? o Are there synergies between the two products that will create positive user experiences that we are overlooking? Depending on your findings above, the questions below may applyto both products individually or as a single joined-up experience: o What types of content users are looking for? o Do users want to search or navigate for content? o What is the relationship between author and content? How do users find things they want to read? o How are our reviews perceived? o Are our user reviews understood accurately? o What opportunities for user-generated content is there? o How should search work? o Does the navigation work well? o What personalisation opportunities should we pursue? User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 10 Author: Gerred Blyth 4. Example RFP: Improving accessibility of an information-based site 4.1 Background to website and business goals Our website www.BritishTourismOnline.com is an informational site that promotes locations and events to visitors within the UK. All editorial content and development is handled internally, although we have partners for promotional content and two site functions – namely forum management and user reviews /comments. The site launched in 1999. The business metrics we measure our site by are: • Revenue generated by passing users to destinations’ own sites via editorial content • Revenue generated through keyword advertising 4.2 Background to this project There are two reasons that must ensure our site is a good experience for users of nonstanndar access technologies: • We specifically aim our services towards disabled audiences by focusing on accessibility aspects of the actual tourist destinations we cover. • Our destination guides are useful when users are “on the road” at destinations themselves and therefore might access our site from small-screen mobile devices. However, based on anecdotal evidence, we have learned that our site is not a good experience for people using non-standard access technologies (i.e. not full functionality IE7 and the like). We would like to take this opportunity to redevelop our site so it becomes known for providing a good experience for these users. For us, ‘accessibility’ means: • The site adheres to technical accessibility criteria, namely the WCAG 1.0 or 2.0 checkpoints where appropriate • The site is demonstrated to be a good user experience for real people using non-standard access technologies Our metric for success for these accessibility improvements are: User Experience RFPs – Guidance and Templates – SAMPLE SAMPLE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Full version: http://www.e-consultancy.com/in/user-rfp Copyright © E-consultancy.com ltd 2007 11 Author: Gerred Blyth • Positive impact on a before-after questionnaire targeted at users with disabilities and users accessing via mobile devices We are looking to engage a user experience supplier to complete an accessibility review that will inform a redevelopment of our site. There are no plans to develop any new general functionality or content, or to redesign the site for users of standard access technologies. In fact, we would like the site to change as little as possible for these users as we are confident of our user experience as is.