WE DEFINE
AND DESIGN
EXPERIENCES

Personas

What: A tool designed to help businesses and project teams connect with, have empathy for and remain focused on customers and users over the life of a project and beyond. Each persona is an archetype representing the needs, behaviours, and goals of a particular group of customers or users. Personas with definite backgrounds, names, and personalities help people to form strong connections with users.

How: Narrative is crafted out of the insights gained during the modelling process and the teams experiences of participants during the field research. Using modelling sliders as a framework, a series of personas will cover similar areas of knowledge highlighting unique differences between personas. Contact us for more.

Government Web Standards

What: We've been working with e-Government web standards for a number of years, we have a good understanding and significant experience in applying these. We've delivered compliant web platforms and websites for NZ government agencies and SOE's including Inland Revenue, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Development, ACC and NZ Post. 

How: Among our clients, www.e-govwatch.org.nz has independently assessed Accident Compensation Corporation website and ranked it 9th in the‘whole of government’, 6th for ‘online feedback’ and 4th for ‘E-consultation’. The Inland Revenue website ranks 5th in accessibility and 4th in web standards compliance. Contact us for more.

Service Design

What: Service Design is the end to end activity of planning and organising people, infrastructure, communication and the material components of a service, in order to improve its quality, amplify its value for customers and maximise the efficiency in which it is delivered. Interaction between a service provider and a customer defines the customer’s experience.

How: ‘Service Design Thinking’ may be the best way to describe what we do – we have a range of services that combine to deliver to the intent of service design – be it at one point of need or risk, or end to end. Our process considers relationship, reputation, experience and value; It considers user needs and journeys, plus reviews the importance of touchpoints, channels, staff engagement and incentives. Contact us for more.

Site Accessibility

What: We have extensive experience in designing and developing sites with high accessibility standards. We've delivered many sites that meet Government Web Standards of accessibility, we've also designed sites with specific disability and accessibility requirements in mind. In every project, we work to determine the right level of accessibility to suit users’ needs.

How: Clearly identify user needs and requirements then translate those through IA, content, visual design and development which each have a strong role in unlocking accessibility of a solution. Examples of award winning websites include; Royal NZ Foundation of the Blind, and ACC's serious injury site. Contact us for more.

Development

What: Our development team have a broad capability in websites and web apps, mobile and social media integration. The team is solution agnostic and has worked with a wide range of products and created many tailored solutions for our clients direct and in conjunction with IT partners.

How: Team capability covers front end, back end and mobile web and responsive design, plus we have core skills in touch screen, interactive/motion and application build. Core skills are in HTML/CSS, JavaScript, MySQL, PHP. Recent projects include the Activesmart web app, JB Were site and integration, Icebreaker brand ambassador web app and NZ Post Websites. Contact us for more.

Intranet Design

What: then looking to improve engagement, drive efficiency, grow access and improve collaboration - intranets can be a collaborative and culture turning point. Our approach is guided by 4 key principles and based on a strong track record in HR branding, change programs, channel optimisation and culture shaping.

How: We use tools including persona and scenario development to guide requirements, IA, content and engagement strategy. In the past 12 months alone we have delivered both Sharepoint and open source intranets for Icebreaker, NZTA, Ministry of Health, ACC, Inland Revenue, Child Youth and Family, NZ Post, BNZ and New Zealand Childcare Association. Contact us for more.

Current State mapping

What: A process of exploring, understanding and documenting a businesses current service delivery eco-system across touch points and channels, including people, processes and IT systems. Many businesses are compartmentalised and often few staff will have a full view of how each component of the business or organisations service delivery mechanisms fit and work together.

How: Workshops are held with key stakeholders who hold an understanding around how the business or organization currently delivers services to customers and users. Touch points and customer interactions are explored at a high level before diving into the detail behind each, to uncover what systems actually drive the service delivery. Contact us for more.

Future State mapping

What: Applying insights to propose a vision for where a business needs to be aiming for in the future. This can be a high level framework, road-map or detailed Future State map. Having a shared future view focuses energies and actions and ensures momentum towards change is maintained. It guides and validates the more tactical business decisions.

How: The business future is envisioned from a variety of information and knowledge sources. Key inputs include the business strategy, customer insights, future trends and opportunities. These are analysed and weighted with the business, then distilled into a one page visual. Contact us for more.

Design research

What: Design research allows us to form an understanding of the domain in which we will be conducting research before heading out into the field. Spending some time up front to for a base of knowledge in the domain enables the research team to fully engage with the participants in their context and go beyond surface understanding in conversations.

How: A relatively short exercise where the research team takes some time to review any existing insights or artefacts such as past research, product catalogues etc and interact with websites or systems within the domain of interest including that of the business or organisation and competitors.

Experience mapping

What: A tangible view of a persona’s end to end relationship across a businesses service delivery ecosystem highlighting key touch points, channels and over arching experience principles to provide high level guidance for creating a cohesive and delightful experience.Resulting decisions and actions all work in synergy towards a common experiential goal. 

How: Based on the Future State/Vision map, each Persona is individually mapped across the ecosystem illustrating their desired channels and points of interaction across the whole relationship experience with a business or organisation. Contact us for more.

Power Personas

What: An easy access tool that presents the essence of the Personas in a different format that is more accessible and useful to a wider audience within the business eg. Marketing, Call centre, Channels, IT.

How: Once a business need is identified, the internal audience is discussed to understand where and how such a tool might be utilised best. Materials previously created around personas are then reviewed and distilled in a more visual presentation, covering key goals and needs, the physical and social context of their life, and business opportunities. Contact us for more.

User Requirements

What: A reference point to trace back to throughout future process, to remain true to the users’ goals and needs. They are non-prescriptive, high level and allow for a range of approaches to be explored in following phases. User Requirements define the size of the problem that needs to be solved. They provide a platform for discussion around the scope of following phases and trade-offs between what the business needs and those of it’s customers and users.

How: User requirements are derived from the scenarios, drawing out users needs under a few categories such as Content, Features, Experience etc. Contact us for more.

Scenarios

What: Describes an ideal interaction as a persona goes about trying to achieve their goals. They explore a single interaction with an entity, highlighting what is needed by a persona in order to achieve their goals, leaving room for both pragmatic and creative discussion around how best to meet those needs. They act as both a tool for validating the need for particular features, but also a reality check preventing unnecessary addition of features.

How: Extending the narrative formed in the personas, the persona is placed into the intended context and channel, considering what the Persona might be looking for and how they might react when interacting in that space. Contact us for more.

Customer Touchpoint Optimisation

Responsive web design

What: An approach to web design which provides an optimal user experience, easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling - across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors, tablets and mobile phones). Our approach is 'customer first', rather than 'mobile first'.

How: 3 ways we do responsive: 1: A foundation project where mobile is key, all your content and transactions need to be accessible to everyone all the time; 2: Within iteration/upgrade path where analytics prove trending/need. 3: Second phase - where your content and UX need to be fixed first.

Agile

What: A way of running projects with emphasis on collaboration, iteration, accountability, communication, rapid prototyping and responding to change. Hallmarks are iterative workflow and incremental delivery of working design/solutions in short time-boxed iterations. Typically we do many activities in parallel, including feature prioritisation, design, coding, and testing. 

How: We use sprints, stand ups and showcases - sprints are 'timeboxed' (between one week and one month). Showcases demonstrate progress and allow tuning of the forthcoming sprint. Agile requires empowered individuals from the Client and agency and partners to co-create and often co-locate.