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jamjar cars selected The Usability Company to help improve the performance of the www.jamjar.com website. A number of companies were invited to present their proposals to jamjar with the brief being to offer an objective external user view of how the website was actually performing and assess its ease of use. This would highlight any issues that would need to be addressed through the planned future development.
jamjar short-listed three companies, each of which were invited to present and then selected The Usability Company to carry out the project. They ruled out an internal review, preferring a completely independent and objective assessment of the website.
Why?
Paul Evans of jamjar explained, "the project allowed jamjar to judge what we thought needed changing from a commercial perspective compared to what actually needed attention according to the users. The end benefit should be a more usable and enjoyable experience for the visitor".
"We selected The Usability Company not because they were the cheapest, but because they seemed to offer a level of professionalism beyond the other companies we saw. It was very important for us to get it right first time, as the results would play an important role in the future development of the jamjar website."
How?
The Usability Company recommended a Usability Evaluation – lab based testing with real users – to meet jamjar's needs. 8 participants were recruited against jamjar's core buyer profile and asked to attempt tasks similar to those they would be attempting in the real world. The tasks were designed to test the user's interaction with the core areas of the website, starting with the home page.
What was the outcome?
The outputs of the Usability Evaluation were provided via a detailed report that identified usability issues and provided associated recommendations to rectify the problems. The identified issues and recommendations were supported with edited video clips that brought each of the issues to life. Finally, a presentation was used to review the issues and recommendations and brainstorm alternative solutions.
As a result of the findings the homepage was completely redesigned, which vastly improved the navigation through the website without the need for further changes to other pages. This allowed for a significant improvement to be made to the website in a short space of time ensuring benefits could be realised immediately.
The Benefits
The changes to the homepage yielded business improvements and further significant increases in business performance are anticipated when the remaining recommendations are implemented.
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