We are experts in
User Experience research
Our UX research process follows a structured methodology
to develop a path tailored to the user.
We specialise in analysing User Experience and identifying the critical issues that make users’ experience difficult and slow down the performance of a digital product or service.
Our goal is to provide strategic guidance for the design phase, so that the user experience design can be based on the evidence found in the user analysis phase. We collect and organise information in order to make informed decisions through which we can direct change and improve outcomes.
The questions we try to answer in the User Experience research phase are:
- Why do users get stuck in the buying process?
- At what step do most users encounter difficulty?
- How is the purchase decision structured?
- Where do people’s eyes fall when they first see the home page?
- How are the various campaigns performing?
- What are the reasons why some of your customers are reluctant to buy online?
Thanks to our structured UX research process and consolidated methodologies, we are able to observe user behaviors and attitudes using qualitative and quantitative methods, tools for remote analysis (such as digital analytics) and lab testing.
Digital Analytics
We believe in data-driven approach: we derive our insights from real numbers and established patterns. We analyse user behavior data in detail in order to identify problems and find the right solutions so as to optimize the user experience.
We are certified users of Google Analytics, and our experience allows us to make comparisons with target markets and take this tool to its full potential. We have extensive experience using other analytics tools (including Adobe Analytics and large enterprise platforms) as well as in web traffic tracking to extract the data needed for the business process.
With this data, we can answer such questions as:
- Where do users click when they land on the page?
- What are the points in the funnel where users typically get stuck?
- What is the conversion rate of the main target and and what are the micro-conversions?
Through the visual representation of data, we can support you in understanding the behaviors of your visitors, helping you understand how to disseminate the results in order to convince stakeholders to take action.
Thanks to Hotjar, a tool of which we have in-depth knowledge, we are able to perform remote analysis of user behaviors through:
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Click heatmapsWhere users click or tap
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ScrollmapShows the depth of the page scroll
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Mouse HeatmapIllustrates where the mouse stops and how it moves around the page
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Form AnalysisOur researchers use form analysis to identify issues that may be preventing users from converting or filling out a form
We can then answer questions such as:
- How much time does the user spend on each field?
- At what point do they get stuck while filling in the fields?
- How many times do they return to the same field?
Conversions and A/B Testing
Optimizing conversion processes is the key goal for every business and service. Analytics helps us identify the obstacles that are blocking the user before conversion and pinpoints the drop-off points. Through testing, we can experiment with alternative solutions to improve the entire conversion flow and each of its elements.
Optimising the user experience and the structure of conversion funnels are the main levers for conversion rate growth.
We support companies in this process by identifying the criticalities and drop points in the funnel and the problems that may arise at any individual step (pages, screens, push communications to the user). Our transversal skills and our global approach to conversion rate optimization allow us to correctly define KPIs and to develop the best strategies and solutions for A/B testing.
We are a certified partner of Optimizely and are able support our customers on different software platforms to perform A/B testing in order to improve the conversion rate of digital products and services.
Through A/B testing, we evaluate different versions of almost all product elements (titles, texts, call to action, etc. …) in order to understand which version yelds the highest number of conversions based on the real actions of real users.
UX Strategy
We evaluate the User Experience at all touchpoints in order to identify criticalities and opportunities, requirements and needs: in short, we analyse the customer experience to take it to a higher level.
Our holistic approach is used to get a snapshot of your offering and to compare it with that of your competitors (studying their strengths and weaknesses) in order to redesign it for your real users.
We observe what others do and study their strategies. Our methods and experience help us to do this efficiently. It’s a research activity that guarantees a good effort-to-results ratio.
Using the benchmark methodology, expert evaluators analyse competitors and comparables to identify best practices and guidelines for defining the service or its design or redesign.
That allows us to find answers to questions such as:
- What are the industry best practices and standards?
- How well does your product/service perform vis-à-vis your key competitors’?
- What could be the most effective and important redesign interventions?
The analysis of each touchpoint is important, but what is even more important is the final result – the overall user experience. We work on the entire customer journey thanks to our ability to work with different methods and tools and to study the user experience on different platforms.
By collecting insights from data analysis, we are able to reconstruct the customer journey and the customer journey map of the user. We analyse the journey from the user experience point of view, creating ad hoc personas of archetypal users built with a data-driven approach.
A fundamental activity which we make use of to support our clients is systematizing business objectives and measuring them over time. We define indicators and metrics across the various touchpoints as well as the right procedures to monitor them on time, so as to intervene efficiently where problems are identified.
Expert analysis
Through the examination of interfaces, supported by heuristics, best practices and other criteria defined in the scientific literature and in the professional community, it is possible to identify usability and accessibility problems of a product and find bugs.
Expert analysis allows you to map the criticalities of an existing digital service and quickly find a solution to the flaws that impoverish the user experience.
This allows us to answer questions such as:
- What are the main problems found in the interface based on guidelines and heuristics?
- What aspects seem particularly critical to a potential customer?
Discovery
These testing methodologies allow us to deeply explore end-user needs, expectations, and judgments. Observing the behaviors and eliciting the opinions of people who actually use a product allows us to accurately identify pain points in the user experience and understand the reasons behind them.
Our standard approach is to involve a number of users in university partner labs.
We study the real experience of prospective clients in order to understand their real needs, expectations and desires, observing them avoiding the bias related to the interviewee-researcher relationship.
We validate the value proposition with representative users of the chosen target.
This technique, typical of social research, can be very useful for evaluating the judgments of the end user at various stages of development: in front of a concept, a prototype or the actual product.
We deal with:
- Recruiting representative users of the target product
- Defining a test protocol in agreement with the client
- Conducting the analysis, led by an experienced researcher
- Producing a report with insights that direct redesign solutions
Thanks to in-depth interviews, we observe and study not only the different perspectives, experiences and expectations of users, but also body language and non-verbal communication in general.
By using this technique, we are able to answer questions such as:
- What are the expectations and needs of potential customers?
- What is the user experience like and how should it change?
- What are the main problems that users encounter, and what are their main processes?
We organise ideation and codesign sessions of about 2 hours for small groups of stakeholders, moderated by an experienced facilitator.
This enables us to identify different positions and compare different approaches.
We answer questions such as:
- How do different stakeholders see the product/service?
- What are their ideas and the criticalities/constraints that they see?
- What are their expectations? How can they be made compatible?
Usability testing
We provide our customers with an experience built over time on usability and accessibility, which allows us to identify user interface defects and suggest the best solutions based on references from scientific reading and design practices.
Eye-tracking research involves working with representative target users in the laboratory to study their visual behaviors while they use an app or a website.
Using special hardware and software, the movements of their eyes while they browse a website are recorded, and graphically effective elaborations are constructed. The results can be presented in the form of images (heatmaps) or videos.
Eye-tracking technology can help us answer to such questions as:
- Can the user correctly identify elements within the screen?
- What catches their attention? Are there any “disruptive” elements?
- What visual patterns of behaviour are detected? Can the user immediately locate the main features, or does the user look for them in different locations?
The task analysis involves working with specific representative users of the target you want to study (in the laboratory or remotely) and analysing their behaviors using special hardware and software with the purpose of extracting data on the time spent as well as the number of errors made and their severity.
The task analysis can be integrated with interviews with the users involved in order to try to investigate the causes of the detected behaviors.
Questions we can answer:
- What are the tasks that challenge the user while using the product?
- What problems or snags does the user face while using the product?
- What problems impact all users across the board and which impact only a subset?
- What is the average duration of a task? How many errors does the average user make? Do any users give up on completing it?
During tree testing, our researchers work with different users by asking them to find specific content. At the end of the testing session, they suggest improvements to the information architecture based on the problems that have emerged.
Tree testing enables us to answer questions such as:
- Are users able to find what they are looking for on the website?
- Does the way the pages are organised meet their expectations?
- If users had to organise the same content, would they make the same choices?
In card sorting sessions, our researchers ask users to group content organised on cards by affinity and, therefore, to explain the reason for their choice in order to identify criticalities and potentialities of how the information is sorted.
We thus answer questions such as:
- How inclusive is the content on the website or in the app or software? How clear are the chosen labels?
- How could the information architecture and the navigation system be better designed or redesigned?
In the First Click Test, users are asked where they expect to find the solution to a series of tasks and their first clicks are collected in a heatmap. For each task, the success rate and average completion time are calculated.
After the test, questions about what the users have just seen can be proposed. All answers can be analyzed semantically to obtain qualitative insights.
Questions we can answer:
- Where would users click to complete a task?
- Is the interface clear and intuitive?
- What is the impression conveyed by the interface, what values are communicated?
We conduct remote testing to test digital products and services, where users from various geographical locations perform specific tasks while remaining in their natural environment. In this way, we are able to obtain data on the real difficulties that users encounter when using the product/service during typical tasks.
