People spend more and more of their lives connected. This gives rise to an increasing demand for interactive products and services. I help companies adapt their business to be successful in meeting these demands.
Today computers and mobile Internet services have become a natural part of daily life for millions of people over the entire planet. This transition from off line to on line does not make the big headlines any more, it is just a fact of life. This is changing the way we work, consume and socialize. The Internet is suddenly not just a communication channel, mirroring or complementing the real world, it is the real world.
Only a fraction of the existing businesses is good at meeting their customer’s needs in interactive channels. To become good at this is not harder than becoming good at any new field. Either you are already doing it, or you must be wiling acquire this knowledge.
I help companies to make this transmission smoothly and to minimize the risks involved in expanding into interactive channels. The transition may look very different depending on the type of business and what goals the client wants to achieve.
The goal may be to make more money by adding e-commerce capabilities on their sites. Or it may be to improve customer service by turning the screen towards the customers and let them serve themselves. Lately though, the most common request is about if and how the client could take advantage of the exploding field of social media in their business. Improving the profitability by interactive solutions may be targeted at external or internal users.
User value ensures return on investment
This illustration shows how the users gain from using a system must be greater then the pain in order for it to be appreciated and get to return of investment for the system owner.
When I work with business development the obvious starting point is to ensure that my client knows exactly how the customers behave in interactive channels today. If this is unknown territory I help my clients to conduct the user research needed to ensure that any hypothesis we might have is anchored in reality.
Based on the knowledge gathered about the users and their current behavior I help my clients set goals and systematically develop the new offerings and solutions. I use the Effect Management Method in order to get this right. I especially focus my contributions on ensuring that the users will get more value than they have to invest in terms of money and effort. If this is the not the case, the users won’t find the service worthwhile.
In my opinion it is impossible to separate the business from the user experience. There for an analysis of an on line business I will in most cases be complemented by Effect Mapping and Conceptual Design in order to make any solutions and recommendations complete and easy to implement.
We at Box Experience’s wanted to improve our web site. Our web agency called in interaction designer and usability expert Mårten Angner to conduct an eye tracking study on our site. The study fully confirmed our suspicions about usability problems and provided valuable insight into how our customer’s think. Mårten presented clear directions on how to take our site to the next level. Almost like a how-to-guide, created exclusively for us!
I was asked to join the team at Merajobb, the collective job site for three of Sweden’s largest newspapers, to completely redesign their site. My role was to lead, analyze user needs, create a site concept and make sure no greatness was lost in the process. The team, consisting of the developers at HR north, designer Jonas Björkman from The Art of job and I completed the project in record speed. 
Cloud Nine is one of Sweden’s largest independent provider of web solutions. The company has been around since 1999 and apparently they know how the web works. It was therefore quite the honor to be asked to hold a seminar about my sketching techniques in regards on how to not to rush to finished designs before knowing if the functions are as optimal as they can be. The Creative Director Martin Bystedt was quite happy with the seminar and has found use of the technique in the work:
We at NetRelations can absolutely recommend Mårten’s course in sketching technique. This intensive seminar has made an immediate impact on all our staff. Our drawing skills improved instantly and with it came a new and more inspiring approach to both the way we discuss internally to how we communicate with our clients. Almost like creativity-in-a-box!
In an Eye tracking study I conducted for Ginza, users had a hard time getting through the payment process. I was asked to completely redesign the complete check out process. The final solution when published reduced the customer care issues drastically and resulted in an 18% increase in invoice payments, and an over all increase of the payment conversion rate by almost 2%.
Rebtel, the exciting international telecom operator, asked me to make a full scale usage test using eye tracking on their public web site, sign up, and their customer self service area. The eye tracking test immediately brought some totally unexpected errors in the service to Rebtel’s attention as well as provided a solid ground for the strategic design and development decisions in the future.
Ginza is one of Sweden’s foremost media mail-order and e-commerce companies. As a part of the effort to improve their user experience, I was asked to conduct an Eye tracking study on their current site. Although the results were somewhat shocking to Ginza, they were very pleased that their weak points could be addressed immediately. In this post I explain more about how the test was conducted and will also share with you some of the results.
It is now exactly one year since I created the first conceptual sketches for this site. This seemingly simple project was one of the most challenging projects I have ever completed. The site really forced me to use all the methods I have normally use in my projects for clients and have consumed an unbelievable amount of effort to make it perfect in every respect. Here is the story of how it was created.
We at Creuna decided to ask Mårten to give his sketching technique workshop for our design team consisting of both Graphic designers and Interaction designers. What we did not anticipate was exactly how profound effect this little two hour workshop had on our daily design practices!
I was asked by Holiday Autos to help them improve their the web based ordering system for rental cars. I worked closely with the internal development team evaluating the existing solution, and designing a new one. The end result turned out to be a great success when tested on users. The time needed to complete the order was reduced to as little as one third.