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.
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.