Optimal Usability

What we do
What we do
Our focus is designing the best possible customer experience and creating websites, services and products that people love to use.
- Expert review
  Expert review
  We can review your designs and suggest quick, inexpensive, ways to improve usability.
- User testing
  User testing
  We’ll show you how users actually respond to your system, services, or product and the changes that will best meet their needs.
- Eye tracking
  Eye tracking
  Eye tracking is an advanced technique that pinpoints exactly where users look and for how long.
- Surveys
  Surveys
  Quickly find out who’s visiting your site, why they’re there, and what they like and dislike with User Surveys.
- Information architecture
  Information architecture
  We’ll design an Information architecture that helps your users find what they’re looking for, quickly and easily.
- Analytics
  Analytics
  Get hard evidence of what users really do on your website and use this information to inform your design decisions.
- Field studies
  Field studies
  Gain insight into how people use your system in their usual environment; at work, home, or on the go.
- Personas
  Personas
  Put a face and name to your user research with personas, and then purposefully design for them.
- Interaction design
  Interaction design
  We design interfaces that look great, work well, and that people love to use.
- Visual design
  Visual design
  Our visual designers will bring your screens to life and delight your users without compromising usability.
- Service design
  Service design
  Great service doesn’t happen by accident; we’ll design an end-to-end service that delights your customers.
- Strategy
  Strategy
  Map where you’re headed, how to get there, and what success looks like with a clear website, experience, product, or service strategy.
- Our tools
  Our tools
  We’re serious about using the best tools for the job and founded Optimal Workshop to develop a suite of tools that inform and test information architectures. These tools are easy to set up and deliver results quickly.
Our clients
Our clients
We work with many of New Zealand’s top companies across industries as diverse as banking, education and charities. Our usability tools are used nationally internationally, and we name NASA, British Airways and Apple among our many happy clients.
- Client feedback
  Client feedback
  One of the best measures of success is what our clients say about us. We thrive on producing innovative outcomes for clients and love hearing their feedback.
- Case studies
  Case studies
  We’ve showcased some of our favourite projects from a range of clients. We’ll tell you what our clients wanted and how we got there. We’ll also show you some of the great deliverables we produced, and describe their value to our clients.
About us
About us
We’re New Zealand’s leading usability consultancy and love helping people make things easier and more fun to use. There’s something special about our people and approach.
- Our people
  Our people
  We’re a diverse bunch, from backgrounds including industrial design, cartography, web design and physics. Our consultants bring a wealth of knowledge and experience – not to mention huge doses of enthusiasm and drive – to every project.
- Our story
  Our story
  Optimal Usability has grown in leaps and bounds since 2003. More than a decade later we’re still striving to help you provide world class customer experiences and having a lot of fun along the way.
- Our partners
  Our partners
  We actively contribute to the usability community and work with two partner organisations, Optimal Workshop that creates tools for user experience professionals, and Optimal Experience, an Australian user experience consultancy
- Awards
  Awards
  We’re proud of our work and our business, but we still blush as the awards roll in. We’ve been recognised for excellence in our field, and helping other companies reach world-class status, from 2006 – 2011
- Jobs
  Jobs
  If you’ve got the right stuff we’d love to hear from you. Find out if we have specific jobs to fill, what we’re looking for and how to get in touch.
Training & events
Training & events
We offer a variety of training courses and events. If you’re just curious about user experience or wanting to hone your usability skills we can help.
- Intro to user testing
  Intro to user testing
  Gain practical skills for improving the usability of websites or software applications with our Introduction to User Testing course
- Advanced user testing
  Advanced user testing
  Extend your user testing skills and knowledge and gain first-hand experience of usability techniques such as recruiting and moderating sessions, and analysing and presenting results.
- Common usability issues
  Common usability issues
  Learn how to apply simple usability guidelines to your work and build usability into designs from the start.
- Free seminars
  Free seminars
  Our breakfast briefings attract a lot of interest and cover a range of usability topics. Last year we talked about usability trends, usability vs. marketing, and seductive websites as well as showcasing some of our favourite projects.
Blog
Blog
Resources
Resources
We’ve collected resources that help us, and you, learn more about crafting experiences that users will love.
- Presentations & articles
  Presentations & articles
  We’re always keen to spread the word about usability. Find out what we’ve been talking about recently.
- Useful links
  Useful links
  We’ve gathered a bunch of links, tools and downloads that we find helpful and want to share.
Contact
Contact

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Optimal Usability > Blog > 2012 > May

Archive for May, 2012

UX London 2012 vs. Service Design 2012

Posted by Trent Mankelow in conferences and events, service design, statistics and trends, user experience on May 16, 2012 | 0 comments

By Leif Roy and Trent Mankelow

In April and May, we spoke at and attended two conferences on opposite sides of the globe – UX London 2012 in London and Service Design 2012 in Melbourne. Here are our highlights.

Service Design 2012

Attended by Trent Mankelow

I liked the intimate feel of this conference. With only 120-ish people it made the whole thing feel really friendly. The local case studies and content (there was nary a mention of Apple) helped to create a “we can do this” attitude. Read more »

How to put the ‘real’ in ‘realistic’ user testing – 10 tips

Posted by Sharon Cartwright in user testing on May 4, 2012 | 0 comments

The opportunity doesn’t arise for every user testing project, but occasionally the perfect project emerges that is a great candidate for more realistic user testing.

Generally user testing participants are pretty good at suspending disbelief and engaging with ‘make believe’ type tasks in a session, but seeing participants in a more realistic situation definitely returns richer insights. If the opportunity arises to make your testing more ‘real’ and less ‘make believe’ you should take it. Read more »

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Optimal Usability

Expert review

User testing

Eye tracking

Surveys

Information architecture

Analytics

Field studies

Personas

Interaction design

Visual design

Service design

Strategy

Our tools

Client feedback

Case studies

Our people

Our story

Our partners

Awards

Jobs

Intro to user testing

Advanced user testing

Common usability issues

Free seminars

Presentations & articles

Useful links

Archive for May, 2012

UX London 2012 vs. Service Design 2012

How to put the ‘real’ in ‘realistic’ user testing – 10 tips

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