'business' posts
Do you use a smartphone to access important information and services on-the-go? If so, you are not alone: New Zealand is in the midst of a mobile revolution. In a 2012 study, Google estimated that 44% of New Zealanders access the internet using some type of smart phone (http://goo.gl/fYM4o) and this number is only projected to increase.
Have you moved from viewing your smartphone as a gadget for entertainment and communication? Is it now an indispensable tool in your everyday activities? If so, you are part of a growing population of smartphone users that is savvier and more demanding of your mobile experience.
The smartphone revolution presents many challenges and benefits in the world of commerce. Banks epitomize just how difficult it is for large organisations to balance the needs of consumers with security concerns in the mobile environment. They must build user-friendly apps (to attract users) that are robust (to keep users) and secure (to protect users). They simply can’t afford to work by trial-and-error. Read more »
It’s a long way to Kyrgyzstan, especially if you’re going via New Zealand. But in the global financial system, anywhere to anywhere is just a click away.
Earlier this year, an investigation by international NGO Global Witness uncovered suspicious transactions worth billions of dollars flowing through Kyrgyzstan’s largest bank. Most of these transactions involve shell companies in Britain, Belize and New Zealand that have little or no real business activities.
In one case, money from a Kyrgyz bank account held by a New Zealand company was used to pay a German vendor on behalf of a Russian company. Why? Through the use of shell companies and a web of transactions around the world, it’s almost impossible to track down the real people and the real purpose behind these transactions. They could be avoiding taxes, laundering the proceeds of corruption or organized crime, or funding terrorism. Read more »
11 sure things that distinguish a consulting business from a corporate:
- Meeting the boss does not require a six week wait for a ten minute speed date (he’s sitting next to you)
- IT Support are people that help, not an adversarial enemy
- Reconciling monthly expenses does not require a degree in accountancy and/or computer science
- Induction is a coffee-centric experience, not an agonising process of bureaucratic indoctrination
- Attendance of a board meeting is not prefaced by the submission of a hundred page report (that nobody reads)
- If you have to ask about the building’s seismic rating, you probably shouldn’t
- Proudly displaying a gifted bottle of hard liquor on your desk will not create an HR incident
- Any internal email can be supported by the inclusion of a relevant LOL Cat, actually it’s kind of expected
- A row of empty desks in the office is a good thing – it means consultants are on site with clients
- The office kitchen is so small you have to step out of it to open the fridge (…and yet the staff bar is cavernous)
- The office dog is actually a dog (Bowie).
*Eamon O’Rourke has recently completed a three-years-brief tour of duty in corporate New Zealand and is still in a daily state of wondrous amazement at the radically different culture of big versus small.
In this absorbing, interactive infographic Optimal Workshop CEO @Andrewfantastic explores quantifying the value of UX design and making the world a better place.
Time. It’s pretty precious. It’s the currency we spend to get things done. And more often than not, things end up taking more time than expected.
In celebration of World Usability Day 2012, Andrew has produced an interactive and informative infographic that illustrates how user experience (UX) designers around the world are winning back time, a most precious commodity for all of us.
Optimal Workshop is a leading vendor of online usability testing tools serving a global community of UX designers, information architects and usability researchers.
Early 2012 saw a significant milestone when an Optimal Workshop customer used the online card-sorting tool, OptimalSort, to rack up the 1,000,000th user test on Workshop’s tools.
The passing of this milestone set Andrew thinking.
“How much time is saved everyday across the world as the payback of UX design and usability testing?” Read more »
My wife and I went out to dinner recently, and I couldn’t help but notice the couple at the adjacent table both using iPads in-between forking food into their mouths. I’m not passing judgment – I think that smart phones, widespread broadband, and social media are all changing the way I behave too. As a society our attention is fracturing: at the dinner table, while we watch TV, as we shop.
So for our final newsletter of the year I thought I’d share with you some recent statistics that highlight how digital technology is changing our lives Read more »
I recently relocated to the US of A so watched the All Blacks win the Rugby World Cup from afar. It was not only nerve-racking but a good reminder about the importance of not just having a game plan, but a plan for the entire tournament.
This is not just a necessity for rugby but also for conducting research and design. Reflecting on my experiences, I am often asked to come up with an approach to “win a game” but not to “win the tournament”. This can result in tactical approaches which may not always be the best for a product or service in the long term.
Read more »
Following on from Dan’s article last month, this month we’ve invited Steven Bruce from Public Trust to share his thoughts on what it takes to deliver world-class customer experience. Steven is Head of Customer Strategy at Public Trust, which is transforming its business to become more customer centric. Steven has previously held roles in strategy, marketing and customer experience at organisations such as ANZ National Bank and Westpac. His work has also been show cased in case studies as world best practice by the Washington DC-based Corporate Executive Board.
Read more »
Last week I was responding to a Request for Information from an organisation that wanted to create a “world-class, high quality website”. It got me thinking – what does it mean to be world-class? The phrase is in danger of being used so often that it becomes meaningless. So this month we’ve invited Dan Szuc to share some of his thoughts on what it takes to be “world-class”.
Read more »
At Optimal Usability our vision is to help transform our clients into providers of world-class customer experiences. But it turns out that it’s really hard to transform organisations. So lately I’ve been reading up on ‘big D’ Design, how organisations can build design into their DNA, and I thought I’d share a few ideas that have stood out.
Read more »
We are often asked by clients for our opinion on the things they should watch out for, what the future holds, and who’s doing the really interesting stuff.
These kind of questions have inspired us to reflect and collect our thoughts into four inter-related articles covering:
- Devices
- Social interactions
- Services
- Data
In this final part of the series, we are looking at data. Read more »
