Client feedback
We love to delight our clients, and their feedback is our best measure of success.
“The guys at Optimal Usability are a great team! Air New Zealand has set some very daunting challenges which have been met with enthusiasm and a passion for representing the customer experience that we really respect and value.” View case study
Hudson Smales, Customer Insights & Innovation Manager, Air New Zealand
“Fly Buys sent out over 16 million emails in 2010, so it’s important to us that every communication is useful and engaging for our Members. When we decided to roll out a new email template, we asked Optimal Usability to help us understand how our Members read our emails by eye tracking with 27 people. The results were very interesting. The eye tracking gave us insights that we couldn’t have got any other way, and the deliverables were easy to understand and enabled us to improve the design based on fact.”
Brook Millbank, Loyalty New Zealand
“The effects of OU’s work in setting the highest possible standards for the direction of our project cannot be overstated. Redevelopment of our processes can only ever focus on our clients thanks to the Persona and related outputs that OU worked closely with us to develop. Our project is extremely well-researched as a direct result OU’s work, and will deliver services to our clients in the best possible way. Their involvement left the team with valuable education in the importance of user-centred design, which is guiding all work on the project. This valuable influence is also spreading to other areas of the Ministry… ”
Justin Hygate, Group Manager Business Registries, Ministry of Economic Development
“We were thoroughly impressed with Optimal Usability’s whole approach. They followed a strong methodology that not only gives us confidence in our direction, but we ended up with a solution that we wouldn’t have got to ourselves. We have ended up with a clear deliverable that we could give to developers. It gave us clarity and was a great way to communicate our requirements.”
Mark Miller, Web Manager, Ministry of Tourism
“It was an absolute pleasure working with Optimal Usability to develop our online strategy. Ruth and Suzanne made the process fun and brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the project. Following the development of the strategy document our development is better informed and more focused with initiatives clearly prioritised and user needs clearly defined.” View case study
John Sushames, Metlink
“Optimal Usability were fantastic. They were very quick and the feedback was really valid. 75% of their feedback was directly implemented, and the users now feel like they are empowered and in control.”
Claire Sherrington, Web manager, Sorted.org.nz
“In 2010 we hired Optimal Usability to review the otago.ac.nz web site. They helped us to identify usability issues by testing the site with prospective students and also advised us how we could improve the structure of our site. The resulting report has been extremely helpful in prioritising changes to the web site. At every step we found the team at Optimal Usability extremely knowledgeable, flexible, and great fun to work with.”
Virginia Nicholls, Director, Marketing and Communications ,University of Otago
“Optimal Usability came highly recommended to us by our friends at Trade Me and we were very impressed with their professionalism and obvious deep knowledge of the usability space from Day One. Trent is a top bloke (which always helps) and we quickly established a good rapport. What we liked especially was the “cut to the chase/call it as it was” frankness of Optimal Usability’s analysis. Use Optimal Usability if you are serious about understanding the user experience… And they send you cool informative newsletters as well”
Tony Gibson, Partner ,Gibson Sheat
“Optimal has a long history of working with DOC on our intranet and website. We recently asked Ruth and Julie to help us to develop a set of personas to be used by the intranet and internal communication teams. They were quick to understand our requirements and available and willing (!) to kick off and deliver the project within 2 weeks of making contact with them. It’s great to work with a team who willingly share their knowledge and expertise and who dealt with a large number of our staff at all levels of the organisation in such an engaging and professional manner. The personas were delivered on time and to budget and we are delighted with the results.”View case study
Pamela Minnoch, Intranet Team,Department of Conservation, Te Papa Atawhai
“I’ve been so pleased with the incredible level of service and commitment that we’ve gotten from Optimal Usability. It’s clear that they’re passionate about the usability field, and the end results clearly reflect that passion. They’ve done a great job from beginning to end on our project, and I’d happily use them again.”
Michelle Farrell, Manager, Web Information , NZTA
“Optimal Usability have worked with us both on the Consumer website and on the Consumer Powerswitch website developments. In both of these projects the team at Optimal Usability have offered us fresh thinking and insight, that we have taken forward into the development of features which have really enhanced the experience of our customers. The Optimal team enthusiastically bring the customer right into the heart of the projects they work on and they provide creative and practical solutions to ensure continual improvement in customer experience is achieved.”
Miriam O’Connor, Manager, Marketing and Business Development, Consumer
“We engaged Optimal Usability in 2011 to help us better understand our small business and personal customers. What impressed us most was how the team analysed the eye tracking data to take us beyond the simple heat maps. By combining eye tracking with traditional usability testing, we were able to identify a number of quick wins.”
Peter Zavoda, BNZ Online, Bank of New Zealand
“Early in our development we wanted to understand if customers would “get” our Powershop concept, and our user interface. Optimal Usability clearly understood the brief and were able to quickly bring together a representative sample of potential customers and find out what they thought. We found this insight invaluable.”
Simon Coley, Manager – Design & Marketing, Powershop
“Understanding user behaviour is essential in our industry, especially understanding the way a user ‘sees’ a website. We approached Optimal Usability with our unique situation and they were able to combine substantial industry research with our own specialised data to create a comprehensive report which has shaped our design/usability best practices since. It was nice to see that some of what we were doing was spot on, but it was even nicer to understand the areas where small changes made big differences. I can happily report that we have seen universal success from the changes we made.”
Brett Bailey, Director, Firstlight ERA
“I would definitely recommend Optimal Usability. The service and advice they provided was professional and I was very pleasantly surprised by the depth of their knowledge.” View case study
Gary Tayler, Manager, iSky Content team, Sky Television
“Optimal Usability are professionals to the nth degree. They are early to every meeting, they hit every deadline. The beauty of their set-up is that they understand the issues from our point of view and our clients’ standpoint, but ultimately they represent our customers. They are agile in their approach, and have a fantastic ability to work around obstacles on testing day. I would recommend them ten times out of ten.”
Nicola Reade, Account director, Aim Proximity
“Optimal Usability were a pleasure to work with. They are smart, professional and know what they’re talking about. Their report was clear and totally spot on with what we needed to know. Based on the testing carried out by Optimal Usability we made some key changes to our website before launch that have played a major role in the success of nzonscreen.com.”
Brenda Leeuwenberg, Project Director, NZ On Screen
“Optimal Usability helped us to create a website that delivers an exceptional user experience, and presents complex information in a manner that is easy and fun to use. Students are now able to easily find the information they need to make an inform study choices.
They helped us to not only better understand the online needs of our users but also to gain an increased appreciation of how critical usability is to a website’s success. Throughout the process the team at Optimal were highly professional and fantastic to work with. They were extremely thorough in their work and produced high standard solutions that more than met our expectations.” View case studyChristine Randall,Open Polytechnic
“I have enjoyed the support of Optimal Usability since 2005. Over the last six years, Trent and his team have provided excellent usability design and development support augmenting our internal resources. The Optimal team has boundless enthusiasm and passion for excellence in interaction design, being able to access their expertise for tasks ranging from quality reviews to project resources has helped ensure the success of many projects I have lead.”
Stu Woollett, Head of eBusiness, Westpac
“We used Optimal Usability to review our motorcycle websites (rideforever.co.nz and scootersurvival.co.nz). The thing I enjoyed most about working with the team is how easy they made it. They very quickly ‘get’ what’s needed. The report was presented in a way that was simple to use to inform the changes required. They also added so much more – way beyond the brief and all of it insightful and helpful. ”
Megan Nagel, Senior Marketing Advisor, ACC
“Localist is new and visually it had to be exciting and stimulating, we knew we would only get one shot at making a good impression. We needed a quality, independent design and usability opinion and we needed it quick. Optimal came to the party, understood the consumer and user proposition we had in mind and provided an excellent report that described in simple terms what was missing and/or confusing along with recommended changes. The Optimal team worked closely with Localist, in particular the development team to understand and analyse what was presented in our web site, their professionalism was clear, respect between both Optimal and Localist staff which enhanced the relationship. The final product from Optimal was not a weighty tomb, it was a clear and concise report allowing us to prioritise, and focus on delivering to our proposition. Using an independent, professional team, like the one at Optimal, added further value, as a catalyst to bring passionate, yet divergent, opinion within Localist to conclusion; we had been living and breathing every pixel and valued the alignment Optimal brought to Localist.”
Ken Holley, Head of Technology, Localist