We have a refined and appropriate methodology for the user testing of websites, mobile websites and documents. Read more …
I just helped my 8 year old daughter set up her first Gmail account. I’m always amazed at how interesting and valuable watching someone else use a website is – even a child. Here are some things I saw: There is ALWAYS a case for plain language. Even on Gmail’s very short registration page there were terms that could have been easier to understand. For example, ‘Desired login name’ could have been ‘Email address’, ‘Re-enter’ could have been ‘Type again’, ‘Word verification’ could have been ‘Type this’. The Gmail interface relies on you knowing that navigation happens at the top and left-hand side of the screen. Background colours could have chunked this up so that when my daughter was looking for ‘New email’ she didn’t have to scan the entire page, but could have done a first scan of 3 sections. IT took her a while to find out what to click to write her first email. The button was labelled ‘Compose email’. This is another overly complicated term for writing a new email. User error is always a problem. So much of your visitor’s experience happens when they make mistakes. Often, instead of spending a lot of time and effort on the communication, this area is left to the developers. For the second time in as many weeks, I’ve watched my children spend more time on making the Gmail interface look pretty by playing with the built-in themes than they did on using the website itself. Nevertheless, she is up and running and sending emails to everyone. That, and being pursued around the garden by her bigger sister who is trying to get the scrap of paper that has her username and password written on it.
Over the last decade, we are proud to have worked with:
As part of their on-going attempt to help students grow their careers, Varsity College needed a web application to help students find part-time work. Read more …
Together with plain language specialists Simplified, we carried out web consulting to train the Liberty web and intranet team on user-focused design principles and techniques.
When Carl Roberts wanted to rework his website, he approached us to help with the website design. Read more …
When NOAH wanted to rework their website, we offered to help with the website design.
Cellphones are getting more and more powerful. Today most phones offer some form of internet connectivity through a browser. This means you no longer need to write cellphone applications to let customers interact with you through their phone. We develop .mobi websites to help your customers stay in touch with you.
The days of just having a website being enough are long gone. In fact we’re not sure they ever existed! If done well, email newsletters can build an ongoing relationship with your customers. Read more …
WordPress is a fantastic platform for a certain scale of website. Over the last few years we embraced WordPress and can deliver smaller websites that really do present great value for money.
User-focused design isn’t really a self-standing offer from us. Everything we do will be built and designed from a user’s viewpoint. We’re not sure if there is any other way. Read more …
Experience design is such an unfortunately lofty term for such a simple principle. Anything that gets used (read or interacted with) creates an experience for the person doing the using. This experience is what needs designing. Read more …
The discipline of information architecture can help you structure documents, communication, websites, intranets and any other type of digital problem to make things easier to understand and find. Any of our projects will have a dedicated phase for this work. Read more …
Garth Shoebridge trained as an architect and graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1994.
After working in the architectural industry for a few years he decided to bring the eternal debate about form verses function to the digital realm in 1998.
He worked for himself, Datatec and then became a partner at umlungu with Alan. Over the last decade he has consulted to some of South Africa’s largest corporates. Read more …
Alan Benington trained as an engineer and graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Alan has been involved in a number of web and software development projects as a director, strategist, technical lead and project manager.
He has been a founding member of start-ups, including EasyInfo as technical director and BitGlue as managing director. He has worked in JSE-listed companies, including Primedia, Datatec and ABSA Bank. Read more …
Hayley Komen holds a BA Communication Science from UNISA and a B-Tech Nature Conservation from the Tshwane University of Technology.
Hayley has worked as a copywriter and project manager in the advertising industry, as the communications manager for the Endangered Wildlife Trust. She was on the editorial committee for the joint-NGO magazine Environment – people and conservation in Africa and the hardcover annual publication Vision.
In her early career Hayley was lucky enough to work in the Kruger National Park and private reserve Bushmanskloof. Read more …
Once again social media has amazed me this week. Here’s what happened: Someone friended me on Facebook that I haven’t seen for 30 odd years. I can’t believe how old she looks and realised that goes for me too. I finally got around to updating my LinkedIn profile, and now have a meeting with someone that I should have called months ago. My wife has gotten a number of orders for her business and a new export contact through her involvement in Facebook. A potential client knows he needs to have social media as part of his business but is unsure why or how. After being very active on Twitter personally, I finally bite the bullet and set up a profile for my business. Grudgingly, it already somehow feels a lot less fun. Another client is happy for his business to engage in social media, but is very concerned about his personal privacy in the process. I look at another client’s web logs and can’t ignore the simple fact that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) outperforms their social media efforts at a rate of 10 to 1. Although, it shouldn’t be, the SEO has almost no monthly cost but the social media has very real costs to their business. I find 3 new brilliant bands through friends on Twitter and LastFM. I’m meeting friends later for drinks that I met through Twitter. 10. I get irritated by 3 companies who are using social media in very blatant, facile and self-serving ways. I’ll remember who they are and try and use their competitors. I write a post about social media. Once again, I can’t help but be astounded how polarised I feel about this phenomenon. Personally I’m an avid user of social media but find myself having many reservations about its role in business. If a friend or family member asks for advice on social media I gush on all the things they should and can do, if a client asks about social media I gush on all the things they should be careful of. For me the debate on social media’s role in business is still very much open.