Syndicated Comparative Usability Studies Help Promote User Research Services

Situation:

In 2011, my firm began to officially promote user research as part of our broader consulting offerings. In order to help our sales team promote these services, I was tasked with designing and conducting a comparative usability study focused on full service brokerage websites. I used the findings from this study to produce a white paper that was intended to demonstrate our capabilities to clients and prospects and generate new sales leads. Based on the success of the initial report, I repeated the process several times, targeting different segments of the financial services industry. On one occasion, I focused on the usability of self-directed brokerage mobile apps. On another, I analyzed banking websites and tablet-optimized apps.

Approach:

In order to create content that had the broadest appeal among our client base, I designed comparative studies that featured a broad range of tasks. Due to budget and time constraints, I didn't have the ability to conduct large-scale tests that would provide statistically significant results. However, although I was limited to using six to eight participants per firm in most instances, I was able to uncover a number of different usability issues which demonstrated the value of a small-scale study to our clients and prospects.