UX Design and Research

No one ever gets fired for hiring HFI!!

Human Factors International (HFI) is the global leader in user experience (UX) design. Our 30+ years of experience can be leveraged for all your diverse UX projects.

Every UX solution from HFI is fortified with our:

• Time-tested methodology (The HFI Framework ^TM) and a complete suite of UX offerings
• Global quality management with ISO 9001:2008 certification
• Design expertise across cultures provided by our Institute for Customer Experience
• Efficient project scoping devised to work within your timeframe

Choosing the Right Vendor

Choosing the right UX vendor for your project is your first critical step. Here are some questions you need to ask in order to make the right choice:

• Can the UX vendor provide:
  • High-level experts
  • A detailed methodology
  • Full range of UX services
  • Design standards and templates
• How large is the vendor?
• Are they easy to do business with?
• Do they have experience in your domain and understand your users’ ecosystem?
• Can they manage a global footprint?

Assessment

HFI offers a series of intense evaluation methods aligned to the diverse needs and challenges of projects.

Reviews

• Expert UX Review
  • A strategic analysis done in the context of business objectives, user’s goals and overall experience – without engaging end users.
  • You get concrete UX design recommendations and a UX scorecard for future reference.
• Expert PET Review
  • We analyze the Persuasion, Emotion, and Trust elements of your website and identify users’ drives and blocks.
  • You get concrete UX design recommendations and a UX scorecard for future reference.
• Competitive Review
  • This method screens competitors' sites against a set of predefined criteria and tasks and provides insights into the competitive landscape.
  • You get a detailed report on improvement areas and alternate approaches, and a UX scorecard for future reference.

Tests

• Usability Testing
  • Testing (getting users to perform typical tasks in our usability lab) or Remote Testing with representative users to help identify ergonomic bugs.
  • You get a detailed analysis of the results with design recommendations.
• PET Scan
  • Analysis of Persuasion, Emotion, and Trust elements of your website with real representative users.
  • You get detailed tactical recommendations for improving persuasiveness of your website.
• International Assessments
  • Assessment for understanding differences in terms of culture, values and environments.
  • You get detailed tactical recommendations to improve the localization of your website to meet business goals.

User-centered design

HFI's User-Centered Design (UCD) process involves the following 3 steps:

Define the user interface structure

• This foundational step helps your users immediately understand what is available and how to find it.
• It takes into account the 3 key factors of Persuasion, Emotion and Trust while meeting your business objectives.
• You get a detailed analysis report highlighting users’ key drives and blocks, a roadmap of key conversion points and site strategy, and high-level flow of the site framework.

Create detailed design screens and prototypes

• This step focuses on creating a design that fits the users’ tasks, motivates them and optimizes screen performance.
• The persuasion blueprint is translated into corresponding interaction, images, and copy while applying field-tested UX principles.
• You get a written report with detailed screen layout, graphically treated pages, high-level site flow, and prototype if required.

Validate the design concepts

• In this phase, we go back to the end-customers/ users and test the new concept for its adequacy to achieve your business goals.
• This validation is more about whether users WILL rather than if they CAN.
• You get a detailed analysis report with methods used, results and design recommendations.

Omni-channel UX strategy

Get a cohesive strategic solution that:

• Supports a holistic customer experience
• Incorporates executive intent
• Aligns with your business goals

Our approach follows the following steps:

• Start with your executive intent and business goals
• Define what motivates your customers to change their behavior
• Determine what a cross-channel solution that creates a cohesive ecosystem looks like
• Research what drives your customer’s needs and what will limit their engagement
• Create the strategic plan to attain a coherent aligned experience

New product and business ideation

HFI’s process helps you conceptualize a product / service for a new market, or then re-engineer it to meet emerging needs or new customer segments.

From research to actionable insights to breakthrough concepts and designs—we help you manage it all through the following process:

• Know your space – by understanding your business objectives, identifying usage trends, and evaluating competition.
• Know your users – with critical ecosystem research of your users, eliciting the deepest responses.
• Innovate – using the insights, frameworks and models to deliver a novel and sustainable solution tailored for you.

We also move your project from concept to concrete design, following a system design approach.

Improvement

HFI’s UX Measurement and Improvement Program will provide you with:

• A framework for measuring success of UX initiatives
• An evaluation of your design by HFI that generates a score on a 100 point scale to be used as benchmark
• A scorecard based on the following 5 UX dimensions to periodically evaluate your design
  • Navigation and information architecture
  • Presentation
  • Content
  • Interaction
  • Value and usefulness