Interview: a specialized consultancy
I recently came along Travel UCD, a usability consultancy specialized in a very specific market (travel and hospitality web design). I was intrigued: it makes sense to specialize in a market like this because you can reuse a lot of specific knowledge, but I didn’t know of other usability consultants specializing like this. I wondered how it was working out for Alex, and whether it could be a model for others. Alex has an academic background is in user interface design & development, a degree in Applied Computing and has worked within the travel, IT or web industry since 1995.
Q: Hi Alex, thanks for doing this interview. When did you start the company,
and how did you come up with the idea of limiting your offerings to such a specific
market?
Alex: I started in April 2002. At that time I had just been employed
as head of web design & development for a leading consortium of hotel chains
in Europe. With my expertise in creating hotel reservation websites for both
B2C & B2B marketplaces, and prior experience as a Managing Director of a
UK based tour operator, it seemed natural to continue within this sector with
Travel UCD. A large amount of the design work that is undertaken on travel websites
involves having an understanding of travel & reservation technology - not
the normal realm of a web designer or usability consultant. It seemed like there
was a market for this.
Q: You are offering some reports with best practices for download; some
free, others for payment, similar to what the NNGroup does. What is the thinking
behind offering these? Do they sell well? Do they lead to potential clients
contacting you?
The NNGroup model was an inspiration, but our reports address specific design
questions common to many online travel websites - much more niche than the NNGroup.
A useful part of the reports is that we include all tasks and observations from
our usability testing. Designers working on similar websites can take the same
tasks and repeat the usability testing on their sites and compare results.
We started the reports project for three main reasons. First, it demonstrates
to clients and potential clients the kind of knowledge that a specialist usability
consultant can bring to a project. Usability is still an alien term for many
project and product managers and I wanted to have something tangible that I
could demonstrate. Much of my work (prototypes, designs etc) is for future projects
- or projects that are not public - so I can’t show this work to potential clients
for contractual reasons.
Second, and this is important, it defines our intellectual property in a public
location. As I work in one specific sector I may be working for clients who
compete with each other in some way. By publishing the reports I can clearly
demonstrate the key intellectual property that Travel UCD know prior to a project
starting.
Third, it provides some revenue from sales. The free report has had about 6000
downloads since July 2002. The 2 recent reports, available for US$150 each,
haven’t quite sold that many, but enough to cover the research and promotion
costs. Most of the household names in online travel from all corners of the
globe have purchased their copies as well as a few travel technology providers.
Q: How do your organize your research? Do you wait for client engagements
to pay for testing? Or do you organize tests outside of client work? How do
you store your data? (video, …?) Do you revisit earlier tests for more insights
later?
The research for the reports is conducted proactively. I choose topics that
I know are of keen interest to travel website designers & product managers.
These questions may have come up at industry conferences or from previously
unanswered design questions from earlier projects.
I begin by looking at the main design approaches to a particular issue. I then
evaluate statistically how many travel websites apply the design in the alternative
ways. Following that I then take a sample of 4 or 5 websites who all use different
approaches and then conduct usability testing with 12 users on these 4 or 5
sites. Although not statistically significant, I believe that by tying my observations
from the testing with the statistical analysis and my own experience, I can
devise guidelines that define best industry practice.
At this stage I have not revisited earlier tests as there are so many areas
left to study!
Q: So what do you think is the best site in this category you have seen,
from a usability point of view?
I tend to look at travel websites on a product by product basis rather than
as a whole site. For example I may say that a certain site has a good hotel
reservation booking process whereas another site may have a well designed flight
section. At this time I don’t have an all round firm favourite. In my opinion
even the major online travel websites that everyone knows and uses demonstrate
usability flaws that impact on the user experience.
This leaves some space in the market for a well designed website to acquire
greater market share using usability as the core of their strategy much like
Google has for search engines. In the travel industry this would probably be
an existing company not a new entrant as the success of travel websites is not
solely defined by design; underlying technology and having a large range of
well priced products and inventory are equally important.
Q: What would your advice be for someone wanting to set up a usability consultancy?
Ensure you have a potential client list before you set up as finding them afterwards
is much harder.
Thanks Alex! I am looking forward to seeing how your company flourishes. I
also wonder wether this could be a model for other people wanting to start a
usability consultancy. I can imagine a usability consultant specialized in,
say, human resource intranets. Or gambling sites. Lots of possibilities there.