The RFP is such a standard part of the agency selection process that it’s practically become like wallpaper. But what if there was no need to RFP at all? What if you just took an agency for a test drive?

My son just turned 16, and we’re staring down that teenage rite of passage: buying his first car. It’s been an interesting process, to say the least. In some ways, the experience is exactly like it was when I was his age. There’s the fast-talking, hand-shaking salesperson who accosts you as soon as you enter the dealership and follows up incessantly. On the other hand, a lot has changed. Today, there are aggregation websites, pricing tools, reams of historical service and safety data, and services like Carvana and Autotrader Private Seller Exchange. 

Interestingly, the experience got me thinking about how clients buy services from agencies like Infinum. And even more interestingly, it raised an intriguing, perhaps even radical question: could we do away with one of the cornerstones of the agency-client relationship – the Request for Proposal (RFP)?

I work in business development, and a large part of my job involves responding to RFPs. When clients recognize they have a need like a website rebuild, new mobile app, or custom software tool, they send RFPs to dozens of agencies, commencing a lengthy vetting process that can last for weeks or even months.

On the agency side, all of the aforementioned details are absorbed, and teams are put together to evaluate the prospective client’s question and begin crafting a response. After these documents are turned in, if the agency is fortunate enough to make the first cut, they commence a series of meetings and interviews. It’s not always clear how many agencies are in the mix, but we’ve had as many as 50.

For those doing the requesting, the workload is no less daunting. Prospective clients sift through stacks of presentation decks, PDFs, case study links, Google drives full of (hopefully) relevant assets, and more. Over a few weeks, they winnow the list to perhaps a half-dozen contenders, then set up and administer a series of interviews that can last from one to four hours each, working their way to a single agency.

If you do some rough napkin math, say the 50 agencies each put in 40 hours of effort. That’s 2,000 collective hours input into the process. On the client side, for rough math, assume it’s 25 hours of reading and 50 hours of interviewing and administrative work to get through all these submissions. If there are five senior-level participants, that’s 375 person hours. 

Using more napkin math (sorry, we’re using a lot of napkins here, but bear with me), let’s say, this client time is worth an average of $250 per hour. That 375 hours translates to an equivalent value of about $93,000.

Keeping users at the center of everything we do is a year-round principle, but in the spirit of the season, our UX team shares 10 New Year’s resolutions for creating amazing experiences in 2024 and beyond.

With December upon us, our thoughts turn to resolutions—the ways we can be better in the year to come. For us as an agency, that means constantly raising the bar for ourselves, our clients, our communities, our industry, our families, and our friends. For our UX team, whose job is to advocate for the end users, it means being an even stronger voice.

Our Purpose-Driven Design process, which guides the creation of experiences for our clients, was created to keep users at the center of everything we do. We know that if we’re not delivering on the expectations of our clients’ users, we aren’t doing our job. And we know that happy users are our clients’ loyal customers, service recommenders, and product influencers. And it just makes us happy to fill the world with better, easier, friendlier experiences.  

With that in mind, we asked our UX team, who are based on both sides of the Atlantic, to share their top UX resolutions for the year to come. Below are the top 10 principles they’ve resolved to keep top of mind no matter what distractions and curveballs 2024 may throw.

Chris Bradshaw, Infinum’s Director of Strategy, puts it this way: “For me, it starts with human beings. Clients have many ideas and dreams, things they want to do and build. But they don’t necessarily have all the insights to know what the users want or the benefits they seek from a product or solution. That’s where we come in.”

For Infinum, that means constantly engaging in the kind of fact-finding, insights-gathering research that will illuminate the wants and needs of our clients’ customers.

With the boom of social media and all the digital communication channels available today, the website, which used to be the pillar of online presence, seems to be falling lower and lower on companies’ priority lists. Justifiably so? We say not.

Humans make incredibly fast decisions. Research has shown that it takes roughly 50 milliseconds (about 0.05 seconds) for people to form their opinion of your website. And, of course, technology is making it increasingly easier for humans to act on these opinions. Just click, tap, swipe, or blurt out “Alexa, off!” and it can quickly be game over for a brand. It’s very much like the 366 million people online dating who rely mainly on pictures and snippets of “about me” copy before swiftly swiping left or right en route to nothing … or a relationship.

And yet, in the midst of all that we know and understand, we find that marketers often focus less on their websites than perhaps they should.

Our Creative Director for North America, Todd Doyle, puts it this way: “Given the importance of the first impression and the incredible speed with which it happens, I find it surprising that more focus is not placed on the site. Clients, of course, understand it’s important, but there is often an understandable notion of ‘it’s good enough’ that can get in the way of deeper explorations that could pay greater dividends. We always make the case for visual design testing using moderated or unmoderated usability tests. This can move the discussion past opinion and build toward effectiveness.”

Indeed, while there has always been competition for marketers’ attention and budget, it’s arguably more so now than ever amid an ever-expanding digital landscape. For example, a CMO or CTO today will likely be comparing investment in their website against an expanded social media landscape, e-commerce, CRM, and burgeoning innovation opportunities in AI.

But, according to Shannon Ruetsch, Head of Experience Design, these leaders should tread carefully when it comes to planning website budgets.

Many point to the landmark web credibility research from Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, which found that 75% of users admit to “making judgments about a company’s credibility based on their website’s design.”

While it’s an older study, the reality is that these same behaviors exist today. As leading UX research organization Nielsen Norman Group puts it: “[A]lthough design patterns and trends change over time, human behavior does not. Users’ priorities and methods of evaluation are the same today as they were 17 years ago, even though the web itself has vastly evolved. What we now consider a ‘quality’ website design looks very different from a reputable website of the past, but what influences the perception of quality has not changed and will not change in the future.”

And, TikTok and Amazon aside, it’s not as if the website has ceased to be a significant part of the user journey. A January 2023 study by eMarketer found that 55% of U.S. and U.K. retail shoppers researched and bought on a retailer’s website versus just 23% via social media. That’s not to say critical business isn’t done on social media, but it does speak to the importance of the website.

In an era of competing channels and high customer expectations, we’d argue that it’s actually a great time to elevate the web experience. And if you’ve invested in your brand and its digital presence (which you surely have), then there is logic to doing the extra work to ensure it’s conveyed in just the right way on your website.

As Neal J. Roese writes in the 3rd Edition of Kellogg on Marketing, “[E]ach and every tactical execution contributes to the brand image … customers derive an inherent value from seeing a family resemblance in assortments.” In other words, your site, product, and communications need to be coherent, clear, and coordinated.

The topic of customer perception also brings to mind the research by Kotler and Keller that found that customer satisfaction comes from “comparing a product’s perceived performance or outcome against his/her expectations.” While these findings may sound obvious on the surface, the implications are potentially profound.

Whether it’s a first date or deciding who you want to do business with, the fact is that in all of those cases, we have less than a second to make a first impression – and then make sure you’re doing the work to make the relationship last.

Doyle adds: “It’s human to shift or lose focus when there are so many competing priorities out there. That’s why we feel that one of the ways we can help clients most is by being there to help them keep their focus.”

With the rapid expansion of new technologies like AI, we can see in human beings a fascinating desire for technology to do human things. Our Head of Experience Design Shannon Ruetsch explains the importance of empathy in understanding real user needs.

We’ve moved far beyond assembly line robots putting rivets into car panels or picking items off a shelf. Where machines once took over rote and physically demanding tasks, we now have machines that can talk, interpret, design, create, problem-solve, iterate, reason, and more. 

In many cases, technology is successful at this. In others, the jury is still out, and it’s difficult to see where it all goes. Computers can talk, they can listen, and they can interpret. But they can’t feel. A robot can be programmed to ask about a user’s feelings, but it wouldn’t actually be feeling. It might offer prompts like: “I am hearing that you are angry. Tell me why.” This is different from resonating with someone based on shared life experiences, and the emotional connections that humans make as a result.

Thankfully, there are still many areas where humanity triumphs over machines in clear and convincing ways. According to Shannon Ruetsch, Head of Experience Design at Infinum USA, one of these areas is channeling empathy into better design work.

“Analytics may show that a user visited a certain page on a website and spent a minute there,” Ruetsch says. “But that gives you no insight into why that happened or how the user felt about that experience. Data is great at letting us know what is happening, but it’s not so great at helping us understand why users are behaving in certain ways or how they feel about their experiences.”

To that end, we sat down with Ruetsch to get a better handle on what is at the crux of empathic design. Moreover, we wanted to get to the bottom of what human feelings and emotions offer the process that no machines can.

Let’s talk about “empathic design.” What’s your take on what that means?

It means coming at design from a place of understanding who you are designing for and what problems you are trying to solve for those people. It’s not doing design for design’s sake. At a high level, the goal with empathetic design is always to improve end users’ lives in some way, whether it’s making it easier for them to find what they are looking for on a website or reducing their chances of making an error on a form submission. We require that our design work, above all things, remains human-centered.

Let’s talk about “empathic design.” What’s your take on Purpose-Driven Design is our proprietary framework for solving design challenges. As part of that, we say “Usefulness depends on empathy.” Can you talk more about that?

What is the purpose of design if you don’t have empathy for the people you’re trying to help on the other side of it? Design is not the same thing as art. Design must be usable, functional, and help end users achieve their goals. We prioritize and advocate for understanding users’ needs, goals, motivations, and current behaviors in order to equip us with the information we need to design products and features that deliver on the expectation of a great user experience. Unless the design has a useful purpose, it is not valuable. If it doesn’t achieve goals for end users and for the business, it’s not good design.

And how would you say that we address that?

By definition, for one to be empathetic, they must understand. That requires taking the time to investigate with both the stakeholders and the end users to define the problems and create the solutions. It means literally putting things in front of users to test them and make sure that what we’ve designed provides the warranted solution.

Do you have an example you can share of us working on empathic design with a client closely and effectively?

There are many, of course, but VNS Health immediately comes to mind. They are a 130-year-old organization in New York that’s dedicated to home and community health care. One of their practice areas is hospice and end-of-life care. People in need of such services are in an extraordinarily sensitive and emotional state. They are afraid that by reaching out to ask for more information they are admitting defeat and feel they are giving up on their loved ones. It is an incredibly sensitive topic.

So we talked to people who went through that. They were honestly very intense user interviews, but they offered so much clarity. They led us to understand the need to reassure users and metaphorically hold their hand through a very difficult time. It informed the voice and tone of everything we did. These people are scared when they’re reaching out. So we need to ease their fears, and to say explicitly that reaching out does not mean that they are giving up.

I would imagine in today’s world of innovation it would be easy to let technology run the show.

It is common for stakeholders to be distracted by the shiny design or technology innovations that they see or hear about. But I like to say that for us, empathy is our north star. Before we take any design step, we need to understand the purpose behind why we are doing it. That includes knowing who we are designing the experience for and what specific needs we are trying to solve for those people. Our job is to uncover and validate those user needs through research so that we can then advocate for meeting those user needs throughout the design process, keeping empathy for users at the forefront.

What do you think can stand in the way of clients getting empathic design?

The resistance we can face from clients is “We already know our customers. We already have data. Look at our analytics, isn’t that enough?” Usually, it is related to budget. We’ve found that if something’s going to get cut from a project, it’s often user research. In addition, we work with marketing teams who are typically under crazy time pressure. By necessity they are moving fast, so it’s often difficult to get to the real pain points because they are simply buried by the day-to-day obstacles they are forced to react to. It makes it hard to step back and prioritize research, to take time to really understand the end-users.

In an ideal world, how often do you think companies need to refresh or re-evaluate these kinds of research?

Businesses are constantly changing their offerings and strategic positioning. Who they serve, and how they serve their customers is altered as a result. So certainly, upon the launch of any new feature, research is a must. Ideally, user research is happening on an ongoing basis within an organization. In lieu of that, I would say it is important to do at least some user research once a year to stay in tune with your customers and keep empathy for your end users top of mind. It is also necessary to review and update analytics on a regular basis. We see a lot of clients who try to design solutions to please everyone. We believe it is imperative to have a priority user in mind with any new feature or product that is developed.

How do you prevent biases from creeping into empathic design work?

The best way we’ve found to mitigate bias is to follow research and best practices. We do our best to take in that information as if we’re a blank slate. We try not to offer opinions or ask leading questions. We do our best to keep it as neutral as possible. When we are gathering information, we seek to have at least two people analyze the research. It’s very easy for information to get skewed. When we have at least two brains in the mix, we can check each other.

What steps do you take to generate empathic design?

Our overall Purpose Driven Design framework and process is our guide to the various steps along the way. It’s all coming from a place of needing to put the users first. And so we try to bake that into every step of our process. We talk to users from the beginning to understand what they want. Then later on, we validate our design with them by doing usability testing. We keep the user involved through all stages of our process, which is key.

Is there something about the team or in the philosophies of the organization that you feel sets you apart?

We are very good at being human. We’re not the corporate-robot type. We are certainly buttoned up and professional, but we have a real ability to build rapport, to create easy, trusting relationships. We make our clients and their users feel comfortable. Inevitably, clients open up and share more with us than they might otherwise.

And I think we have empathy not just for the end users, but for our stakeholders as well. Most of them are extremely busy executives running in a bajillion different directions. We often wait weeks to get on somebody’s calendar.

That said, we’re very good at being patient and working with clients on that. We give a lot of grace; that is to say, we have empathy. We recognize that we all have the same end goal in mind, to improve users’ lives and make a real difference in our clients’ businesses – these are not mutually exclusive goals, they go hand-in-hand. Having empathy for your end users is good for business.

This article was originally published by ExpandTheRoom, a company acquired by Infinum in 2023.

Embarking on a website redesign or re-platforming journey? Prepare to be faced with the inevitable challenge of content migration. To help you on your way, we’ve put together a friendly guide on what to look out for.

There will come a time when you’ll want to redesign or re-platform your website This is not a matter of if, but when. In digital, nothing stays the same for long. And when it happens, you’ll be faced with a content migration – the transfer of all your assets (copy, images, links, videos, file downloads, and so on) into the new system. 

Whether you’re doing a basic “lift and shift” of an existing site to a new CMS or redesigning from the ground up, there are risks for things like losing SEO ranking or corrupting information. However, there are also opportunities for better organization and utilizing your content better. So it pays to pay attention. 

It’s tempting to think there are tools that can make this happen in a simple “button-push” fashion. In fact, we’ve found that the level of work involved in migrations is often underestimated. You’re dealing with legacy content created over years (maybe decades), and it’s likely not organized the way you want it to be. At the same time, the site may be generating significant inbound search volume, so you don’t want to upset the proverbial apple cart.

So, what’s a CMO, CTO, or owner to do? We’ve done hundreds of migrations over the years, and wanted to share our learnings to help you better understand the drivers of time, cost, and also the upside opportunity when undertaking a major migration project.

Think of this as a Post-it note you keep on your computer that reminds you to stay focused on how and why you took on this herculean project in the first place.

There are a multitude of reasons one needs to migrate content: improved performance, integration with other business units (maybe it’s a company merger, or a combining of different corporate systems), new business requirements that make it necessary to add new features, or perhaps it’s a rebrand or redesign. And because you are “under the hood,” it makes sense to want to tackle it all.

This type of disciplined thinking will help you direct your team and ensure you get what you need. It will help you forecast staffing needs accurately and understand the time it will realistically take to complete the migration. From our experience, this step is invaluable in helping to keep costs and the project as a whole on the right track.

Who is responsible for which pieces of the migration? Often, many team members are involved, on both the client and agency sides, and you want to avoid duplicate work or work being missed because it wasn’t clear who was accountable for completing it. You also want to be sure to have the right people tasked with the right job. 

For example, it may initially seem efficient to have a less senior staff member mapping your assets to a new taxonomy. But such a task is at the core of helping your customers easily find what they are looking for on your site. What could be more important? In most cases, this requires thoughtful consideration and experience. This one staffing choice, done right, could offer very high returns for years to come.

If you get the first two steps above right – your objectives and decisions around scope and staffing – your budgeting step will be much more straightforward. However, try to resist the urge to fight the numbers. This sounds obvious, but we have seen this rattle even the most seasoned executive. 

Large-scale migrations are often expensive, and one of the chronically underestimated parts of a website build or redesign. Redesigning your website or moving all of your assets to a brand-new CMS is a long-term investment. 

Migrate to a platform that will last and will be most beneficial to your business needs. Work with those that are most qualified to do the same. Our most satisfied clients are the ones who undertake their migration with these foundational business truths in mind and are willing to make the necessary investments to get it done right. 

What content are you working with? What content are you missing? What content do you need to have to make a real impact on your users? What has worked in the past that will help you achieve your desired future outcomes? 

To accurately evaluate this, it’s important to look at your top pages by traffic and engagement, examine search performance, and identify other indicators that are important for your particular business to measure. 

You want to understand what content is working, why it’s working, and also take a hard look at content that’s not performing well and determine if it’s due to poor quality, a wrong match for your users, or perhaps it’s good content that is simply not promoted or optimized well. 

And of course, for content that is performing well, you’ll want to protect it and make sure you don’t break what’s proven to be successful.

Taxonomy is the structure of a website that defines how content is organized and made accessible to users. Think of it as the site’s categories or sections. 

Re-organizing all your content into an entirely new structure can be extremely time-consuming, so being circumspect about the complexity of the taxonomy is warranted. This will save you time and energy in the implementation process. And, of course, a simple and effective organization scheme is good for your users as well.

One final step that’s of critical importance is making sure that your newly located content is findable. You may want to consider a new URL structure for your content if the existing URLs don’t clearly define your site’s hierarchy. 

You’ll want to make sure the URL structure respects your site’s taxonomy by including any parent categories or pages, and that it is simple and descriptive of the content. If you decide to create a new URL structure, you’re going to need redirects to make sure existing links resolve properly. Tracking any changes to page URLs during the process will make mapping the redirects a smoother process. And you’ll want to submit the new sitemap to Google and consider editing content to target keywords to preserve search integrity.

As content goes, remember less is often more. At this stage, you’ll act upon the hard decisions you’ve made about what will stay, go, or be revised in new ways. 

This is also one of the places where your staffing decisions from above really matter. If you’re updating content, you’ll need a team with editing and writing skills – for copy, and also for images and possibly video. It’s one thing to decide what fits and what does not, and another is to prepare the content in alignment with your brand purpose and business goals. 

This is also a time to update your metadata, evaluate all third-party scripts you are currently using, and try to remove any that are redundant or not, providing you the data or business value that you need. Remember, third-party scripts can have a negative impact on your site speed/performance scores. The more you can trim, the better.

Think about how your team has used and will use the content management system moving forward. Can it work better? 

This is a great time to engage those most familiar with the day-to-day usage of your CMS. The way you configure it moving forward should create efficiencies for them. While marketing and development have large and clear stakes in the project, it’s the content editors who are in the CMS every day adding and managing the site, so their voice is absolutely critical in the process. When a system is built right, it will pay dividends for years in terms of better team engagement and greater efficiency.

Content migration is as much art as it is science. Experience has shown us to expect the unexpected, especially when moving platforms. 

As previously stated, your assets are why people come to your site. They take time and money to create. So ensure that they are properly protected against any mishaps that may arise. And yes, even in the most efficiently run migrations, mishaps can and do arise.

To ensure that the system is working properly, we’ll often conduct testing using sample data covering the most common scenarios. In other cases, we will conduct the migration by content type. 

For example, we will migrate all articles and then review them. Then we will migrate all press releases and review them. And so on. (It’s worth noting that in very large migrations we will conduct spot-checks of the most popular content rather than evaluating every single piece.)

Stop what you are doing. While it is true that business never stops, even during a website migration, it is important to set aside any new site additions or updates where possible until after the migration is complete to ensure the most efficient transition. There’s not a “typical” time period, but we’ve found that it’s commonly three to five days depending on the client.

If you publish frequently, you may need to consider a period where new content is published to both the legacy and new sites while a migration is reviewed before launch. This way, there won’t be a lapse in content while you’re ironing out wrinkles with the new site and your process.

Once content is migrated, it’s important to conduct quality assurance. Are there still any internal links to old URLs that need to be updated? Does anything that was automatically migrated need a little polish so it looks good in the new layout? Did meta descriptions get appropriately migrated? Are all redirects in place that need to be? Continue to watch so that you can improve the efficiency of your site each and every day.

For the past 20 years, we’ve been fortunate to partner with companies to design, build, and enhance one of their most important outward-facing assets – their website. Along the way, we have seen that content migration can be one of the trickier and most underestimated aspects of this work. 

By following the high-level principles laid out in this piece, we hope to help make the process smoother and more effective for you. And, of course, the point of the whole process is paramount – the day that you enjoy the fruits of your labor and see improved traffic, higher efficiency, better user experience, and improved overall customer satisfaction.

This article was originally published by ExpandTheRoom, a company acquired by Infinum in 2023.

The content process is often significantly underestimated during a website redesign. Before you venture into this project, you need to be asking the right questions and take the right steps to create an effective content plan.

Imagine you are renovating a house. It will be a smart house that has the capability to do everything you have ever dreamed of: artificial intelligence-based climate controls; a fridge that orders your food when supplies run low; automatically polarizing windows that respond to the sun; all the good stuff! 

The problem is, most of the budget was spent on the design and the architecture of the house. When it comes time to move in, you suddenly realize there are no smart appliances. Everything’s wired, but nothing is on the network. Just empty spaces in the cabinets where the appliances were meant to be. Think of those appliances as your website content.

According to Jason Meade, director of production, it’s common to significantly underestimate the content process during a website redesign. “From content strategy, to migration, to content input, clients are often surprised at the time and effort needed to get content right. It’s not uncommon to see a mid-sized redesign project require from 100 to more than 250 hours of content effort.” 

He continues, “An estimated 70% of digital builds hit content hurdles in one way or another. And for good reason, content is hard! We see this result in production delays, wasted effort, added expense, and unneeded frustration on the client side.”

When clients dig in and realize they sometimes have thousands of pages of content on their existing site, they find that the quality and sophistication of it does not live up to the new site architecture and/or doesn’t fit within that new structure. Then, realizing they may have overestimated their ability to use existing content, the skills and bandwidth necessary to create new content (which they hoped would be handled internally) are also underestimated.

Shannon Ruetsch, head of experience design, explains:

Content work is time-consuming and, by its nature, it directly invokes one’s brand on deep levels. Content often presents an opinion, a particular point of view, specific details about a company’s strategy or products. There’s a lot of room for debate, and debates take time, as does the creation of new content itself.  

Our company has a comprehensive content offering: from strategy to development to migration. Importantly, we can help set the expectation at the outset of a project so that there are no surprises on the content front. It may be that more budget is needed, or the budget may need to be shifted from one area to another. We can do it, you can do it, or we can do it together. The important point is to have a plan for success at the outset of the project.

With planning, we can help ensure that your new site conveys information as beautifully as it strikes the eye. As Frank Lloyd Wright once said, the idea that form follows function has been misunderstood. “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”

This article was originally published by ExpandTheRoom, a company acquired by Infinum in 2023.

You don’t have to be Blackberry to understand what Apple got right with the iPhone. To stay relevant, a company must evolve. However, in the digital realm, it’s not just survival of the fittest but survival of the most useful.

It goes without saying that in many cases, a company’s transformation will happen digitally, particularly in companies that are traditionally not digital.

Take the healthcare industry. Healthcare is quite innovative – think of cutting-edge treatments or highly specialized medical equipment. Still, owing to the age of the industry and the fact that it’s subject to so many rules and regulations, it can be anything but. Hey, it took a global pandemic to unlock the rather easy-to-recognize potential of remote caregiving for millions of patients.

As Paul Leinwand and Mahadeva Matt Mani of Harvard Business Review put it in their article Digitizing Isn’t the Same as Digital Transformation, companies “need to reimagine [their] place in the world, instead of digitizing what [they] already do.”

That’s easier said than done, but it’s that way of thinking that will catapult companies past their competition. In addition, they suggest leveraging existing ecosystems to “deliver the ambitious value propositions that customers want and to quickly innovate and scale up the incredible capabilities that are needed.”

We have seen profound results when using our Purpose Driven Design (PDD) process to help companies challenge and redefine their existing ways of thinking about their business.

Through our research and testing methodologies, these companies can develop more innovative experiences that satisfy customer needs and also allow for the collection of more accurate and important customer data that can serve to evolve products and services beyond what clients might assume they should be.

Here are some of the core principles we like to keep in mind when thinking about how to evolve an established business’ digital experience into a superior digital customer experience:

Two examples of Purpose Driven Design in action come from the healthcare industry.

Stryker, a Fortune 500 medical devices and equipment manufacturing company, was tackling the challenge of reducing hospital-acquired injuries (HAIs) head-on. Stryker’s high-end hospital beds are designed with automated features that intermittently reposition patients. When used in conjunction with standard best-practice nursing procedures, Stryker beds provide the value promise of being able to significantly decrease HAIs like pressure injuries.

Stryker also needed to present compliance data back to the care facilities using their beds to demonstrate that protocol compliance in combination with the advanced bed features leads to fewer hospital-acquired injuries (HAIs) and ultimately saves hospitals money.

When we first met with the product team at Stryker, they had already launched a pilot platform called Pressure Injury Prevalence Audit (PRIPA). Stryker intended for this platform to enable the collection of pressure injury data by caregivers and the creation of visually-driven reports based on that data by hospital administrators. The platform was up and running, but it had room for improvement. As a result, it was largely unadopted by Stryker’s hospital customers.

ETR flew to Stryker headquarters in Kalamazoo, MI, to conduct a two-day intensive, user-centered design workshop with the key stakeholders on the PRIPA initiative. The goal of the workshop was twofold: to share our expertise and insights on user experience for effective data collection and visualization and to provide them with a core UX strategy that their internal design and IT teams could use as the foundation of PRIPA’s redesign initiative.

Among many lessons learned, we discovered that the platform had to accommodate the input of error-free data by over-taxed floor nurses as quickly and easily as possible in an on-the-go environment with constant interruptions and distractions. We also knew that the platform interface would need to be customizable to suit the needs of different end-user types.

It was these insights that helped us work with Stryker to create a solid core UX strategy upon which they could execute their bold vision of helping hospitals significantly reduce hospital-acquired injuries.

Learn more about our work with Stryker.

Hill Labs manufactures state-of-the-art customizable chiropractic and medical tables. At their core, like so many other family businesses, Hill has a strong sense of values and commitment to great products and customer service. Their focus on innovation has made them a global player in the medical table market.

While the quality and features of their products have continued to grow, the brand’s online digital experience was not keeping pace. Traditionally, Hill has depended on their third-party dealer network to drive online product exploration and sales. Hill’s main corporate site was dated, text-heavy, and did not match the strength of the brand.

Early in our discovery process, it was clear that the Hill Labs website needed to be more than just an online catalog. Our interview process uncovered that Hill’s team was using the site as a resource much more than expected, but the process was very inefficient. It was a tool used daily by external sales, internal teams, and customers to reference detailed product information, configure settings and prices, and submit inquiries for sales and financial information.

Not only was it a comprehensive visual overhaul, it changed and improved many business strategies and introduced a proper direct-to-consumer revenue stream. An industry-leading product configurator helped remove bottlenecks created by outdated processes and systems. Automatic reporting of sales activity allows the owner and teams to keep a pulse on sales and maintain customer service. This digital transformation positions Hill Labs for continual growth and a competitive advantage over companies large and small for generations to come.

By following a strong design process based on data, you can put the right strategy and tools in place to outpace your customers and competitors.

“It makes sense that many established clients lean toward sticking with what has been working rather than reimagining their business for future growth.” Says Ruetsch. ”But when our partners are open to UX-driven digital solutions that deliver on providing a superior digital customer experience, we have seen powerful things happen.”

In an era of soaring user expectations, “surprise and delight” is not just a catchy phrase, but a UX and design philosophy. From playful animations to thoughtful functionality, discover how companies are leveraging this theory to set themselves apart in a crowded digital space and foster brand loyalty.

Twenty years ago, when we were getting started, putting together a beautiful website that functioned seamlessly was far from a given. You could do fewer things with code or design programs. Creating animations was complex work, and they were a bandwidth hog. Good hosting wasn’t always easy to find. Consumers had weak internet connections that made pages render slowly, and there was poor cross-browser compatibility. So, when we succeeded in launching an aesthetically pleasing, smile-inducing site back then, the applause was swift and sure.

But a lot has changed, and now it’s not too difficult to make a basic site that loads and does useful things. (Though making a great basic site that meets business requirements is still an art.) Along the way, consumer expectations have gotten sky-high.

One way to elevate an experience and build a brand affinity is to deliver “surprise and delight.” You’ve probably heard it before, and it’s not just a snappy phrase, it’s a theory of UX and design.

Before we get into the academic definitions, let’s put “surprise and delight”  into terms nearly anyone can relate to. 

Imagine a small town with five dry cleaners, all within three blocks of each other. (True story: This town does, in fact, exist.) All of them offer very similar services and pricing. You can throw a rock and hit every one of them. One cleaner, however, sets themselves apart because they know each customer by name, even when a customer hasn’t come into their store for months. 

It’s not entirely clear how they accomplish this incredible feat given that they have hundreds of customers, but the effect is 100% surprise and delight. They manage to burnish their brand and create loyalty in an extremely tight field, bringing a smile to the face of all their customers – whether they are a frequent or annual shopper.

According to UX research and consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group,

NN/g goes on to say that there are two types of delight: “surface” and “deep.”

In NN/g’s definition, surface delight is “local and contextual; it is usually derived from largely isolated interface features.” In the surface category are things like animations, tactile transitions or gestural commands, microcopy (i.e. injecting humor and slang, predicting users’ questions in advance), beautiful, relevant, high-resolution imagery, and sound interactions. We polled our team, and here are some of the surface delight examples they like out in the wild.