Undertaking usability research with fhios focussed our strategy for the redesign of the new Reuters.co.uk website. Their advice helped us to make changes to the site before it went live and to justify decisions that had been made. The heuristic study of marketplace competitors was invaluable to our future strategy.
User Experience Manager, Reuters
Reuters engaged fhios to undertake an analysis of the existing and proposed navigational strategy for the reuters.co.uk website. Reuters also wished to analyse how they stood in the marketplace against their major competitors. The purpose of the study was to provide Reuters with expert usability data to make informed decisions about proposed changes to navigation to significantly increase customer satisfaction levels.
To answer the questions faced by Reuters, an expert usability practitioner conducted a review of the existing navigational strategy, a review of the proposed navigational strategy and a competitive review of 4 sites. To assess Reuter's marketplace positioning, fhios undertook a competitive review of 4 major financial and information sites. This heuristic analysis benchmarked the sites against eight recognised usability metrics including efficiency, ease of learning and accessibility.
The analysis between the existing and proposed redesign of the site showed that Reuters had successfully addressed many usability issues for the site i.e. the introduction of 'breadcrumbs' to help users see where they are in the site and a consistent application of navigational standards. However, fhios identified areas where there were still issues with the navigational strategy. Reuters were then provided with short term and long-term recommendations to remedy these issues. The purpose of this was to focus on changes that could be made quickly and easily to the website and focus the team for changes that could be implemented in future designs.