2004

Paul Blunden, CEO, The Usability Company

With Internet growth rates in Poland set to hit a peak of 217%, Paul Blunden - CEO of The Usability Company - believes that there are many rich pickings to be made there and in other international markets. The expansion of the European Union on May 1st 2004, will certainly provide many new doors for you to open in e-business and in IT more generally.

For many companies, the confines of their country are too restrictive and they seek greater business expansion through the development of new geographic markets. In the past this conscious strategy would have required the opening of a local office, the development of a strategic partnership or perhaps a merger or acquisition in order to gain market entry.

Today, the simple fact is that if you launch a website, you have entered the global market. The only decision still to be made is whether you will proactively support this position. The implications for either strategy are manifold, such as whether your brand is enhanced or damaged by your style of presence.

The market potential presented by the Internet remains enormous. Research by Jupiter MMXI in 2001 revealed that even three years ago, nearly two-thirds of people in the UK used the Internet. According to Forrester research conducted March 2004, the UK is set to dominate Europe's eCommerce market for the next four years, but other countries are catching up fast. In 2001 Internet penetration in Europe stood at 44.2% (168m users) with forecast growth of 98.4% to 2004. In the accession countries it was only 21.9% (16m users) and set to grow 155% (source: www.internetworldstats.com). For example Poland has only 23% Internet penetration and with 217% growth estimated and a population of around 38 million people, this alone is a massive opportunity. Outside of Europe the picture is similar with the less developed regions experiencing relatively low penetration and anticipated high growth rates.

Operating an international online presence presents organisations with a range of challenges. These may not be immediately obvious particularly when the driving force behind this strategy is the low operating costs. Frequently this is translated into one website or offering for all countries, perhaps with some translation and local content if we are lucky, possibly even a cunning disguise!

Certainly language is a big issue. This is illustrated in research by Forrester that identified an overly English-language Internet to be a major issue in France that is holding back eCommerce in the country. But, it is not just language where differences exist. Customers from different countries and regions exhibit different behaviors and preferences so that what may be intuitive and attractive in one market may not be in another. Cultural differences extend to the web and companies that ignore this and pursue a one size fits all strategy are unlikely to be successful. User Centred Design, Usability and customer experience research can help organisations overcome these obstacles and deliver optimum returns.

Internet usability is itself an evolving discipline. Those that have experience of this type of research will most likely have spent time behind a one-way mirror watching recruited participants attempting tasks, and being observed by a qualified Usability Specialist. When the web market was developing this was the most popular method for identifying and rectifying problems with usability, once companies found out about it of course. This is an important point in the evolution of usability's employment in the web development cycle.

Companies that were the early adopters of the web had websites built for them by design agencies, and this remains a common practice. In the early days if a company asked an agency to build it a website to sell widgets, that is what they expected to get. They didn't consider that it might not sell widgets very well. Indeed it might actually create barriers for many potential customers that want to buy the widgets. If you have a shop built you expect it to have shelves for stock, aisles for customers to navigate through and checkouts that allow customers to pay and leave with their goods. This is commonsense and the practice is 'understood'.

In an Internet context there was and is very little knowledge within organisations about what works, even in their local country. For businesses wanting to operate internationally they have the added complexity of trying to accommodate various different customer groups and cultures, which might mean a different structure or style for each. Often that is exactly what they wanted to avoid through international expansion using the web.

Of course the smarter organisations operating on the web either locally or internationally are now realising that finding out what the problems are with a website after it is already built is too late. Remedial action costs more and in any case not all the issues identified can be addressed as many are typically related to the structure, referred to as the Information Architecture. Going back to the shop analogy it would be like finding out after the shop has been built that it is one long corridor rather than a warehouse configuration with aisles. It is not very convenient for shoppers, and they would quickly find an alternative. You could compromise to alleviate the effect but the best option would be to knock down the store and start again.

Building a website that is inherently usable is referred to as User Centred Design. It is a process that identifies the user requirements up front and incorporates them into the development process so that the company's business goals can be achieved.

Usability is important because it is process orientated and as a result directly impacts the company's performance online. There is significant research to suggest that customer loyalty is related to their ability to achieve their goals. Our own research suggests that the majority of web users visit sites with a specific goal in mind. If the processes and structure within the site do not support their goals they will go somewhere else. If a customer is successful in achieving their goals they are far more likely to return. A recent example from our own experience working with a gaming company entering the Asian market illustrates clearly the issue.

The company had developed a low fidelity prototype based on the UK version of the site and it had been translated into local language - Mandarin, in order to carry out some early stage user testing before any serious development money was spent. It was found that not only was there no direct translation for the term 'Lucky Dip' but also there was no understanding of the concept. A feature/function that was a pre-requisite for a UK audience was superfluous for the equivalent Asian audience.

In the US and the UK, usability is becoming more widely accepted, and in the past 18 months there has been significant market growth. An increasing proportion of this growth is from organisations looking to User Centred Design (UCD) as an alternative to the development model they are using. However, UCD requires greater investment upfront and generally website business is increasing without it. As a result growth and adoption are slow despite the amount of money being left on the table. If this is the case in the US and the UK, then what about the rest of Europe or the world? The answer to this question is one of the drivers for our own business, The Usability Company, to create a global offering.

It is our view, and to some extent our experience, that organisations operating online in more than one geography will identify the need for a consistent approach to web development that delivers optimum performance in every country of operation. In order to do this, they will require suppliers that have the expertise in the areas of specialisation such as usability and User Centred Design but that can deliver services locally, understanding the cultural and behavioural differences between users. Not just a consultant that is prepared to travel! The challenge therefore to our organisations is to build an international delivery capability that is centred on best practice, provides a consistent set of methodologies and retains the essential local competence. The implications for companies that do not draw this conclusion is that they will lose business to others that do and to local competition.

So now The Usability Company faces a range of strategic options in order to make our strategy a reality and achieve 'International Expansion'. Do we partner, acquire, merge or open our own local offices? Partnering would seem a good first step as we can educate to some extent without giving away valuable intellectual property. But there comes a point where we will need to formalise an arrangement if we are to benefit from our investment.

We are a small business, born after the dot-com bust and as a result cautious by nature. No doubt we will work with existing clients that require international capability and build it ahead of their requirement. Whatever our decision you can rest assured that we won't be supporting our strategy by simply translating our website into local language.

This article appeared in The Chartered Institute of Marketing's Technology Interest Group Newsletter May 2004.

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