All of the services we offer at Backspace Consulting are focussed on putting the customer at the centre of your application and service development. We believe that through a process of online or mobile strategy review, rapid prototyping and end user testing we can empower your business to make product decisions that incorporate your customers’ goals, ultimately contributing to the success of your company’s strategy.

 We work within the confines of your development process, whether you are an agency looking to offer clients prototypes of websites, campaigns or applications, a small business outsourcing your development or a large organisation with an established Technology department. All our interaction with your business is bespoke – we tailor our offering to suit your needs and budget. 

_Consulting services

 Strategy development for online and mobile presence can be daunting. It must take into account the company’s overall strategy and speak to the online community in the concise and relative manner they appreciate. Interpreting a strategy into a set of goals and milestones for the web requires a keen understanding of not only the nature of the web as a communication medium but the behaviour and requirements of the end user. With our experience of taking company strategies online and then mobile we are a key partner in the success of any endevour, whether you are launching a new intranet service, online application or dotmobi site.

_Rapid Prototyping

Prototyping is already an established practice in the manufacturing sector and the benefits to the online world are fast becoming apparent. From your documentation, flow diagrams and design input, we build fast, flexible prototypes for you to test, review and adapt prior to any development. Test your user interactions and content in a high fidelity, fully interactive version of your finished product; gain stakeholder buy-in and keep a record for development of your agreed final product outcome, negating misunderstandings and solve product problems before commiting to build. We can turn a prototype around in 3 days (project size dependent) with feedback on issues discovered during creation from missing links, navigational issues and adherence to established norms and standards.

_User testing

All products require testings and user interfaces, whether they are mobile or PC based, are no different. We employ two types of testing in our process: Persona testing and User testing. 

By creating a model of the people, their life goals, lifestyles and user goals, we are able to test the behaviours of your likely users. This is most useful if budget constraints do not make allowances for testing with live users in a lab environment, or if your product is highly confidential. Personas dictate to use how users are likely to interact with your service, whether they can find the information they are looking for in the manner they are mostly to search and whether they get to the end goal and the emotions they associate with that experience. For example, an online toy store will want to intice the youth to interact with it, but the parent is the one most likely to make the purchase so both groups need to be catered for.

User testing on the other hand makes use of live users. We test remotely, in a lab conditions where tasks and interactions are monitored and taped so that you can review behaviour, listen to comments and see how your design affects their goals.

Backspace Consulting offers both these testing scenarios and makes recommendations on user interface and experience changes, additions or deletions designed to improve the user experience of your online service.

 Download a PDF of all Backspace Consulting’s services here