Curious in our approach, research is the starting point of everything we do.
Analysing deep below the surface, we discover what drives you and your customers to strike the balance between business goals and user experience. Probing, scoping and testing as we go, our research and discovery phase is led by thought-provoking workshops.
Developing user-centred strategies based on extensive research, we help you better understand what your business needs out of its website and the functionalities that will make a real difference.
Your Business
We take the time to get to know your business and ambitions. Immersing ourselves in your brand generates an understanding of your current digital presence and the challenges that you face.
With your commercial objectives at the core of our strategy, we work to truly understand how your website will support your business.
Business Discovery Exercises:
- Kick-off workshop: All our projects start with a kick-off meeting. Setting the tone for the rest of the project, this is an opportunity to discuss how the project will be managed, identify risks and ensure everyone is aligned on what success looks like.
- Prioritisation workshop: Prioritisation exercises help you to identify which areas are essential for your project to succeed. Among the many methods we use to prioritise project requirements, one of the simplest is MoSCoW – Must have, Should have, Could have and Would have.
- Stakeholder interviews: Gaining input from key personnel from the business, stakeholder interviews drive the project forward and get people working towards the same goal. The interviews are structured to uncover priority needs and support project direction.
- Business and process mapping: Understanding what you need your website to do forms the foundations of your project. Business and process mapping enables us to clearly define what your website requirements are.
- Competitor analysis: Examining the landscape you compete in gives you a strategic edge, allowing you to stay ahead of the competition and position yourself as a market leader. Our competitor analysis allows us to approach the varying user journeys in the most effective way.
Your Audience
Your website is a digital platform, there to attract, engage and grow your customer base. Who best to learn from than your users?
Removing the guesswork, we gather insight from the people who matter most to your business. User research allows us to get to know your different user types. With this knowledge, we can understand the finer details of your audiences’ needs, motivations and frustrations, uncovering opportunities to tailor their digital experience.
Audience Discovery Exercises:
- Persona workshops: Categorising your website visitors into core audiences will help to inform the website design. Through a persona workshop, we identify the key digital needs and behaviours of each user group, enabling us to create experiences that keep your users front of mind.
- Content audit: Content is essential for communicating your brand and offering. Analysing onsite content, we uncover where bounce rates are high, which pages need improvement, where outdated links are and what your content gaps are. This insight ensures your onsite content is relevant, informative and performs against the competition.
- Surveys: A quick and easy way to gather data, surveys are an effective way to hear thoughts and opinions directly from those who use your site.
- Remote user interviews: A series of audience engagement activities and questions are created to gather deeper insight from an external audience. This process allows us to further understand motivations and what solutions would add the most value.
- Focus groups: A small group of people are used to review and discuss areas of your website. This research method helps us gather first-hand input and opinions from your target audience to feed into your design and development.
Your Technology
Deciding on the right technology for your business can be difficult. From CMS’ to headless to various frameworks, there are a number of important considerations that inform the choices you need to be made.
That’s why our approach is agnostic. Led by the facts, we advise on the most suitable technology selection based on your business needs and goals.
Technology Review
Keeping your business objectives and audience in mind, we break down your requirements to inform your technology selection. Factors that are considered include third party systems, integrations, internal users, strengths and pain points of your current technology, additional features and functionality.
Your Strategy
Taking what we’ve learnt from this extensive research and discovery phase, we craft a tailored plan that will fuel your success. Presenting the strategy back to you, our experts are equipped to bring your website to life during the project’s design and development phases.
The hard part was to find a new agency that would understand us, understand our business needs and most importantly, treat us as an individual client, and not as a ‘one size fits all’ type relationship. Right from the beginning, we found NetConstruct to be refreshing in their approach and any doubts and misgivings we had about a new agency were soon put to rest.