It has been a while since we conducted an interview with an influential marketing mind, so with no further adieu, may we present you with an interview with Visualhero Design Director/Owner Andy Van Solkema.
Managing Partner Adam Henige had the opportunity to run some questions by the Grand Rapids based business owner recently, and that discussion follows.
Adam: Can you give everyone a bit of background on Visualhero?
Andy: Visualhero began out of my personal freelance consulting work after being laid off form an Agency position during a downturn in 2004. As Visualhero grew it began to fill a niche as a collaborative studio and design resource for Marketing, Development, and Interaction. Our agility and commitment to collaboration (not to mention our solid Midwestern work ethic) has allowed us to team up with a broad range of clients. From consultants, agencies and studios to corporations and nonprofits, the list goes on. Simply put, we create designs that look great and work even better.
Adam: You’ve recently redesigned your website, and those new to your company will undoubtedly notice your unique take on design – a focus on experience. Can you talk a bit more about why you took this approach, and the benefits it offers your clients?
Andy: We do not want to be just another design firm just helping clients communicate. Instead we take intricate measures to understand those clients and clients customers and how they work, play and buy. This approach benefits our clients brands from every possible angle. We believe everything is converging and as companies create a wonderful message, but a poor experience the entire intent is compromised, therefore reflecting poorly on the brand. We help clients create wonderfully usable, visual and engaging experiences.
Adam: One thing I’ve often noticed is that a lot of design firms struggle to redevelop their own sites, as it always falls behind client work. Why was this such a high priority and how were you able to get it done efficiently?
Andy: Great question. The old adage is that the Cobblers kids have no shoes, and that is definitely the case in our industry. The repositioning of Visualhero was no lightning striking idea that we implemented in the 2 months it took to redesign and evolve the site. We actually have been working on the concept of merging Brand Experience and User Experience for 2 years (even failing in terms of message with some early concepts). One thing we really tasked ourselves with was to employ the processes and tools we use for clients for our own brand and positioning. We basically really made an effort to step out of our own shoes to see how what we are passionate about really adds value to our clients. After we began to understand ourselves we gained perspective to start creating and communicating this message. As everything took shape we really learned that the message we were telling folks was received well. This was our driving factor to really push this work out.
Adam: When people miss the mark with experience, how badly do you think they can damage their brand? And conversely, what are some examples where you feel a great experience has built the brand?
Andy: I think there are some great examples of how experience has enhanced a brand. Google has created an entire brand around the simple experience of their homepage. Like it or hate it this easy approach has set precedent for all other search engines. The other go to example is the iphone, the standard all other phones are measured by. And I have to admit, I have seen my 88 year old grandmother who still uses a rotary phone pick up my iphone and without any instruction find a game and play that game. Truly intuitive, and a case of when a product allows users to sift through usage issues and allows them to get right into the content. Conversely a poor experience be it from communication or user interface confuses people, which complicates a companies true message. The focus is then on a persons attempt to figure out the message or how to interact vs. enjoying the value of a design.
Adam: Well, since we’re partnering with you on this, I guess it’s a bit of shameless self promotion, but can you talk about some of the new testing and analysis services that you/we are offering and how that came about?
Andy: Our relationship with Netvantage has really helped us fully understand the need for analyzation of interfaces.
With that said we've developed analysis and tests for user interfaces to help us adequately understand users based objectives and scenarios. This insight helps us and our clients fully understand how to evolve a web interface based on how users are actually using the site.
At Visualhero we have been involved with hundreds of designs and redesigns, and think we do get it right a lot of the time. But let’s be honest we do have to make assumptions at times and therefore we are sometimes using our best judgment vs. hard data to make decisions. With every opportunity to observe or analyze we learn more about how users react and use the designs we create. This results in continued evaluation of our own work, and better functioning products for customers.
These tests have all been developed in belief that that tests do not need to be so time consuming and costly (see Jakob Nielsons article "Why you only need to test 5 users"). Therefore we have created three scalable products to successfully gather information about interfaces.
The first test is based on observation. Through observation we can see how individuals interact when instructed with specific tasks. This testing is great for identified specific issues with an interface or to gain a general understanding of use.
The second is a user survey. A survey can be conducted on or offline, in person or not. This flexibility allows for the survey to be crafted for specific needs that may need attention with any interface.
Lastly we offer UI analysis. This is conducted by viewing provided analytics data, talking with users and viewing captures of actual users interacting with an interface. This data allows us to generalize and group tendencies of real use.
Whether an effort to gain information regarding a focused objective or overall understanding we believe our tests give us and our clients a better understanding of performance and allows us and them to make better business decisions.
Adam: Any big things in the pipeline for Visualhero? What can we expect to see the rest of 2009?
Andy: Always. We continue to evolve our services and approach. Some new things including continued evolve of our services and expanded offering to our consulting. We are also excited about the strategic partners like Netvantage that compliment our business, and we look forward to developing these relationships to better help our clients. Lastly, as always we continue to create brands and design for the tools our clients need to communicate and do business.
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Our sincere thanks to our friend and partner Andy Van Solkema for taking the time to share his thoughts with us.
