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Step 1 Listen to client

The first stage in redesigning textburst was purely investigative. It involved listening to mediaburst staff and trying to gauge what it is this product of theirs did; along with what it did wrong and what they would have liked it to be able to do.

Step 2 Stop listening, start thinking

Once I’d gauged in my mind how I thought mediaburst wanted their new app to work; I thought about it for a few days. Sidenote: Thinking time is so important; diving straight into creating a working model may make the client happier but in the long run it can lead to more design revisions later in the process.

Step 3 Create interactive ‘wireframes’

This was the first stage where the something actually tangible was produced. A wireframe is simply a stripped down version of the website/app. With a web app (as opposed to web site) it’s more important how it works than how it looks so creating these simple mock-ups of how the app will work gave mediaburst a great idea of how the new textburst would work.
In textburst’s case, the idea was very much to strip back any excess features therefore making it easier to use. Luckily, this was mediaburst’s philosophy too.

Step 4 Get client feedback

Once wireframes had been produced it was time to go back to mediaburst and see if what I’d produced matched their needs. I knew how I wanted Textburst to work in a perfect world but the world isn’t perfect.; Textburst sends over 4million SMS a month and they have a lot of clients to keep happy.

Wireframe for the textburst send form (First version)

Wireframe for the textburst send form (Final revision)

The mediaburst team printed out every screen of the wireframes and stuck them on the wall and checked that all key functionality was still present. It’s all every well stripping back features and simplifying but alienating existing users wasn’t part of the plan.

Step 5 Start design work (in a sandbox)

The wireframes were finally approved and it was time to commence designing the textburst Initial designs which incorporated the ‘textburst green’ were eventually thrown away in favour of a more corporate looking blue which we all felt would attract more customers.
I was very interesting in making sure this design looked and worked like web apps people are used to. With this in mind I studied Facebook, CampaignMonitor and tried to mimic what made them so simplistic and obvious.

Textburst's send SMS form

Textburst's sent messages screen

Textburst's stats screen

Step 6 Think about client needs and change accordingly

The designed got handed over to the development team who then started to integrate the design into the current working version of textburst.
When the system was built it was then time to fine-tune it because it was apparent that the design wasn’t as complete as it needed to be. In particular we found ourselves asking the following questions:

• Was that screen’s purpose clear enough?
• Did we need another option in there and if so where would it go on the screen?
• How can we maintain simplicity when we we’re adding extra features?

This was a very interesting stage as it marked the point when the rest of the mediaburst team started to feel more involved. The engineers started to get really interested in all the small UI decisions and on one day in particular we spent a good few of hours discussing the positioning of micro-copy (and its wording) on one screen.

Step 8 Sit back and launch

Launching textburst was quite a scary proposition – thankfully the engineers did all of the work. Mediaburst had informed all of their clients about the changes before-hand but even so updating a core part of your business like this is no walk in the park. We all sat with baited breath in the office waiting for the deluge of complaints from angry customers but they never came.

Volvo

Their advert offered a brochure if you texted in. So I did.

I got a response, to which I replied with my address and postcode, they confirmed back by text, ”your brochure will be with you in a matter of days”.

It never arrived!

What did arrive was phone calls offering me test drives.

Being honest, not delivering the brochure isn’t a good start to my investigations, and following up with phone calls is a tad inconsistent with my chosen medium (SMS), but not the end of the world.

And far from Seat’s problems that I’ll detail below…

Kia

Next up was: KIA to 64118 and a response from 84118

“Welcome to the World of 7 Year Warranty from Kia. For a free Kia brochure, pls text your TITLE, FIRST NAME, SURNAME, HOUSE NO. & POSTCODE. Privacy:”

Why did the response come from a different number? Why do they need so much information, thought this was supposed to be easy? Oh forget it, I’m not interested in a 7 year warranty anymore!

Here’s my suggestion:

“Welcome to the home of the 7 Year Warranty from Kia. For a free brochure, reply with your NAME, HOUSE NO. & POSTCODE. Privacy:”

I’ve changed “World” to “Home”. This was to align correctly with their corporate message on their website, which seems logical.

Changed “pls text” to “reply with” because it’s instructional rather than a request and actually informs the consumer where to text to.

I also think just name, house no. and postcode, is fine for a mailing address. Consumers have only got 160 characters to reply with.

As for the response coming back from the same number you texted into. This ensures the consumer instantly recognises the source of the new message. And for smartphone users the two messages show consecutively in the same thread.

In truth I don’t think this is a bad example but can’t help but feel a little more thought could have improved brand consistency and increased the number who took up the brochure request.

Citroen C3

I then texted: NEWC3 to 64118 and, pleasingly received a response from the same shortcode.

“Thanks. For a New C3 brochure or test drive reply with your FULL NAME, HOUSE NO. & POSTCODE. We don’t spam.”

Great, this one’s consistent, and shorter!

But read on, it gets ugly…..

Seat Ibiza Cherub

I saw this great advert (see it here) and I texted: CHERUB to 84118.

The response I got was:

“Info in post. 4 a test drive rply TRIAL. Nearest: Citroen Manchester South, Cross St, M33 7JR, 01619690214. Others: 0800262262. 4 no news rply STOP”

What?

Citroen?

In the post? I didn’t give them my address?

I requested info on a Seat Ibiza not a Citroen.

Again why did it come from 64118 when I texted 84118?

This made no sense until I realised, this was on the same night I texted in for the Citroen C3 above. But crucially I didn’t send in my postcode or house number for the C3.

84118 and 64118 are the same service and they got mixed up what came from where.

When I texted ”CHERUB” to 84118 they thought I’d replied with my address and postcode for the Citroen.

They mixed up their shortcodes, keywords, and two very large car brands.

The service must have recognised my mobile number from the Citroen enquiry and bam “info in the post”!

My verdict: What can you say, I’ve not even got into the message structure and content, but promoting a competitors brand, I bet this wasn’t part of the brief!

Alfa Romeo

And finally, I watched an advert for an Alpha Romeo Mito.

Poised, mobile in hand, I waited for the shortcode and keyword. But alas it did not arrive.

They do not use shortcodes on their adverts.

And this, I believe, is the biggest mistake of all.

This work follows on from our network upgrades in Derby last week and will bring our network fully up-to-date.We’ll be starting mid morning (around 10) and should be finished by early afternoon.

What we’re doing

We’re upgrading our remaining Cisco PIX firewalls to shiny new Cisco ASAs.

We’re setting up a backup link between our sites to keep your data safe.

And finally we’ll upgrade our Manchester backup database servers to make sure they can always keep up with the load.

Technical details

Our Manchester site is on the 217.20.43.96/27 network (217.20.43.96 through to 217.20.43.127), whilst we do the work you won’t be able to reach any servers running on these addresses.   Our Derby site will be up and working fine on the 89.248.48.192/27 network (IP addresses 89.248.48.192 to 89.248.48.223).

This afternoon we’ll take the Manchester servers out of service by removing the DNS records, we’ll then change them back once everything is tested and finished.

If you login to any of our products you can see which site you’re currently using, our Manchester servers always have a number 3 near the start such as textburst3.mediaburst.co.uk, Derby uses a 3 instead.

If you have any questions give us a call on 0845 050 0000 or drop us an email.

For once I’m lost for words….let the cake eating commence!

It’s not often that we find ourselves (or our processes) the focus of much scrutiny as our industry tends to be more about the visible results. The behind-the-scenes stuff stays, well, behind-the-scenes. You can imagine our surprise and trepidation then when we were invited to write a guest article on this blog about the design process behind the new Mediaburst website. Well we’re not ones to shy away from a challenge, so here goes…

Consultation

Our redesign began with a meeting between Managing Director Gary Bury, developer Phil Thompson and ourselves at Mediaburst HQ, Alderly Edge in mid September 2009. We had already worked with Phil on a website for Cheadle based agency Squad a few months earlier so were very pleased to be collaborating again with such a skilled design and development savvy individual.

Gary had a very clear vision of what he wanted for Mediaburst: clearer segregation between bespoke services and core SMS product offerings. It was refreshing to work with a client that really understood the power of effective design and communication. The consultation gave us an insight into the inner workings of Mediaburst, where they were and where they wanted to be in the future. This combined with a rough sitemap and some design likes/dislikes and we were ready to get stuck in.

Scamps

First off, we tackled the homepage with some ultra high tech pencil scamps.

These quickly gave us the ability to try out some layouts before swiftly moving on to the creation of three initial Photoshop concepts.

Initial Concepts

Three is our magic number when it comes to initial concepts, it allows us to explore different approaches and also gives the client that all important element of choice. We tend to get an immediate impression of what works well and usually, the client picks our favourite. Thankfully this occasion was no exception.

Initial homepage concept with placeholder illustration inspired by Tom Pearson

A key challenge for us was the introduction of a brand personality that clearly communicated and unified Mediaburst’s core products. These products also needed to have the visual strength and impact to stand alone. We decided that illustration would be best suited to this task.

Illustration

Gary and the team loved the personality that illustration lent to the designs but were keen to avoid anything too cutesy or “CBeebies”. We explored the impact of differing styles before commissioning talented illustrator Stanley Chow to create a family of birds that represent Mediaburst and their three products: Textburst, Ooutlook Mobile Service (OMS) and Email to SMS.

Bird illustration evolution

Concept Application

During the evolution of the bird illustrations we kept ourselves busy with the application of the chosen homepage concept to the product pages. The products were designed to exist as separate entities and present their attributes in a concise, easy to follow manner. The aim was a user journey that flows effortlessly from description to price plans to sign-up.

Final homepage concept

Textburst product page design

Textburst price plan page design

Textburst signup page design

Mobile marketing page design

Copy

Of course copy plays a vital part in the creation of a successful website. This aspect was capably executed throughout the design process by copywriter Andy White (read about Andy’s involvement here).

Final Artwork & Design Review

Upon delivery of development-ready artwork for the homepage, product pages and mobile marketing page in mid November, it was agreed that Phil had everything he needed to continue the development of the website, rolling out our concepts across remaining pages of the site and building a beta version of the site by the end of 2009. We carried out a thorough design review of the beta website in early January 2010 so that Phil and the team could make final amendments in preparation for launch on Wednesday, 20 January.

Result?

If we’ve done our job properly, the real measure of success of the new website will be an increase in traffic, new business and a return on investment for Mediaburst. Only time will tell but early signs are positive. We believe that we have helped to create a vast improvement on the site’s predecessor and an enjoyable user experience. If you think otherwise feel free to buy us drink and tell us why!

Materials & Tools Used

Consultation:

• Tea, coffee, biscuits (one chocolate) and sandwiches.
• Brains, pens, pencils & paper.

Project Management:

• Google Apps
• Basecamp

Design:

• Pencil and paper
• 960 Grid System
• Adobe Creative Suite

Next in line is Outlook Mobile Service.

With the forthcoming release from Microsoft of Outlook 2010 they have made some enhancements to the SMS side of the product.

Naturally we’ve included the functionality into our service, had it checked, and approved by Microsoft. I think we are the 3^rd company in the world this time to get approval, (note to self, must be first next time).

So the improvements are thus:

• Support for concatenated SMS (long SMS).
• Outlook 2010 will have an object model available to developers allowing them to build applications on top of it.
• SMS functionality is extended to the alert feature in Sharepoint.
• There is now batch mode to help with Bulk SMS. In short, it will improve the speed of delivery of multiple SMS.

Admittedly they haven’t gone as far as we would have liked. We’d still like to see functionality to customize the originator from within Outlook, and perhaps a direct link to purchase more messages from your chosen SMS provider. The idea being that these improvements alone would mean users could manage most of the SMS aspects directly from Outlook without having to log into the web front end of the SMS provider.

For now Outlook 2010 is another giant leap in the right direction for PC originated SMS. Our customers who have adopted Outlook Mobile Service in version 2007 find the efficiency of sending SMS from their email software much more convenient than signing into a web application. We should see 2010 build on that convenience.

While Derby is turned off  we’ll also be upgrading our network and servers to make sure we offer you the best service possible.

We’ll be starting mid morning (around 10) and should be finished by mid afternoon.

What we’re doing

We’re upgrading our Cisco PIX firewalls to shiny new Cisco ASAs, they’re considerably more powerful and should make our life much easier.

We’ll also install new servers for our mobile marketing services, the old ones currently work fine but we don’t want to take any chances.

And finally we’ll upgrade our backup database servers to make sure they can always keep up with the load.

Technical details

Our Derby site is on the 89.248.48.192/27 network (IP addresses 89.248.48.192 through to 89.248.48.223), you won’t be able to reach any servers running on these addresses while we do the work.  Our Manchester site is on 217.20.43.96/27 (217.20.43.96 through to 217.20.43.127) these addresses will all work fine.

On Monday afternoon we’ll take the Derby servers out of our DNS so that our service addresses only point to Manchester, we’ll then change them back once everything is tested and finished.

If you login to any of our products you can see which site you’re currently using, our Derby servers always have a number 5 near the start such as textburst5.mediaburst.co.uk, Manchester uses a 3 instead.

If you have any questions give us a call on 0845 050 0000 or drop us an email.

Now although this will slot into our fun category in the blog this is no light hearted event. It’s sponsored by LG and offers prize money of US$100,000. There are 26 competitors from 13 different countries competing in teams of two.

Korea were the eventual winners followed by USA and Argentina.

Portuguese competitor Pedro Mateus managed to break the world record of texting the standard English paragraph used to measure texting speed using a single thumb in less than 2 minutes.

The interesting stat is one of the USA contestants is quoted as having sent 16,000 text messages in a single month (circa 533 a day), before her parents instructed her to take this down to a mere 10,000.

Surely it can’t be long before texting is an Olympic sport?

The latest thing, (and I realise this may well be old news to you hip, swinging cyberpunks out there ) is that “over the air” malarkey. It’s already big news in some Asian markets and the basic gist of it is this.

In the very near future we won’t really need all the credit cards we have now, (of course a great many people will still want them. Nothing says so much about you as slapping your Amex Centurion card on the marble effect bar and saying “keep ‘em coming”), we’ll be carrying out all our transactions with our mobile phones.

All our bank details, our credit worthiness, our medical records and possibly even sexual preferences will be stored in a teeny weeny chip inside our phone. We wont even need to key in any old-fashioned PIN numbers, (and there’s a funny thing, PIN stands for “Personal Information Number”. So every time you get asked for your PIN number you’re being asked for your “PIN number number”), We’ll simply choose an item to buy, wave our phones at a compatible Pay point and the sale will be made.

This of course gives an old technophobe like me great cause for concern.

What happens if I’m taking a short cut through the lingerie department of Debenhams, (it could happen), and I inadvertently switch my phone on as I brush past a rack of brief ‘n’ bra combos? Next thing I know, I could have a selection of ladies’ undergarments delivered to my home causing no end of consternation and awkward questions.

And another thing, I don’t want to be calling British Rail Enquiries to check my train’s progress, only to find that I’ve pressed the wrong button and have purchased the Manchester to London Pendalino. For one thing I’ve got nowhere to put it, for another I just don’t want the responsibility.

I’m sure all of these potential problems will be ironed out by the time we get to use the technology but I implore you to be on your guard when that day arrives.

Remember, when you’re phoning for the latest movie screening times you’re only one digit away from buying a Multiplex. And you’ll never get that home on the bus.