CAD appointed to lead the User Centred Design of pioneering new dot2dot website
National Express is Britain’s largest scheduled coach network carrying more than 16 million passengers each year to around 1000 destinations throughout the UK.
In November 2007, National Express launches dot2dot, a brand new airport transfer service. With state of the art satellite navigation equipment, congestion tracking systems, highly experienced drivers and a range of specially configured shuttles; dot2dot will be the first-choice for savvy business or leisure travellers.
National Express recognised that the website interface would be a major factor in the success of this new service. CADinteractive was appointed by National Express, with partnering agency Concentra, to deliver an engaging and interactive website with a unique, simple-to-use booking system.
Chris Averill of CADinteractive comments, “Our business is well-placed to deliver bespoke business solutions, which are created through a breakdown of the market demographics using our powerful user-definition research tools.”
Matthew Lovering, dot2dot Business Development Director, explains why he chose CADinteractive, “We appointed CADinteractive to lead the development of the new website with our customers' needs at the heart of the process. As a booking service website it was clear that a user centred design approach was critical to the success of the site and CADinteractive's findings during user testing were instrumental to how the site now looks and works. Chris and his team's ability to develop site navigation and a booking process that delivers an extremely intuitive experience is testament to their skills."
Project Initiation
CADinteractive simplified the process for the client by appointing specialist agency partners whilst taking full responsibility for the project management. CADinteractive’s research team was commissioned to provide a detailed competitor analysis for dot2dot, which revealed its competitors' strengths and weaknesses
Lab-based testing was undertaken at CADinteractive’s custom-built facilities in London, using a broad mix of business & pleasure, domestic & foreign users.
Research Focused
Research findings helped define the brief, which included, target group requirements, site interaction, usability issues and identification of key sectors within the target market From the results CADinteractive developed a number of iterative Information Architecture (IA) designs, which the team tested at two key levels. The results from the research prompted a number of dramatic changes during the development phase to both the site and the booking engine.
CADinteractive will continue to work closely with dot2dot throughout 2008 to evaluate the success of the site. Bespoke tools that will be employed are Live Track and our bespoke CII report.
Want to know how UCD can lead to a stress free site development? Contact chris@cadinteractive.com
Why not visit National Express dot2dot for a great Heathrow airport transfer
