Refining Design for Business : Using Analytics, Marketing, and Technology to Inform Customer-Centric Design

This book features over 60 detailed examples of A/B tests run by 20 companies, including: Google, Facebook, The Washington Post, Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign, American Express, Adobe, Comcast, Electronic Arts, Foursquare, IBM, LinkedIn, Marriott, Saks Fifth Avenue, and T-Mobile.

In this book, you will learn how to:
 

• Change the standard design process most companies follow to enhance accountability for generating business and customer value, while creating new opportunities for collaboration and innovation.
• Use qualitative and quantitative research to uncover customers' unmet needs, and A/B test new designs to help customers accomplish their goals.
• Apply customer-centric design principles based on the advice of experts from Google, Facebook, The Washington Post, Saks Fifth Avenue, and others, who share how they help their customers with before-and-after examples of their designs.

This book is divided into three parts:

Part 1: Creating Engaging Customer Experiences. This part discusses the level of importance design now plays in the business world, challenges the standard design process implemented by most companies, and introduces the Iterative Optimization Methodology by showing how design testing can lead to more creative and impactful designs.

Part 2: The Iterative Optimization Methodology. Using real-life examples, this part describes how to drive business and customer value in step-by-step detail. It shows how companies can integrate qualitative and quantitative customer research, prioritize website sections and design ideas for testing, experiment with new designs under real market conditions, and scale optimization techniques across their organization.

Part 3: Visual Business Cases. In this part, business leaders from 20 companies share examples of their favorite design tests and discuss practical approaches for using data to inform customer-centric design:
*    Adobe: Mikel Chertudi, Senior Director, Media & Digital Marketing
*    Ally Bank: Andrew Switzer, Director of Online Sales and Marketing
*    American Express: Thomas Lau, Senior Manager, Online Prospect Acquisition
*    Caesars Entertainment: Chris Kahle, Web Analytics Manager
*    Comcast: John Williamson, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Comcast.com
*    Dell: Emily Campbell, Executive Director of Global E-Commerce
*    Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group: Sandy Martin, Director of eMarketing & Administration
*    Electronic Arts: Zimran Ahmed, Director of Product Management and Strategic Planning
*    Facebook: Nate Bolt, Design Research Manager
*    Foursquare: Simon Favreau-Lessard, Software Engineer
*    Google: Jon Wiley, Lead Designer, Google Search
*    Hightail: Linda Tai, Director of Analytics
*    IBM: Phil Corbett, Manager, Marketing Analytics
*    LinkedIn: Amy Parnell, Principal Designer
*    Marriott International: Kenyon Rogers, Director of Digital Experiments
*    Obama for America: Kyle Rush, Deputy Director of Front-end Web Development
*    PetCareRx: Blake Brossman, Founder and COO
*    Saks Fifth Avenue: Roger Scholl, Vice President of Operations for Saks Direct
*    T-Mobile: Ryan Pizzuto, Web Test & Optimization Strategy Manager Onsite Search Product Manager
*    The Washington Post: Eileen Krill, Research Manager

On the importance of design to online business:

No matter how great a business idea is, or what technology it relies on behind the scenes, a company needs to express itself visually in a way customers will understand in order to be successful. The number of ways to translate an idea into a design is infinite, but which designs will drive customer value? Michael Krypel's Refining Design for Business answers this key question, showing you how to create engaging and measurable customer experiences.

Michael Krypel has helped companies ranging from start-ups to the Fortune 10 realign their business strategies to become more customer-centric. As Executive Director, Michael is responsible for the success of the Adobe Digital Consulting business, whose charter is to drive substantial and measurable lift in the bottom lines of the world’s top companies. Prior to joining Adobe, Michael consulted to improve the business strategies of clients in the retail, media, travel, financial services, and technology industries; taught classes on conducting customer research; and created the syllabus for a course on Information Architecture and Usability taught at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Michael holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Physics with a concentration in Planetary Science from MIT.