Success Factors

Empirix had a solid internal working group in place to drive the messaging and content of the new website, including the re-alignment of its extensive product offerings with its new solutions framework. In addition, Empirix was developing a new logo and brand identity elements that would be incorporated into the new website. PixelMEDIA identified 3 key elements needed for a successful outcome:

Message Architecture

PixelMEDIA experience designers worked with the Empirix team to focus the company’s value proposition and to articulate a set of proof points for audience segments that needed to design, test, and deploy large call centers and customer service operations. The message architecture stressed a broader solution-based approach built on a proven portfolio of products, and was used by the Empirix team as a guideline for copywriting for both online and traditional media.

Information Architecture

The experience designers at PixelMEDIA created a full inventory of the Empirix website and worked with Empirix to determine which content best supported the new positioning and where content would need to be edited or created. Using the inventory, PixelMEDIA created a new site architecture that put solutions at the forefront while providing a clear and logical organization of the Empirix product portfolio.

Content Design

The goal of the architecture was to present products in the context of a customer challenge and Empirix solution, and to help customers focus on the content that was relevant to their situations. A set of detailed wireframes was created for each level of the website to visualize how the content would be organized and presented on screen. PixelMEDIA also produced a set of Microsoft® Word® content templates and a style guide to help the Empirix team draft and edit page copy within recommended word and character counts.

Solution

Using the wireframes and the new Empirix design elements, PixelMEDIA designers created the Adobe® Photoshop® layouts that would be used to build the final HTML templates. A clean, 3-column grid provided put the new content front and center, while providing clear navigation and focus areas for related topics and calls-to-action. With the final designs and approved content from Empirix, PixelMEDIA’s development team coded and QA’d the new website and spent a full day with the Empirix developers to ensure they had the information needed for a successful launch.

Results

The new Empirix website went live in November, 2011. The redesigned website gives Empirix a powerful new focal point for its outbound marketing programs and news releases. In addition, the website now supports a sales process that is centered around solutions, and helps Empirix to deliver a higher-level value proposition to higher-value customers at the enterprise and solution-provider levels.

Since its release in January, 2009, NetMRI 3.0 has been well received by customers. Jay Ennis, Executive VP of Product Development at Netcordia, points to the user interface designed in partnership with PixelMEDIA. “… the new UI has helped us connect with customers,” says Ennis, “Wow” is a common reaction…” At the same time, Netcordia is solidifying its position in the competitive software industry and is capturing the attention of key media leaders like Red Herring, which recently named Netcordia to its annual Red Herring 100 list of America’s most promising technology companies.

A User-centered, Visual Approach
Netcordia’s NetMRI 3.0 improves the product’s Network Configuration and Change Management capabilities by providing multiple views of the network and every device connected to it, and then showing the effects of local changes on interdependent network initiatives. New diagnostic capabilities also help IT managers assess the potential impact of even the smallest changes to a network.

The new NetMRI 3.0 user interface features dashboards to
help IT managers track top problems and troubled devices, 
monitor trends, and identify the most important risks. click to enlarge

“I went to a customer six months ago and he said he loved the product, but he pulled a notebook out of a drawer and showed me all the steps he had to take to get to the feature he wanted,” said Yama Habibzai, product marketing director for Netcordia. “Over the course of the last few years, we’ve added more and more to this product. It was time to think about using a more visual approach to streamline the overall product experience for users at all levels.”

Gathering and incorporating user feedback was a key element in our approach. The Web-based interface consolidates core functionality into a set of dashboards, offering IT managers a fast, at-a-glance visualization of network performance. The dashboards show changes over time and the topology status view shows users exactly where a change took place. A combination view overlays both network health and policy compliance statuses on top of the topology map. The tabbed interface allows users to toggle quickly between different views of the network.

The redesigned NetMRI 3.0 user interface triages complex tasks into bite-size pieces. click to enlarge

When an issue is identified, users can drill down quickly using a system of logically organized “accordion” menus that replace the folder structure of previous versions and competing products. With a product as feature-rich as NetMRI 3.0, a well designed user interface helps customers maximize their return on investment by taking full advantage of everything the product has to offer.

“The new version is much better and very easy to navigate,” said Tod Isaacson, manager of network services at Loyola Marymount University. “Now, you can see several different screens at once that you had to hunt for in the past. I will use a lot more stuff that I didn’t know was there in the past because it’s now easier to find.”

For more information
Founded in 2000, Netcordia is a leading provider of network automation software to the world’s most complex and mission-critical networks. For more information, visit www.netcordia.com

But it also turned out, that the majority of the client stakeholders were puzzled as to what PixelMEDIA was providing. They didn’t understand what Information Architecture was, and hadn’t even thought about the overall user experience for the product. Yet, they had requested an IA. How odd.

The understanding was that we were to immediately dive in and create a series of wireframes outlining the key screens for the application. This proved a difficult place to start, as we didn’t have (a) a clear design objective (b) we didn’t know what the users needed to do or (c) how the new product would help them do it better and more easily than they imagined possible. At our request we rewound a bit, and after a few meetings, all parties agreed on the basic design objective, which enabled us to ensure the customer’s needs, the brand, and the business objectives were balanced and clearly articulated.

Next, PixelMEDIA took the initiative to craft a set of task flows. This was an interesting decision, because we didn’t think we’d need to create such documentation for the project; but taking this step provided everyone a deeper insight into how we could craft a new experience as the design process continued. We focused our efforts on outlining the user’s primary goals and how they would achieve them in order to form the core of the application’s design. This allowed us to focus on the features that matter most to the customer. The task flows provided a visual mechanic that showed gaps in the requirements documentation, as well as providing a way to further the vision and understanding of the application.

Once the task flows were completed and approved, PixelMEDIA began designing the experience’s basic framework. We kept the requirements focused in a set of wireframes that outlined a typical scenario, to visualize how the customers would walk through the application and achieve their goals.

The client has been exceptionally pleased with the work to date, and PixelMEDIA has developed a more strategic partnership by bringing the project solution to completion. As the wireframes portion of the project nears completion, all parties feel that the resulting solution provides a more elegant, simple and streamlined experience for the customers.

Or in the customer’s own words:

We are obviously very new at some of this stuff and a large part of why we chose to go with PixelMEDIA is because we were confident that you wouldn’t just throw a design over the wall; rather, you would work *with* us, regardless of the fact that we would slow you down. We’re all learning quite a bit from this experience, and I for one am very impressed by what you guys have done and how you’ve helped our team figure out which direction we should try to head in.

By thinking less tactically and more broadly, PixelMEDIA has been able to educate the client on the importance of Information Architecture, and helped the client identify what their customers needed most from the application.