Services and Methods | www.digitalmediaresearch.co.uk

DMR enables you to deliver the most effective digital strategy for your business.

DMR provides insight and guidance throughout the life-cycle of a digital product or service, from initial planning, concept and content evaluation, through to product testing, pre and post launch.

We use a combination of methods such as focus groups, one-to-one depth interviews, online surveys, behaviour diaries and more. Projects are tailored to meet clients' specific business and research objectives.

Concept and content workshops and testing

From initial concept discussion and requirements gathering, right through to design validation and launch, rigorous consumer feedback is a crucial input to the development process, helping you to tailor your service to best meet user and business needs. This may happen in different ways according to your requirements:

Initial concept development
Content structure and development research
Content design, tone and layout research
Content evaluation

A wide range of formats and tools can be used in research, from traditional concept boards of mock-ups and designs, through to all stages of product development, utilising software authoring tools, and on to fully functional live services. Usability testing can also be incorporated into the later stages of content testing to provide in depth analysis of all aspects of user experience.

Usability testing

Usability testing involves a detailed investigation of the usability barriers which impact on usage, purchasing and loyalty to a digital service. Barriers are identified and logged – with specific reference to their severity in hampering usability. This information can then be used to help inform service development.

Usability issues are detected through a series of user-testing depth interviews – where potential users work through a series of tasks designed to test all aspects of an interface.

Recommendations for development are provided, along with a comprehensive log and explanation of all usability barriers.

Consultancy and service reviews

Utilising the experience of consultants with over a decade of digital consumer and strategy research to inform, shape and enhance your digital strategy.

Brand evaluation

Whether investigating the most effective digital brand strategy or exploring the best way to develop a brand on a new platform, brand evaluation can ensure that your organisation will communicate key values most effectively.

Qualitative methods such as focus groups are most useful for investigating peoples’ feelings and attitudes, and gaining a deep understanding of underlying perceptions and responses to brands.

Competitor / environment analysis

Competitor analysis provides two valuable outputs:

Competitor map – consumers’ perception of the competitor landscape of a digital product and how the client brand, product or service fits into this landscape. Significantly, the consumer-defined competitive set is often not the same as the client’s perception - this is especially the case in the digital space.

Best in breed - a consumer-defined hierarchy of appealing and useful content, applications, tools and so on among the competitive set. This fast-tracks content development planning by enabling clients to cherry-pick the best of the rest.

Product / service trials and testing (including mystery shopping)

Pre or post launch, products and services can be tested using like-live situations, a battery of scenarios and a sample drawn from the user (and potential user) base.
This provides a systematic, granular examination of the product or service – logging all potential barriers to usage and providing a hierarchy of service amendments. This ensures a smooth and successful consumer experience and maximum service efficiency.