Fidelity Investments and Others: Evaluating Usability in Website Design

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Fidelity Investments and Others Evaluating
Usability in Website Design

• Group 5
• Chapter 10 Case 1
• Page 343

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Team Members

• Elizabeth Cates
• Yvonne Hildebrand
• Jessi Janis
• Nina Wolf
• Eric Young

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Fidelity Investments

• www.fidelity.com

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CEO of Fidelity Edward C. Johnson 3d

• He joins the company 1957 as a research analyst
• Since 1977 CEO

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About Fidelity

• Fidelity Investments is an international provider
  of financial services and investment resources
  that help individuals and institutions meet their
  financial objectives
• Once known primarily as a mutual fund company,
  Fidelity has adapted and evolved over the years
  to meet the changing needs of its customers
• Fidelity was the first to develop a direct,
  cost-effective sales approach to individual
  investors through advertising and a toll-free
  telephone line.

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About Fidelity

• Fidelity is responsible for many innovations that
  are standards in the industry today
• They reinvest a substantial portion of their
  revenues each year back into technology to
  deliver new products and services to investors
• They are consistently recognized by industry
  surveys and publications for providing some of
  the highest levels of customer support
• Fidelity has the largest staff of portfolio
  managers, analysts and traders in the industry,
  more than 500 in total.

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About Fidelity

• Fidelity's staff of investment professionals is
  backed by a worldwide network of research
  resources providing constant market and company
  information. These include
• Extensive online, computer-based research tools.
• A common system linking Fidelity trading desks in
  Boston, Hong Kong, London and Tokyo that tracks
  all orders and trades, helping Fidelity's
  international traders match buyers and sellers of
  securities more quickly and efficiently than ever
  before
• A state-of-the-art trading desk, which provides
  access to more than 200 brokerage houses and
  real-time information to achieve the best
  executions and optimize the value of each
  transaction

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History

• 1943 Fidelity was founded and Edward C Johnson
  2d was elected president and director of Fidelity
  fund
• 1946 Edward C Johnson 2d founded Fidelity
  Management Research Co
• 1947 One of Fidelitys fist innovations was to
  crate mutual funds with investment strategies
  that reflect changing market and economic
  conditions
• 1947 The Fidelity Puritan Fund was the first
  income-oriented mutual fund to invest in a
  portfolio composed largely of common stocks
• 1958 Capital and Trend funds were among the
  first stock funds to be aggressively managed for
  performance
• 1947 - 1970 Fidelity launched thirteen, new
  stock funds, each earning a reputation for
  superior performance

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History

• 1974 When the company advertised its first WATS
  line, the calls poured in so quickly that eight
  other lines soon were added.
• 1979 To allow investors access to mutual fund
  information 24 hours a day, Fidelity installed
  the Fidelity Information phone system,
  voice-activated computer that responded to
  questions about prices and yields with a human
  voice. The system was the first of its kind to be
  made available to the general public.
• 1986 Fidelity was offering hourly pricing-an
  industry first- for its Select Portfolios
• 1986 Fidelity became the first mutual fund
  company to offer credit card services to retail
  customers
• 1995 Fidelity Investments became an Internet
  pioneer, and holds the distinction of being the
  first mutual fund company to create a homepage on
  the Internets World Wide Web.

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Products / Services

• In addition to more than 300 Fidelity mutual
  funds, they also offer
• discount brokerage services
• retirement services
• estate planning
• wealth management
• securities execution and clearance
• life insurance
• and much, much more.

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Case Summary
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Case Summary

• Four companies and their suggenstions to improve
  the usability of their websites
• Fidelity Investment use a usability lab and
  found out that they should use the language of
  the customer instead of buzzwords
• Intuit Inc. enliven their site with images of
  their employees
• A.G. Edwards If you have a real product to
  sell, show the productPriceline simplifying the
  site and visualize service

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Question 1

• Is a usability lab like Fidelitys necessary, or
  are there other alternatives for testing
  usability in website design? Which is the better
  approach? Why?

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Question 1

• It is very important to use usability labs
• To test how a website is accepted by customers
• To measure customer satisfaction and to
  experience defaults on a website
• To measure how easy a website is structured
• To get new ideas of how customers think the site
  should be organized

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Other Alternatives

• Online/onsite surveys
• Focus groups in a lab
• Online focus groups
• Site-monitoring
• Eye tracking

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1. Online/onsite surveys

• Consumers get the possibility to answer questions
  or to fill out a questionnaire while they visit a
  website. This approach is only suitable for
  improvements of an existing homepage.
• Advantage inexpensive and easy feasible method
• Disadvantage Rate of response can be low

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2. Focus groups in a lab

• Experienced researchers with psychological
  background lead group discussions in a lab about
  different topics like motives, expectations and
  barriers of customers while they shop on or just
  use a website.
• Advantage Useful tool before a company offers a
  new product or before they publish a website
• Disadvantage expensive and test persons may
  behave different, because they are in a
  artificial environment

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3. Online focus groups

• Participants, who resemble to the target group,
  are recruited through newspaper advertisement in
  order to provide re-searchers with information
  about using the website.
• Advantage no time and geographic barriers
• Disadvantage no direct observation

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4. Site-monitoring

• One integrated system monitors application,
  network devices, servers, system, bandwidth and
  web sites. It measures the response time of a
  transaction, determines if a problem is
  application or equipment related, proactively
  correct potential problems before they become
  critical and improve customer satisfaction.
• Advantage approach can be used for different
  business units, available at all times,
  controlling instrument
• Disadvantage data must be analysed, expert
  know-how is therefore necessary

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5. Eye tracking

• This is a process where the tenor of the
  customers eyes in observed, while they are
  visiting a companies website. This method helps
  to find out which parts of a website are
  perceived immediately and which once are not.
  This approach is very effective, but expensive.

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Question 2

• Evaluate the suggestions for good website design
  shared by the companies in this case. Which are
  the most important for you? Explain your choice.

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Suggestions and Evaluations

• Get user feedback and apply it where necessary
• Fidelity created a lab where in which they could
  receive feedback from actual users
• This is a good technique because you are more
  able to see the website objectively

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Suggestions and Evals cont.

• Tailor the website to be more user friendly
• Fidelity asked users if they could understand the
  website jargon and found that the website was
  more efficient when they used a more commonplace
  vocabulary

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Suggestions and Evals cont.

• Simply and consolidate where possible
• This accommodates the customer by allowing the
  website to be more user friendly

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Question 3

• Visit the websites of Fidelity, Intuit, A.G.
  Edwards, and Priceline. How would you rank them
  in order of the best website design. Explain your
  rankings.

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Priceline.com

• You know immediately what the company offers
• Easy / simple structure (groups) and language
• Different search possibilities
• Easy to use
• Possibility to create a profile for the next use
  of the site
• Visualize information
• Fast page reproduction
• But less information about the company

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A.G. Edwards.com

• You realize very fast what the company offers
• Information about the company are easy to find
• Site structured in groups
• Search possibility
• Fast page reproduction
• Offers different financial calculators
• But to understand everything without problems
  you should have some basic knowledge

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Fidelity.com

• You realize after a few clicks, what the company
  offers
• Search possibility
• At the first view the site looks overloaded
• Information structured in groups
• Velocity of page reproduction is slower
• Company infos are hard to find
• But to understand everything without problems
  you should have some basic knowledge

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Intuit.com

• At the first view the site looks uninteresting
• You need a few clicks to check out what they all
  offer
• Infos about the company are easy to find
• Search opportunity
• Velocity of page reproduction is slower
• Some pages are to complex

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Ranking

• Priceline.com
• A.G.Edwards.com
• Fidelity.com
• Intuit.com

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Questions?

• Thank you for your attention!