Fidelity Investments and Others: Evaluating Usability in Website Design

1. Fidelity Investments and Others: Evaluating Usability in Website Design Group 5 Chapter 10 – Case 1 Page 343

2. Team Members • Elizabeth Cates • Yvonne Hildebrand • Jessi Janis • Nina Wolf • Eric Young

3. Fidelity Investments www.fidelity.com

4. CEO of Fidelity: Edward C. Johnson 3d • He joins the company 1957 as a research analyst • Since 1977 CEO Eric Young

5. 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. Eric Young

6. 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. Eric Young

7. 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 Eric Young

8. 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 Fidelity’s 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 Eric Young

9. 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 Internet’s World Wide Web. Eric Young

10. 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. Eric Young

11. Case Summary

12. 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 product“Priceline: simplifying the site and visualize service Jessi Janis

13. Question 1 Is a usability lab like Fidelity’s necessary, or are there other alternatives for testing usability in website design? Which is the better approach? Why?

14. 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 Yvonne Hildebrand

15. Other Alternatives: • Online/onsite surveys • Focus groups in a lab • Online focus groups • Site-monitoring • Eye tracking Yvonne Hildebrand

16. 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 Yvonne Hildebrand

17. 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 Yvonne Hildebrand

18. 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 Yvonne Hildebrand

19. 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 Yvonne Hildebrand

20. 5. Eye tracking This is a process where the tenor of the customer’s 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. Yvonne Hildebrand

21. 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.

22. 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 Elizabeth Cates

23. 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 Elizabeth Cates

24. Suggestions and Evals cont. • Simply and consolidate where possible • This accommodates the customer by allowing the website to be more user friendly Elizabeth Cates

25. 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.

26. 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 Nina Wolf

27. 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 Nina Wolf

28. 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 Nina Wolf

29. 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 Nina Wolf

30. Ranking • Priceline.com • A.G.Edwards.com • Fidelity.com • Intuit.com Nina Wolf

31. Questions? Thank you for your attention!