Paul Rouke, Head of Usability & Conversion at PRWD will share some stories about the user engagement sessions he has conducted and the key learnings which have developed his view and understanding of the conversion world. You will also learn about some applied techniques that brands use to improve their site conversion rate.

Date & Time: Monday 6th Feb 2012 at 6:30pm

Venue:  Code Computerlove – Ducie House, Ducie Street, Manchester, M1 2JW (The entrance is on Peak Street, look for the cartoon robot sign above the door)

Paul Rouke:

In 1999 Paul started working in the online space, joining as a web designer at Great Universal Stores, at the time the UK’s biggest home shopping business. Over the next 7 years he spent considerable time with end users understanding why they do what they do when shopping online and how site experiences can be improved so that they shop more often and spend more money than what they intended doing. In turn helping the online channel become 40% of overall revenue by the time he left in 2006.

Since 2006 Paul has run his own usability and conversion optimisation consultancy PRWD (PRoductivity Without Difficulty) in Manchester, working with clients including as Speedo, Lakeland, Bank of America, Monsoon Accessorize, Manchester Tourist Board, Stella McCartney, Booking.com, Speedy Hire and All Saints. Paul also works alongside digital agencies such as CTI, Ampersand and Building Blocks.

On any given day of the week Paul can be found either moderating user testing sessions, conducting expert site evaluations, writing user testing reports, speaking at conferences, delivering public and in-house training courses, providing in-house consultancy, having planning or presentation sessions with clients – or for about 2 hours every few months writing guest posts for Econsultancy, such as ‘WTF is usability best practice anyway?’ or ‘9 women x 9 hours = 9 usability insights‘.

You can follow PRWD(@prwd) and Paul(@paulrouke) on twitter.

It’s focused on helping business owners understand the importance of usability for both their internal and external facing websites and systems, with the aim of improving companies bottom line through the likes of improving staff efficiency and the conversion rates from marketing budgets.

A few details below:

• Title: Usability: What’s The Use?
• Date: 28th January 2009
• Time: 6.00pm – 9.00pm
• Venue: CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment), 113-115 Portland Street, Manchester M1 6DW
• Cost: FREE!
• Official Event Page: http://usabilitywhatstheuse.eventbrite.com/

Further details and a brief overview are below:

For the digital sector, usability and user experience are more than new fads.

These topics, and their perceived value to businesses, have been talked and written about many times, but lets get it straight: just exactly what is the use of usability to a company looking at improving their performance, ROI and staff efficiency?

In this FREE event Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD, and 2 guest speakers Judith Garman of AbilityNet and Pete Bagnall of SurfaceEffect, will be providing a range of real-life examples and industry insights which will help reveal some of the tangible benefits businesses can gain by embracing usability and user experience.

Through the course of the evening you will see why usability can play a significant role in the likes of e-commerce websites, B2B websites, lead generation sites, intranets, internal software systems and the development of bespoke web and software applications.

The event will be followed by drinks, some food and networking.