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http://www.pixeltreemedia.co.uk/

PixelTree Media, No. 1 Spinningfields, Manchester (2026)

16/10/2024

Are you a product manager or customer experience lead? 🖥️

We’re pulling back the curtain on affordable user testing at our next UX Factor meetup in Manchester!

✨ Learn the tools & techniques to run quick, budget-friendly tests.
✨ See behind the scenes on actual projects we’ve worked on!

📅 Thursday 5th December 2024, 16:30 – 19:00

💡 RSVP now: https://www.meetup.com/the-ux-factor-manchester/events/303723485/?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=share-btn_savedevents_share_modal&utm_source=link

08/10/2024

Adrian Richardson and the team at Mortgage Wallet set out with one mission: to disrupt the status quo of a mortgage industry that was opaque for customers and admin-heavy for brokers.

When they asked if there was a better way though, they found themselves at cross-roads 🧭

Building an “all singing, all dancing” app straight away was going to cost a lot of money for what might be a hunch.

But not trying anything could mean that they let a potentially huge opportunity to change the entire industry pass by.

They opted for a middle ground; setting out to test their beliefs, gather feedback and ultimately use data to determine their path forward.

Over a 6-week product sprint with Adrian, Jared and the team, we:
🎤 Used stakeholder interviews alongside existing datapoints to reveal the biggest challenges for both customers and brokers
✏️ Designed the screens that would deliver solutions for the big challenges
🤖 Crafted interactive prototypes that could provide a “real” user experience
🧪 Conducted user testing to gather feedback
🔁 Iterated on design and prototypes to gather further rounds of feedback

How did it do? 🤔

The testing paid off!

Mortgage Wallet is now in use at brokers across the country, helping teams optimise client management and delivering better user experiences in the process 🏡

Want to know more? Read our full case study below:

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/work/mortgage-wallet-app-prototype/

19/09/2024

At the forefront of an industry worth hundreds of billions globally, our expert partners at Quantum Base have been using quantum solutions to deliver unbreakable product authentication since 2013 🔒

Founded on a vision to deliver non-replicable and cost-effective product authentication, the team at Quantum Base now work with some of the biggest brands and organisations in the world, protecting industries against:

💊 Counterfeit medication
🛬 Identity fraud through false documents like passports
👜 Fake designer apparel

And that’s just naming a few!

With the goal of making the Quantum Base authentication app as user friendly as possible, we’ve teamed up to provide our best-in-class UX knowledge to maximise ease of use for customers and prepare for the app’s exciting next phase!

Using our Product Design Sprint, we’ll:

🔍 Surface usability challenges in their app's scanning feature
🗺️ Use collaborative workshops to map the journey and ideate solutions
✏️ Design and craft an interactive prototype for testing
🔁 Iterate on feedback to optimise the app’s usability

Check out our full post here:
https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/quantum-base-choose-pixeltree/

09/09/2024

Controversial take: 5 users is not always enough for usability testing.

There, we said it!

To set the record straight, we say this as a team that use 5 users as our standard.

We fully back Nielsen’s belief that it finds 85% of usability issues and that it:
⏲ Delivers results rapidly
👛 Is cost effective for clients who might otherwise try and launch a risky product

The thing is though, we need to remember context when we insist on using just 5 users:

🧮 It’s not enough for numerical evidence -
If you're testing for statistical evidence, 5 users may simply not be enough. 5 users’ is a great rule of thumb for identifying common problems, but not significant a sample size for factors like ‘how many completed a task?’, ‘how satisfied were users?’ etc.

🔁 Iteration doesn’t stop at 1 attempt –
Iterating on the feedback you receive may introduce new bugs or may not always solve the original problem. Remember, you may need further testing beyond the original 5 testers.

Ultimately, testing with 5 users for usability issues is the best starting point. But here are a few things that might make it require more users:

📈 Your goal is to gather quantitative evidence on usability

😵‍💫 You’re testing a large or complex product

🙋 Your test relies on multiple different target audiences or users

📅 You plan on conducting iteration

See our full breakdown here: https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/usability-testing-with-5-users-is-it-enough/

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below!

21/08/2024

Did you know that 34% of departments report to product management (according to UXcam)?

But even with all these experts at arms reach, gathering insights and being collaborative across departments still remains a huge challenge for product managers ⚠️

Ultimately, product teams that don’t have structured times to collaborate, or worst case, work in complete silos lose out on a GOLD MINE of expertise that you can’t get anywhere else.

And the more expertise you have, the better, resulting in:

❓ An easier time identifying challenges and questions that need answering

💡 Better ideas coming to the forefront from people outside of your usual silo

✅ Better informed decisions early on that make the process smoother

So, the key question ends up being “how can I get the best results out of cross-departmental teamwork?”

As always, we’ve got a few pointers:

⏰ Get started early! - The earlier you involve internal experts in the requirement gathering phase the better, resulting in faster progression and more information to work with from the off

🤝 Activities matter – Team activities can make unnatural and unstructured meetings into something that’s fun and encourages experts to contribute

📅 It’s not one and done – You should look to keep checking in with your experts over the course of your project to make sure that if things change, you’re in the know

Read more requirement gathering tips here:

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/things-to-remember-when-collecting-requirements/

02/08/2024

Here’s a few things about our friends at Your Sexual Health:

🧪 They’ve been at the forefront of improving access to sexual health testing, serving as the UK’s leading provider of private testing.

🤝 They work with over 100+ clinics across the UK to provide a wide array of tests.

🏠 They’ve gone above and beyond to make the process as easy for users as possible; offering bookable clinic appointments, home testing kits and home visits.

With a brand-new testing service in the works, Your Sexual Health have partnered up with us for UX design, prototyping and user testing to get their website ready for the new service’s launch🚀

Over the course of our collaboration, we’ll be working closely with their team to:

🗺️ Detail all user journeys on the website and the touchpoints with the new service

🧭 Differentiate the new service from other testing types, improving visibility and maximising its commercial potential

🧪 Validate the prototype with real users

📱 Oversee the deployment of the work to their live site

Check out more details at the link below:
https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/your-sexual-health-partner-with-pixeltree-ahead-of-huge-testing-expansion/

17/07/2024

When ARMSA Academy launched their innovative h-alt.io® digital platform, they had a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve:

To deliver crucial data points for renewable energy companies to maximise efficiencies, provide tailored training to the future leaders of the industry and allow management to best allocate investment based on real analytics 📈

Since then, h’alt.io® has only gone from strength to strength, forging new partnerships that allow them to drive project success and support the energy transition across the globe 🌍

To push the envelope even further, the ARMSA team have partnered with Pixeltree to introduce even greater automation for their data interpretation and reporting tools, delivering new value for everyone in the project lifecycle from engineers to senior management.

Over the course of our collaboration, we’ll be working closely with their team at every level, from running workshops to detail key processes all the way to producing testable high fidelity prototypes!

Read more about their story and our upcoming project below:

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/armsa-h-alt-partnership-announcement/

08/07/2024

Products live and die by how good their requirements are.

And with so many conversations to be had with stakeholders, customers, other experts in your organisation about the customer, it’s particularly tricky to keep up with note taking while actively looking to expand your questioning when something interesting pops up.

You often end up wading through paragraphs and paragraphs like a treasure hunt for useful information, before then having to connect the dots to the big picture that might be forming 🖼

That’s not easy.

But there are a few simple things we’ve found through our own early stage product discovery and requirement gathering that has trimmed down our note taking time.

🏗️ Have a structure for interviews and meetings: Structure helps conversations move smoothly and allows you to keep your note taking on a specific topic, making it far easier to synthesise notes with other interviews later on.

✏️ Plan team activities with writing: Team meetings can be a nightmare to note take for because everyone can be speaking at once. Having activities that keep people on a specific task and using tools like sticky notes and wireframing can commit ideas to paper and make note taking an easier follow up activity.

📽️ Record team meetings and virtual interviews: Recording virtual meetings and workshops is your new best friend. Not only can you be present on calls and dig deeper without worrying about not writing something down, but tools can automatically transcribe recordings so you don’t have to.

🔧️ Harness project management tools: When it comes to logging all your notes, project management tools can be a great way of having a central location for all points and maintaining an audit log when new points arise.

What note taking tips have we missed out on?

We produced a blog post on things to remember when collecting requirements and this just so happened to be one of them! Read the full post here:

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/things-to-remember-when-collecting-requirements/

03/07/2024

No single way of collecting product requirements is a silver bullet for a good product.

The key is for teams to become familiar with the advantages or limitations of the framework they’re working with, whether that’s teams leaving feeling heard or, on the VERY flip side, the product failing miserably 🚽

🌊 Waterfall 🌊

Linear and step by step, waterfall puts requirement gathering right at the start of the project, with the results of your findings trickling down into design, development and beyond.

As the standard process for some time, teams find it easy to understand why it’s placed early and means that you get detailed granular requirements really early which serves to clarify for any people later in the delivery chain.

However, missed insights, bad problem definition or choosing the wrong solution can all result in negative effects that run deep into the project without a way of pivoting because of its rigid structure.

👟 Agile 👟

Focusing on speed and better inter-team collaboration, the Agile methodology often uses sprints to build up an understanding of the requirements needed on an on-going and iterative basis.

As it’s far more fluid that Waterfall, Agile teams benefit from the ability to adapt requirements at a far cheaper cost as you’re consistently experimenting in the early phases. It also means you can scrutinise your hypotheses more often and as a result, get a better product at the end of it.

But Agile isn’t perfect for gathering requirements either. The iterative nature of Agile means that you need to firm with when you stop refining, otherwise you'll be left infinitely gathering requirements.

In short, we believe it’s essential that product teams get to know the pros and cons of how they gather requirements, because without it, you’re making the risk of the below way higher:

💰 Expensive repairs or pivots
📦 Delivery times that never arrive
😡 Products users didn’t ask for

Read more on things you should remember when collecting requirements below 👇

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/things-to-remember-when-collecting-requirements/

24/06/2024

Low quality requirements make building better products impossible 😔

And the thing is, teams have known this for a long time.

Back in 2005, it was said that around 71% of embedded software products failed because of poor requirements. All the while, 70% of companies don’t take action to improve the quality of requirements.

Why do teams find it so hard to gather good requirements? 🤔

We’ve worked with teams of all different configurations, and from our experience, here’s the 3 biggest points that are making requirements, and their end products, worse.

😥 Siloed requirement gathering: When the person gathering requirements is isolated, you won’t build the full picture. Experts in your company miss the opportunity to contribute, as a result, requirements end up being at odds or not detailed enough to solve actual user problems.

🤷 Everything’s an assumption: It’s too easy to say, “I know what the customer wants” and start creating solutions. And a lot of that comes down to the belief that there’s no resources to conduct actual user research or dictated product decisions from upper management who are usually the furthest from the actual customer.

⌛ Time pressure: Time is money and good requirement gathering can feel like inaction to management. This means that even if you have a plan to interview other team members or gathering user research, the pressures of getting to market rush the process to worse outcomes.

Read more about why requirements gathering is suffering right now and how business analysts and product managers can make the process a whole lot better:

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/you-are-gathering-product-requirements-wrong/

Think we’ve missed anything? Let us know in the comments below!

17/06/2024

The requirement gathering phase of a project is make or break for whether your product will survive or not.

Do it right and you’ll have strong foundations to design and then build a product that smashes targets and makes customers happy.

Do it wrong and you’ll end up with:
😔 Experiences that customers don’t like using
🗑️ Features that didn’t matter to begin with
❌ Products that didn’t solve a user need

All in all, gathering product requirements is mission critical but severely underappreciated.

The stats speak for themselves:
- 64% of software defects stem from requirements or design
- Poor requirement gathering adds on 60% extra costs on time and budget
- 41.5% of project resources will be spent on unnecessary or poorly spec’d requirements

All this and yet only 30% of organisations take action to improve this part of the funnel 🤯

Luckily, there are ways we can improve outcomes from requirement gathering and build better products on a more regular basis.

Check out our latest post on the challenges surrounding requirement gathering and how product discovery can make it a whole lot better:

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/you-are-gathering-product-requirements-wrong/

12/06/2024

There's really no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to launching a new product or feature 🥪

Nothing comes completely risk free for product teams. There's always something on the line, whether that's:
⏲ Time
💳 Resources
😠 Management or investor confidence

But from our time working with teams big and small, we've learned a thing or two about mitigating risk to more comfortable levels by really just doing one thing...

Making the absolute most out of the time pre-development/engineering.

Plenty of teams take up the stance of "we need to get to market yesterday" and end up pushing through to the finish line (with often subpar results), but the pre-development phase is the where you can make what feel like small choices that have a BIG impact in the long run 📈

Check out our top 4 recommendations for cutting product risk before you write even a line of code below and read about 4 signs your product is too risky to go ahead with here:

https://pixeltreemedia.co.uk/4-signs-your-product-is-too-high-risk/

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