I’ve been poking around, looking at how different agencies describe User Experience (UX), and whether or not they call it UX explicitly. Though obvious to UXers, you can sure learn a lot about how an agency thinks about itself from its information architecture!  I analyzed the information architecture and content related to describing UX for POP, ZAAZ, Razorfish, Forum One, and Neudesic. I’ll first list two summaries of my observations — one on hierarchies, the other on term usage — then I’ll do a brief walk through on each company with screenshots.

How Hierarchy Communicates Importance and Focus:

Important note: I’m only just starting to learn about these companies. My takeaways are purely based on my interpretation of the websites’ information architecture, not from first hand knowledge of how the companies operate in practice.

POP lists User Experience second under What We Do.

Forum One lists Design as it’s second item under Services. Four of the five items under Design are facets of UX, the fifth item being visual design. (I think of visual design as something separate from UX).

——Takeaway: UX/Design is central to these companies.

Razorfish has a facet under Offerings named, Marketing and Experience Design. Most of the items under this facet are directly related to marketing. 

—— Takeway: Razorfish is a company that focuses heavily on marketing.

ZAAZ uses three main categories under the heading, Capabilities: Creative, Performance, and Engagement. UX is listed under Creative. Four other facets of UX are listed under both Creative and Engagement.

——— Takeaway: UX is important, but it’s not the primary focus of the company. UX is on an equal playing field with marketing and analytics.

Neudesic lists UX under Expertise. It is the last of 7 items listed under Expertise.  

———Takeaway: UX is important, but it’s not the main thing they want to emphasize to their clients.

Term Usage

Here’s a rundown of what companies are using what phrases to describe their offerings:

User Experience: POP, ZAAZ, Neusdic [Razorfish calls this “Marketing and Experience Design,” and Forum One lists various aspects of UX under “Design”] 

User Research: POP, ZAAZ, [Note: Neusdic calls this simply Research, and Forum One calls it Audience Research]

Usability Testing: POP, ZAAZ, Forum One [Note: Forum One is the only one who has a whole section describing Usability Testing.]

Information Architecture: Forum One, Neusdic

Emotion: POP, Neusdic [Note: Neusdic is the only company that uses the term “emotional design.”]

POP

POP lists User Experience second under it’s What We Do section.  I’d surmise that UX is fairly important if it’s listed so prominently:

After clicking on User Experience, POP describes UX by giving a big nod to its connection to “emotion.”  They also list specific actions and deliverables UX is responsible for with four bullet points: 

ZAAZ

This is a screenshot from a section of ZAAZ’s homepage.  The links are not clickable, so there’s not a way to dig deeper into what the different terms mean to ZAAZ. For ZAAZ, content goes hand in hand with Design and UX as shown by this bullet point: “Design, Copywriting & User Experience.”  In comparison to POP, ZAAZ places UX  under Creative while POP lists UX and Creative as separate, equal facets:

Razorfish

For Razorfish, UX is tightly coupled with Marketing, although it is never explicitly called UX.  The company lists Interaction Design under the header “Marketing and Experience Design:”

The text describing interaction design is unlike any other description of interaction design that I’ve ever come across.  This is probably because marketing is paramount here, and design is subservient under it. Below is the full text of the blurb. I think it falls flat describing interaction design. Even from a marketing perspective which it mostly is, I don’t personally connect with what they’re saying:

Forum One

Though never explicitly saying “User Experience,” Forum One lists different aspects of UX under Design in their list of Services: Audience Research, Usability Audits, Information Architecture, and Usability Testing. Interestingly, Visual Design is grouped together with these facets of UX.  None of the other agencies call out visual design explicitly, though a bullet point from ZAAZ reads, “Design, Copywriting, and User Experience.” Perhaps ZAAZ wrote that thinking that most people will think of visual design when they see the word “design.” 

Neudesic

User Experience is listed as the bottom bullet point under Expertise in Neudesic’s What section:

While Neudesic’s visual design is the least sexy of the other companies I’ve profiled so far, they do the best job, I think, of describing in plain, easy-to-grasp language what UX is, and why it’s a necessary ingredient for success. In fact, it’s probably the best I’ve come across period.  Like POP, they speak to emotion, and how users feel about a product:

No matter what function your application serves, it will never enjoy wide spread adoption if it lacks the right user experience; one that is easy, affective, meaningful and valuable to both your users and your business.

Neudesic’s User Experience professionals deliver software that actually aligns with what users feel, think and really do. We can deploy our UX services at any stage and on any size project to ensure end-user productivity is always an important part of the conversation, and your project is ultimately kept on a successful, strategic track.

Neudesic UX begins and ends with users’ goals, tasks and behaviors. Our UX design not only focuses on the look and feel of a product; it also takes into account what it is, what it does and what goals it serves. By leveraging strategic choices to support the user’s goals, Neudesic UX design creates a positive emotional connection to the experience. 

Typical areas of engagement in the UX process:
• Business requirements engagement
• Research into user goals, tasks and behaviors
• Design strategy and ideation
• Visual, creative and emotional design
• Information architecture and content strategy
• Interaction, interface, and prototype design & testing
• Functional specification
• Technical strategy

(emphasis mine)

I think Forum One does a good job explaining simply and powerfully some key facets of UX, but for me, I liked seeing the overall picture of why UX matters. Neusdic’s description packs a lot of punch, makes sense and isn’t wrapped in marketing mumbo jumbo language.

In conclusion I’d like to say that this is the most meta post I’ve ever written. That is all.