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19 March 2010
Employment Opportunities at Amberlight

Amberlight is currently looking for experienced consultants to join its consultancy team based in central London.

For further information, including how to apply, please have a look at Amberlight Jobs.

26 January 2009
New International Usability Partners in India and the United States

HumanCentric (United States) and Kern Communications (India) have joined the International Usability Partners (IUP). The IUP is a network of independent usability companies who have joined together to provide user experience services worldwide.

"With our new partners HumanCentric and Kern Communications we are able to offer our clients improved global reach through one point of contact," says Jakob Biesterfeldt, Manager User Research at UID and founding member of the IUP. "Both partners are leading usability and design companies in their countries as well as experts for global user experience research and design. I am very pleased that they have joined the IUP!"

HumanCentric and Kern Communications join with international usability companies from seven other countries: China, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Providing standardized usability research, testing and design for markets all over the world, these nine companies will establish the gold standard for product usability design and testing.

"I am pleased to join the IUP," says Barry Beith, president and CEO, HumanCentric. "Being part of an international network of usability researchers allows us to provide more efficient cross-cultural usability testing to our clients."

"Healthcare, education, communication, and consumer products will need to undergo a lot of change, if they have to be designed for India," says Ripul Kumar, Director User Research, Kern Communications. "As the world is looking at India for the next billion consumers, Kern will help IUP clients across the globe understand user behavior in India."

The IUP have collaborated in dozens of international projects in more than 30 countries on all five continents. Clients include Expedia, RIM, Microsoft, Samsung, and eBay.

The network establishes guidelines for international cross-cultural user research through collaborative research projects. In recent studies the IUP has highlighted cultural differences in the usage of social networks, developed guidelines for the recruitment of user research participants and studied how users perform transactions with their mobile devices in Europe and China. To ensure a close collaboration among IUP members and a highly efficient management of international projects, the IUP have started an "exchange program" in which employees of one member company work at another member company for a certain period of time. In 2008, a consultant of the German IUP member "User Interface Design GmbH" worked at the Chinese partner company "ISAR UID" for a period of 9 months and enabled therefore a smooth and fast flow of information between both IUP members and their clients.

About International Usability Partners:
IUP is a network of equals, run by all partners for their clients' benefit. Each partner is an expert in global user-experience research and design, specializing in the cultural and linguistic characteristics of their home country. "IUP quality" stands for companies that offer world-class user experience services of consistently high quality in a reliable and efficient manner.

All IUP members have a common understanding of the methods, processes and scientific background of the field of user experience (human-computer interaction).

IUP members have effective quality assurance and process improvement programs in place as well as regular professional training for their staff.

Members also have state of the art equipment and tools that facilitate in-house and mobile user research. Facilities are conveniently located around the world in 14 cities including: Chicago, Helsinki, Hyderabad, London, Paris, Torino, Munich, and Beijing.

Contact info:
Ian Collingwood, Managing Director, Amberlight Partners Ltd.
ian@amber-light.co.uk
www.international-usability-partners.com

About HumanCentric:

HumanCentric, Inc. is an integrated design and development company headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, with a foundation based on the commitment to make user-friendly products by studying and understanding the end user. HumanCentric leverages Human Factors, Design Research, Industrial Design, Graphic and Interaction Design and Design Engineering to simplify and enhance user experiences.

With offices in Cary, North Carolina, and Chicago, Illinois, the team of multidisciplinary design professionals is dedicated to working in an environment focused on the client, the product and the end user. HumanCentric's facilities have a total of 19,500 square feet of office space, including three state-of-the-art usability laboratories, a design studio and prototyping workshop.

At HumanCentric, the goal is to understand the user experience and use that understanding to develop intuitive and sophisticated products, systems and environments.

About Kern Communications:

Kern is a leading usability consulting and user research company in India. Kern works with large financial institutions, start-ups, established software product companies, online gaming companies, and mobile phone makers to help them innovate for Indian users. Kern's strengths lie in understanding user behavior and translating it to innovative solutions.

Though Kern's fully digital usability testing lab is located in Hyderabad, Kern can run ethnographic studies, participatory design workshops, or usability testing in any city, town, or village in India in any Indian language.

22 February 2008
Amberlight unveils new look offices

Amberlight has revealed their revamped offices at 58 Bloomsbury St, London. The redecorated premises also boasts state-of-the-art video and audio capture equipment for viewing and recording tests.

"The office was overdue for a facelift," said Amberlight MD Ian Collingwood, "we took this as an opportunity to also create a more pleasant and creative environment, as well as ensuring our research facilities stay at the forefront of the industry. We're sure our clients will enjoy coming to visit us even more than before!"

Clients view a session from the observation room

Testing rooms with state-of-the-art sound and video capture

Games and interactive TV testing suite

the redecorated main office

11 January 2008
Amberlight in top 3 usability suppliers

Amberlight is one of the UK's top 3 usability companies according to Revolution Magazine's Agency Survey 2007. The London-based user-centred design consultancy achieved a top 3 placing in each of the 'Usability Supplier' categories; 'Return on Investment', 'Works well with other agencies' and 'Data Collection'.

The survey polled Revolution subscribers asking them to nominate outstanding companies they had worked with in the last twelve months.

"What can I say? We love our clients - and they love us" said Amberlight MD Ian Collingwood.

13 September 2007
Boots appoint Amberlight

Alliance Boots has appointed the user-centred design (UCD) consultancy Amberlight as their preferred agency for usability and UCD projects across multiple platforms. Amberlight will be working closely with the Alliance Boots team to help them focus their online presence on meeting user needs in a range of market sectors.

Jennifer James, Customer Experience Manager for Boots.com said of the appointment, "The bespoke service Amberlight are providing is tailored exactly to our requirements and will be invaluable in better understanding our customer expectations."

Ian Collingwood, Managing Director at Amberlight said, "Alliance Boots have created a world-renowned brand that is synonymous with excellent customer service. We are very excited at the prospect of helping them to create an online user experience that supports their recent growth and development. We are very proud that they chose Amberlight as their partner."

28 May 2007
Amberlight at UPA 2007

Amberlight will be at the forthcoming Usability Professionals Association conference in Austin, Texas. Senior consultant Rob Gillham will be co-presenting a paper titled 'Guidelines for successful recruitment in international usability studies' with Jakob Biesterfeldt of UID, Amberlight's German partner. The paper was written jointly by members of the International Usability Partners, a global network of usability consultancies, of which Amberlight is a founder member.

UPA 2007 takes place from 11-15th June in Austin.
Rob is happy to pre-arrange to meet attendees at UPA. Email rob@amber-light.co.uk to arrange a meeting.

Links:
International Usability Partners http://www.amber-light.co.uk/services/international-usability-partners.shtml
UPA: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/conference/2007/

19 March 2007
Amberlight supports 'Actually Being There'

Amberlight is sponsoring a leading conference on the key topics of globalisation and localisation of user interfaces.

The International Workshop for the Internationalisation of Products and Systems will be held between 28-30th June 2007 in Merida, Mexico. The conference theme 'Actually Being There', highlights the importance of conducting research with real target users in their own countries.

Amberlight consultant Dr Saravjit Rihal will be attending the conference and happy to arrange to meet any delegates in advance.

Robert Gillham, Senior Consultant at Amberlight, is also secretary of P&SI, the body who organise IWIPS.

Links:
Conference site: www.iwips2007.org

20 February 2007
Amberlight gains new Spanish research partner

International Usability Partners (IUP), Amberlight's network of global research partners, has been joined by dnx, a Madrid-based user experience research consultancy. Filip Healy, principal with Amberlight said, 'We are extremely excited at the prospect of working with dnx. Their user experience expertise in Spain and Latin America is a valuable addition to the IUP.'

International Usability Partners (IUP) is an network of equal partners who have a history of collaboration on international usability testing projects. All IUP members conform to extremely high standards of quality and experience in user experience research.

Links:
International Usability Partners: www.amber-light.co.uk/services/international-usability-partners.shtml
dnx: www.dnxgroup.com

10 December 2006
UK MySpace users disclose more information than in China

A recent report by Amberlight reveals key differences in the way social networking sites such as MySpace are used in China and the UK.

Amberlight consultant Robert Gillham said 'This research was carried out in the UK, China, Germany and Italy and highlights the fact that people in different countries use community sites for totally different reasons. In the UK it is all about keeping in touch with your existing social network, so you need to disclose information to identify yourself online. In China, users are interested in meeting new people, but they disclose less personal information for security reasons and quickly abandon sites they feel nervous about. This has obvious implications for the design of social networking tools and helps explain why Western sites have so far failed to outperform home grown Chinese rivals.'

Amberlight conducted usability testing of MySpace in the UK as part of an independent, cross-cultural research effort by International Usability Partners, a network of user experience research agencies in the UK, Germany, Italy, France and China.

The combined report of the IUP is available to download here as a powerpoint file: www.amber-light.co.uk/dev/IUP_MySpace_International_report_v1.ppt
or as a PDF: www.amber-light.co.uk/dev/IUP_MySpace_International_report_v1.pdf

10 November 2006
Amberlight announce their International Usability Partners

Amberlight have unveiled their formal network of usability and user-centred design consultancies based all around the globe.

International Usability Partners (IUP) is an network of equal partners who have a history of collaboration on international usability testing projects All IUP members conform to extremely high standards of quality and experience in user experience research. IUP consists of Amberlight (UK), Design For Lucy (France), Experientia (Italy), Isar UID (China) and User Interface Design (Germany). Additionally IUP has an extended network of usability consultants and agencies in the US, Canada, South America, Far East and other European countries.

See more about IUP and our international usability services at: www.amber-light.co.uk/services/international-usability-partners.shtml

IUP Links:
Design For Lucy www.designforlucy.com
Experientia www.experientia.com
Isar www.isaruid.com
UID www.uidesign.de

07 November 2006
mySupermarket commissions Amberlight to evaluate shoppers' online experience

Amberlight has worked closely with online comparison site, mySupermarket, in evaluating and improving shoppers' experience. By involving real shoppers, Amberlight, working with mySupermarket's in-house development team, identified different shopping habits, needs, and interests that helped mySupermarket create a compelling online shopping proposition. With mySupermarket users can

· Compare the prices of their entire trolley among all 4 online supermarkets

· Save money by suggesting better value alternatives

· Save valuable time by allowing them to browse different online supermarkets from one location

· Import their own existing favourites so they can quick start their shopping. For the first time users can share their favourites among all supermarkets.

· Shop using clear and big pictures of products, not lists

· Filter products by type or brand for easy viewing

Please contact us for more information

mySupermarket: http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk

12 October 2006
Topgear.com 'Best Consumer Site' at AOP awards

BBC Worldwide's topgear.com won Best Consumer Site at the Association of Online Publishers 2006 awards on 4th October.

Amberlight tested initial designs for the site with target users and worked closely with agency Poke and BBC Worldwide to refine and develop the final solutions.

The judges described the site as "perfectly targeting an audience that is expanding at an incredible rate".

Press: http://tinyurl.com/sr6gj
Site: http://www.topgear.com
Our friends at Poke: http://www.pokelondon.com

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