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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

25 August 2006
Amberlight speaks at leading mobile conference

Amberlight's Head of Consulting, Filip Healy, will be speaking at the Mobile Application Platforms and OS conference in London on the 7th September 2006. The MAPOS conference is the yearly meeting point for the top innovators and decision makers in the increasingly fast moving and competitive mobile marketplace. Filip will be presenting his thoughts on the role of user interface design in consolidating a great user experience in mobile phones, sharing some of our learnings and thoughts from our work and research into user requirements for their mobile phones. The conference takes place September at Jurys Hotel in London.

Link to MAPOS website: http://tinyurl.com/r2tls

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