In 2005, SirValUse accompanied the relaunch of Bosch's homepage with several different kinds of usability testing. The aim of these testing was to design the start page in such a way that it is optimally adapted for the German market and that it can compete equally in the international market place.
The special feature of international testing is that cultural circumstances have to be considered, while the web appearance in its entirety has to be kept uniform. Design aspects, wording and information architecture have to be examined for all countries and implemented in an adequate manner.
The following methods were used:
- The first phase of the project was the qualitative preliminary stage. In a User Experience Test, preliminary proposals for the new concept were studied in comparison with the previous starting page, provisionally only with German users. The focus was on the new design of the layout and the revision of the information architecture. Card Sorting made it possible to make unambiguous statements about the number and naming of new categories on the web site.
- The findings obtained in this qualitative preliminary stage were translated in a revised variant. Online Survey via an existing online panel made it possible to verify the optimisation measures needed, so that the optimised version could be tested within an international framework.
- The User Test was carried out in four markets that are relevant for Bosch. Thus, we were able to ensure that the web site functioned in the European, South and North American and Asian Markets. International testing was conducted with the international partners of SirValUse some of which, like SirValUse, are among the founding members of User eXperience Alliance (UXA).
