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Post by chris on May 16, 2016 20:35:24 GMT
The layout change has come from third party UX analysis combined by one of our marketing partners who are tasked with increasing conversion rates on our marketing spend with them, along with input from our marketing department and our CEO. I've sent my disagreement to them and the feedback from this forum and they're considering making a change. As a future AC shareholder, I do hope that the payments due under AC's contract with the UX analysis and marketing partners are reward-based. As in, if conversion rates increase then they get paid, and if they don't... In a roundabout way they are
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jonah
Member of DD Central
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Post by jonah on May 19, 2016 20:50:02 GMT
This 'issue' now appears fixed. Thank you chris and team.
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investibod
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Post by investibod on May 19, 2016 22:14:25 GMT
This 'issue' now appears fixed. Thank you chris and team. Yes, looking good for me.
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Post by lynnanthony on May 20, 2016 3:19:03 GMT
Looks like someone in your IT department is making changes without apparently having done any analysis and/or peer review. Not for the first time ... Why do you think this originates from the IT department? The layout change has come from third party UX analysis combined by one of our marketing partners who are tasked with increasing conversion rates on our marketing spend with them, along with input from our marketing department and our CEO. I've sent my disagreement to them and the feedback from this forum and they're considering making a change. chris do I understand correctly that the user interface can be altered by a third party contractor without anyone from Assetz having sight of the changes and signing them off? If so, Wow!
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Post by lynnanthony on May 20, 2016 4:06:49 GMT
This 'issue' now appears fixed. Thank you chris and team. Hmmm. I now have a show more/show less button on the MLIA that doesn't do anything apart from move the lower half of the screen up and down by a quarter of an inch. But hey I can live with that.
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Post by chris on May 20, 2016 7:14:26 GMT
Why do you think this originates from the IT department? The layout change has come from third party UX analysis combined by one of our marketing partners who are tasked with increasing conversion rates on our marketing spend with them, along with input from our marketing department and our CEO. I've sent my disagreement to them and the feedback from this forum and they're considering making a change. chris do I understand correctly that the user interface can be altered by a third party contractor without anyone from Assetz having sight of the changes and signing them off? If so, Wow! No that is not the case. However when we pay our marketing partners based upon successful conversions they do make recommendations back to us to help improve conversion rates. If we don't act on them then we can't really say that they need to improve their performance and bring us more people, and we're also then ignoring expert advice aimed at improving the performance of the site. UX is an art as much as a science and best practice often doesn't account for ingrained behaviour within an existing user base. Sometimes experimentation is needed and the ability to say "we got it wrong" and either change things back or make further improvements. As you will see we've now made those changes based on user feedback. I'm also on record as saying we're going to up our game when it comes to beta testing with a small user group.
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SteveT
Member of DD Central
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Post by SteveT on May 20, 2016 7:58:44 GMT
I think the plan to beta-test changes with a small group of established AC lenders will iron out most such issues very quickly. However, I do think it would be worth AC ensuring that at least one employee involved in designing and changing the user-interface that MLIA lenders interact with daily is an active MLIA lender themselves.
Minor but long-standing niggles like having to change from being shown only 50 loans every time we log in, clicking a pointless menu button twice to see recent transactions, the loss of the "maintain loan target" functionality, the inability to ring-fence some of our available cash ready for new loan drawdowns, etc. would surely have been sorted out long ago if those designing the MLIA user interface actually used the account every day!
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ianj
Member of DD Central
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Post by ianj on May 20, 2016 8:29:54 GMT
I think the plan to beta-test changes with a small group of established AC lenders will iron out most such issues very quickly. However, I do think it would be worth AC ensuring that at least one employee involved in designing and changing the user-interface that MLIA lenders interact with daily is an active MLIA lender themselves. Minor but long-standing niggles like having to change from being shown only 50 loans every time we log in, clicking a pointless menu button twice to see recent transactions, the loss of the "maintain loan target" functionality, the inability to ring-fence some of our available cash ready for new loan drawdowns, etc. would surely have been sorted out long ago if those designing the MLIA user interface actually used the account every day! There was a time when requests to address the above 'niggles' elicited some sort of response, assurances that they were on a to-do list. Unfortunately, despite numerous queries/comments, we now get silence, re-inforcing the impression that the MLIA is a lower AC priority than many of it's users are comfortable with.
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Post by lynnanthony on May 20, 2016 9:03:49 GMT
Analogy: Ford send their Mondeo to a third party design studio with instructions to make the car easier for learner drivers to cope with. The design studio changes the instrument binnacle so that all that scary complicated information is normally hidden from view, but can be popped up by pressing a button. This “normally hidden” info includes the speedo. Additionally, the gearlever is moved out of the way and placed inside the glovebox, because the bicycle riding designer does not understand its function. These changes are made to all production vehicles coming out of the factory, signed off by a non-driver. Ford are then surprised by the drubbing they receive when a member of the public highlights the changes.
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Post by Butch Cassidy on May 20, 2016 9:14:59 GMT
I think the plan to beta-test changes with a small group of established AC lenders will iron out most such issues very quickly. However, I do think it would be worth AC ensuring that at least one employee involved in designing and changing the user-interface that MLIA lenders interact with daily is an active MLIA lender themselves. Minor but long-standing niggles like having to change from being shown only 50 loans every time we log in, clicking a pointless menu button twice to see recent transactions, the loss of the "maintain loan target" functionality, the inability to ring-fence some of our available cash ready for new loan drawdowns, etc. would surely have been sorted out long ago if those designing the MLIA user interface actually used the account every day! ... ability to "sell all" to eliminate ghost holdings, buying nice round numbers not 9.9999999999999999999, to be treated like valued & important members of the investor family - not pushed to the back of every queue like some kind of 2nd class citizen, just be treated fairly - hard to watch rates being slashed by 3-4% & then see the new, exciting, fresh members being offered 3% bonus for transferring in their BS savings.
Fairer, growth, together seems to exclude long standing, loyal MLIA investors.
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Post by chris on May 20, 2016 9:48:48 GMT
I think the plan to beta-test changes with a small group of established AC lenders will iron out most such issues very quickly. However, I do think it would be worth AC ensuring that at least one employee involved in designing and changing the user-interface that MLIA lenders interact with daily is an active MLIA lender themselves. Minor but long-standing niggles like having to change from being shown only 50 loans every time we log in, clicking a pointless menu button twice to see recent transactions, the loss of the "maintain loan target" functionality, the inability to ring-fence some of our available cash ready for new loan drawdowns, etc. would surely have been sorted out long ago if those designing the MLIA user interface actually used the account every day! There was a time when requests to address the above 'niggles' elicited some sort of response, assurances that they were on a to-do list. Unfortunately, despite numerous queries/comments, we now get silence, re-inforcing the impression that the MLIA is a lower AC priority than many of it's users are comfortable with. It comes down to resources. We are short staffed having had a couple of people leave over the last few months and it's taking us a lot longer to recruit good developers than we expected or planned for. We have one replacement starting in August after they've worked their long notice period and have had two others accept offers but then go silent on us delaying the search by weeks on end in both instances. Add that to the growing demands on IT, with the FCA, ISAs, internal CRM, new product launches, ever greater marketing analysis and business intelligence reports, etc. and we're stretched far beyond capacity. That will ease as we recruit, and as the company grows so too will the IT department. At the last count, at least that I saw, Flailing Calculators had almost 14 developers for each developer we have currently yet we're still delivering more. Just not as much as we want to be able to deliver. There is a plan and budget in place to address all this but it will take time.
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