Round up of UXUK Awards 2014

Following an amazing night at the UXUK Awards, held at Microsoft Cardinal Place with Bunnyfoot once again the premier sponsor, we have much to celebrate!

Firstly, it was great to see some fantastic examples showcased from companies who had invested time into putting their users at the centre of their design process. Secondly, we were very proud to see two of our projects in the spotlight: Great Rail Journeys won Best Effect on Business Goals and was a finalist in the Best Transactional Experience category and The Gazette was a finalist in two categories (Best Public Sector and Best Information Experience).

UXUK Awards winner — Great Rail Journeys wins Best Effect on Business Goals

Following the awards we spoke to the judges about the winners of each category:

Best Entertainment Experience

“The Best Entertainment Experience is presented to the best, most user-centric media or entertainment. It needed to be engaging, persuasive, rewarding and stimulating.
The winner of this category was BBC Summer of Sport. BBC Summer of Sport provides universal experience across devices with Wimbledon 2014, Winter Olympics 2014, Commonwealth Games 2014 and Football World Cup 2014 being their main projects. This takes a lot of information for specific events and presents them well and accessibly. It is leading the way in sports viewership and presentation”.

– Ben Ladkin, General Manager of Arsenal Broadband Limited

Best Student Project

“Following our first meeting of the judges we decided it was vital to highlight student projects and the importance that universities are placing upon user experience. This category recognises excellence in a user-focused app, research project, website or service created by a student. This can be as a wireframe or as a live example. Jack Holmes from Kingston University was the winner of this category with his project “Password Masking”. This project recognises an actual problem and tackles it. The project is usable and all judges were thoroughly impressed with it, as well as the detailed submission documentation.”

– Adam Dimmick, UX Consultant at Bunnyfoot

Best Not for Profit

“Not all efforts in user experience are undertaken to raise the bottom line. This category recognises a not for profit website, app or service that has been designed with its audience in mind. It needs to leave users empowered to help and inspired to do so. Clear evidence of trust and persuasion are key. The winner of this category is “Wahoo” for WaterAid. This charity focuses on gifting “wahoo” moments, or rather gifts to make you celebrate. Great persuasive design, a different take on donations and a very easy transactional process. Documentation shows they have been through a good UX process. The combination of up-to-date design and interactive elements stimulate users to explore and navigate the website. Users can donate in different ways and even make donations to specific stories, which adds to the personal experience”.

– Cath Baillie, Senior Customer Experience Delivery Manager at EE

Best Public Sector

“This category recognises an app, website or service which presents information clearly, in an easy to access way and functions with good user experience within the public/government sector. The winner of this category needs to engage with the public and provide valuable service to the public. The Royal Navy is the winner of Best Public Sector experience this year. It’s a complex, multi-faceted organisation, whose online presence needs to tell their offline story. Via their website, the Royal Navy’s purpose is clear and shows appeal to their target audience. The process website is easy to follow and has seen huge improvement following user experience work. The website is comprehensive, well designed and executed with very good ROI”.

– John Sheridan, Design and User Experience Architect at The National Archives

Best Effect on Business Goals

“Excellent customer experience often results in great return on investment. The winner of this award needed to be able to show the most successful example of effect over cost and organisational goals. Impact on KPIs needed to be evidenced in the submission with clear research into the understanding of users and how this caused impact. This was a hotly fought out category with Great Rail Journeys taking away the prize. This submission is a great example of a full UCD process leading to excellent results”.

– Adam Dimmick, UX Consultant at Bunnyfoot

Best Innovation

“This category shines the spotlight on the most intelligent, groundbreaking innovation. Value is particularly important, we were not looking for innovation just for the sake of it. We wanted a great user experience as well. This was a hard category for the judges, as all finalists were very strong. The winner of this category is Nationwide with “Impulse Saver”. This app is simple, has users at its heart and allows customers to save to their account with just the touch of a button. This also allows customers to check their balance without having to login, responding to feedback that had been received, thoroughly tested, developed and released”.

– Raj Arjan, User Experience Researcher at Google

Best Learning or Education Experience

“This award will be presented to the best, most user-centric educational or learning experience. This shines the spotlight on a beneficial learning and educational experience that has users at its heart, via a website or app. The winner is Tesco’s “Eat Happy” project. This website educates children on where their food comes from. It displays a very good research process. There are great resources available for teachers and a lot of extra information available. All the information is presented clearly and there is evidence of it being widely used. Importantly there is not a push to buy Tesco product, it genuinely aims to educate”.

– Stavros Garzonis, President of UXPA UK

Best Information

“This category recognises a website, app or service in any industry which presents information clearly, in an easy to access way and functions with good user experience. The stand out winner in this category was the Hargreaves Lansdown app. This is an investment service which has clearly had a lot of time spent in the making of it. Everything has been well done and is very user centric. We were surprised with their non-standard menu but it works really well. Users can add and remove things from the sideboard which is useful to suit your preferences. Good spark lines and typography. Overall it’s good for those who know about investing as well as those who know nothing about it. Very usable and a great presentation of information in their submission”.

– Morag Reavley, Head of Digital Platforms

Best Transactional Experience

“This category rewards the most user-focused experience when purchasing or using goods and services online. It should be easy to use, efficient and use persuasive design to drive behaviour. My dlc is the winner. This is an online payment portal which enables you to track, monitor and pay off outstanding debt. The submission displays impressive performance increases and use of the website. The website displays a good transactional process and good user experience, including professional contact. Fantastic KPIs have made something that could be a hard process (debt collection) both pleasant and empowering to the user”.

– Adam Dimmick, UX Consultant at Bunnyfoot

Best Windows Phone App

Sponsored Category by Microsoft:
“This category rewards the most user-focused experience displayed by a Windows phone application. The winner is ITV Player. This application provides a great user experience, surpassing its equivalents on other platforms. The submission shows clear UX, followed with users at the heart of its creation”.

– Jarnail Chudge, Solution Architect of User Experience at Microsoft

Best User Experience

“This is the award to win. The Best User Experience Award 2014 is for the very best of the best – the most inspiring, user-focused site, app or service. This actually took us quite a while to come to a conclusion over as there were three strong contenders for this award. There was intense discussion and voting, with everyone eventually agreeing on the winner. The winner of the overall Best Overall User Experience for 2014 is BBC Summer of Sport. BBC Summer of Sport meets the core criteria of the UXUK Awards and raises the bar by educating and providing universal experience across devices. It importantly places the user first and combines different content and modes, allowing them to be used concurrently. There was a lot of data to be managed and this was done well. Also, very importantly, the winner had the best accessibility of all finalists”.

– Dr Jon Dodd, CEO of Bunnyfoot