About Optimal Usability
Optimal Usability provides consultancy services to help evaluate and improve the usability of products, services, environments and interactions.
We use scientifically rigorous processes grounded in psychology to help organisations simplify their interfaces, and make them more intuitive and easier to use.
Our job is to find out what customers find confusing or frustrating, and then provide solutions. The result encourages and enables earlier adoption and higher productivity through increased usage, improved user satisfaction, and enhanced brand image. The savings can be dramatic – one client saved $10,800 per day thanks to the improvements we suggested.
Our 135 clients come from 17 different sectors including government, e-commerce, telecommunications, education, finance, not-for-profit and travel.
The company was started in Wellington in 2003 by Trent Mankelow and Sam Ng, from the Wellington-based business incubator, CreativeHQ. These days we have 16 staff in New Zealand, in offices in Wellington and Auckland, from a diverse range of backgrounds.
We are proud members of the Usability Professionals’ Association, and the User eXperience Alliance.
Why Optimal Usability
- Usability is our focus. We keep up with all the latest research from around the world, do our own research and are very active within the usability community. We don’t do market research or development – just usability. This means that we are very experienced with all the methods in the modern usability practitioner’s toolkit.
- We believe in up-skilling your team. As we get involved in your projects, your own people will be learning more about what makes websites easier and more intuitive to use. As our vision is to be both a provider and an enabler we willingly share our methodology and expertise. That’s why we offer training.
- We have a commercial focus. While usability has a strong academic pedigree, we are not academics. We understand the budgetary and time constraints that organisations face. We realise the need for flexibility and will work with you to deliver a realistic, affordable, and business-savvy solution.
- We are responsive. We deliver speed without compromise. Our pride is in our ability to be dependable, available and flexible. We deliver high quality professional work even when under tight deadlines.
- We deliver useful outcomes. Our philosophy is to provide advice, documents and designs using clear and straightforward communication. We don’t try to impress with 200-page documents that will never get read or complicated processes that make us look busy.
- We have a mixed skill base. Our 16-person usability team includes high quality people who have skills in psychology, sociology, marketing, software engineering, business analysis and ergonomics. Together we help you understand why people do what they do and how to make things easier for them.
Optimal Usability has two sister companies
- Optimal Experience is an Australian-based strategic user experience, user interface design & usability consultancy, operating in Sydney and Canberra.
- Optimal Workshop creates software tools for user experience professionals.
Our awards
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- Wellington Gold Awards, Winner - Supporting Gold, 2010
- Deloitte Fast 50, Fastest Growing Exporter - Wellington Region, 2008
- Deloitte Fast 50, Fastest Growing Services Company - Wellington Region, 2008
- ICEHOUSE Business Incubator FAST Pitch competition, Best Funding Opportunity, 2008
- Deloitte Fast 50, Fastest Growing Services Company - Wellington Region, 2007
- Deloitte Fast 50, 27th Fastest Growing Company, 2007
- Incubators Association of New Zealand, Hall of Fame, 2007
- Incubators Association of New Zealand, New Zealand Start-Up of the Year, 2006
- Wellington Gold Awards, Finalist - Emerging Gold, 2006
More about us
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