Juha Ihalainen, Senior Planner at MTV Oy :
What was the starting point and objective of the project?
Jokakoti.fi had been launched a year ago. It was a new kind of a service for us - classified web services - and created with a brand new technology and team.
So, the service was launched, but we gradually started wondering why the number of visitors was lower than expected - we had set our targets higher.
How did Etnoteam help you to resolve the situation?
We did not have much time: information was requested for a management team meeting. That is why we wanted an expert evaluation of usability rather than user testing.
We received a good tender for the expert evaluation from Etnoteam. Things proceeded quickly after that. Etnoteam started analysing the website immediately after we had discussed the objectives of the project on the phone.
What was the outcome of the project?
While some of the results were as we expected, the evaluation also raised many issues that required instant fixing. We have not had time to realise everything yet, but a number of tasks are pending.
The experts from Etnoteam made some good observations: we spent too much time considering various technological options, but the actual reason for visiting the website – the user’s wish to find an apartment – was not really considered.
We constantly monitor customer satisfaction, which has risen as usability has improved. Naturally, several other factors affect this, but the usability evaluation has clearly played a part in achieving higher customer satisfaction.
MTV Media provides the most sought-after electronic services in Finland. MTV MEDIA operates nine TV channels, including the nation’s most popular channel MTV3 and the rapidly growing Sub. MTV Media also includes Finland’s most listened-to commercial radio station, Radio Nova, and mtv3.fi, one of Finland’s most popular online media channels. Jokakoti.fi, launched in 2009, is a housing service hosted on both the web and TV.
Etnoteam conducted a usability evaluation for Jokakoti.fi and compared it to two competing services in order to develop Jokakoti.fi into an easier-to-use and more interesting service for the target group. Two usability experts reviewed the websites and presented the key usability problems as well as improvement ideas to Jokakoti.fi in the final report.