Ariel's Services: Visionary Concepts

Ariel Services: Visionary Concepts

It's one thing to establish the vision for your organization's use of technology. It's entirely another to communicate how that vision will increase your competitive advantage to other decision makers.

Ariel works with your vision, helps refine the strategy and interprets it in a way that shows everyone its value. We'll team up with your Information Technology Group, Business Unit and Training Department to help make the vision fit your company's needs and constraints.

Ariel helps companies identify:

Strategic use of technology,

New approaches for improving business processes,

Long range architectural and infrastructure needs,

Business objectives for e-commerce and knowledge management, and

Support for training, customer service and capturing organizational knowledge.

Does this really work? Just ask one of the many companies such as Cadence Networks, Fidelity Investments, Payless ShoeSource, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Primerica Financial Services, Wells Fargo and others who have relied on and benefited from our work.

What is a Visionary Concept?

Just as an architect begins with sketches to identify what you want and need, Ariel will produce visual representations that explore how applications could behave, look, feel and interact with users, business units and your customers.

Typically, we work outside of the boundaries of your current IT infrastructure to answer those What if… questions with an eye on human performance and knowledge management. We use our proven methodology that goes beyond the process and data perspectives to understand the essence of the work that is to be accomplished.

It's not magic — it's perspective. We help build intuitive, user-friendly, intelligent systems because we take the time to develop an in-depth understanding of the mental models and thought processes that the performers use to do their tasks.

What occurs during this activity?

During this activity a team of Ariel consultants will:

Conduct structured observations of actual performers doing actual work, in their actual environment.
Conduct interviews with performers of all levels — help desk personnel, training departments, IT organizations and the business units that rely on the application.
Hold focus groups and conduct collaborative design sessions.
Develop a prototype through a rapid and iterative development methodology.
Test the usability and effectiveness of the vision.

What will I receive at the end of this engagement?

Visual Representation

This low-, medium-, or high-fidelity mockup will illustrate your vision and the behavior of a future application. It will be the first visualization of your ideas — a tool you will use to gain constructive feedback and build consensus across departments.

Presentation Script

We understand your need to represent the work as you move the project through the internal channels of the approval process. To help you do this, we'll provide a script that you can use when demonstrating the vision to other stakeholders while championing your cause.

Recommendation and Technical Implications Report

This report will play an important role in helping you define and address technical implications, effects on return on investment components, comments and recommendations.

Recommended Plan of Action

It's always important to know what the next step will be. This plan will outline a recommended design and development strategy, define the prioritization of features and consider the technical implications.

How will I benefit from a Visionary Concept?

By using Ariel's experience and our proven Performance Centered Design methodology to develop your visionary mockup, your organization will be able to cost justify technology investments based upon business findings. Plus, you will have the tools you need to champion your project through the internal approval channels. In the end, you will have taken the first proactive steps toward ensuring that your final application enables users to accomplish tasks quickly and easily — without requiring a lot of training or assistance.

Our past clients agree that our designs:

Allow performers to complete complex tasks with minimal training.
Provide a work environment where real time synthesis of dynamic information is intuitive and easily supported.
Institutionalize best practices throughout your organization

Your business environment is filled with many challenges:

Tight budgets that require you optimize the benefits from your technology investments. Demands that requests for technology funding be accompanied by a compelling business case.
The need to make tangible your vision for technology that truly meets business needs.
Increased pressures to design technology that directly links to business strategies.
Demands for increased productivity, accuracy and customer service.

Ariel's proven process lets you meets these challenges and achieve a return on investment that will please bottom-line conscious executives. Call us today to schedule a demonstration showing the before and after states of several applications that will help you realize the difference you can make when you Design with Humans in Mind.