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Read my blog: Useful Usability

Useful usability is my attempt to provide useful insights, commentary and hopefully some  ideas on how to conduct or incorporate usability practices in a simple and easy to do way.  Drop on by and leave a comment, I look forward to hearing from you!

Craig Tomlin Joins TouchCommerce, a leading eCommerce Live Chat Company

In September, 2007 I joined TouchCommerce as Director of Customer Experience.  I conduct testing and optimization to improve the user experience and increase sales for TouchCommerce's clients.  TouchCommerce is a leading live sales chat company that operates on a turn-key, pay for performance model.  TouchCommerce provides live sales chat on large eCommerce web sites, enabling web shoppers to interact with one of TouchCommerce's trained agents using live chat, who help the shopper complete their transaction.  By optimizing the customer experience, we reduce abandonment rates in shopping carts, and increase customer satisfaction scores and revenue for our clients.  I am excited about this role because I am able to use usability testing and heuristic evaluations to improve the customer experience and provide real value to our company and our clients.

CreditDemystified.com #1 One Week After Launch

I'm proud to say that one of the first of the new microsites I created for Countrywide, creditdemystified.com, set many new records for the company, and perhaps for search.  After less than one week from launch the site went to number one for the targeted search term "credit intelligence."  The site also has set many firsts for Countrywide, including:

• First Countrywide site to be built on a blogger platform
• First to include advanced posting and archiving
• First to have many built-in 2.0 delivery channels such as RSS, Technorati links, Podcasts, Tagclouds and automated Tagging tools
• First to include full natural search metrics directly into enterprise reporting

Craig Tomlin Joined Countrywide, February 2006
As Vice President, Internet Management with Countrywide, a $2.5 Billion leading provider of home loans and consumer and business-to-business financial services, I directed web site enhancement efforts to increase natural search rankings and ease-of-use for web users.

Certified Usability Analyst of the Month
I was the June 2005 Certified Usability Analyst of the Month at Human Factors International.  You can read my CUA of the Month article here.

I hope you enjoy your tour through some of the examples of user-centered design I have created. Recent W Craig Tomlin user-centered designs include:

Usability Consulting and DriveOne
Directed the usability testing of Zag.com's new auto purchasing web site, driveone.com.  Usability enhancements included modifying shopping navigation, re-organizing vehicle search and simplifying terminology.  Resulting enhancements may reduce search time and increase conversion by as much as 50%.

"I was extremely impressed with Craig's professional and systematic approach to usability testing.  He approached our testing with good blend of both art and science. Craig was very accommodating of change throughout the process, allowing us to modify the testing at points that made sense.  Furthermore, Craig's analysis was exactly what I was looking for; concrete action items we should take with visual proof backing those recommendations.  I would highly recommend Craig Tomlin to other companies for future projects."   

Joe M, Zag.com

Craig Tomlin Harvests SEO - Harvest Insurance
This insurance brokerage needed a site that provides helpful information to prospective clients while ranking high in search engines.  Unlike most sites, which are optimized for humans only, this site's information architecture, content, graphics and coding are optimized for humans and search engine spiders.  In two weeks, the new site went from being completely off the Google and Yahoo search results pages to being on the first page for the selected search terms.

Craig Tomlin and the Right Plan - www.rightplanppo40.com presentation
Health insurance created specifically for the young uninsured, with three options for Prescription drug coverage.  This microsite and online marketing campaign won a "Best of Blue" Award from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, best insurance microsite from the Web Marketing Association, and a Bronze award from WWW Health Awards. This site targets 19-30 year olds, thus the style, terminology, colors and fonts all reflect the mental map and expectations this audience experiences when visiting other sites.

Last updated: February 25, 2009