HTC America

The Challenge
In July 2006, HTC America selected Extractable to help transform its initial web site into a functional online service channel that would better support its business objectives. After completing discovery-phase interviews with HTC business owners, the Extractable team quickly realized the new site’s primary mission would be to fill a demanding post-sale support gap. HTC’s sophisticated products provide a wider range of functionality than most mobile phones. As a result, they sometimes require a higher level of pre-sale orientation and after-sale technical support than HTC’s carrier and retail partners were accustomed to providing. The company urgently needed a direct customer service channel to better support its partners and customers, both during the sales process and afterward.

User analysis helped the team determine the different types of users who would visit HTC's site and the unique tasks each might look to fulfill during their experience. Critical audience segments included current and prospective customers, industry press and analysts, job candidates, and three distinct partner categories: carriers, retailers and software developers. Balancing HTC's business goals with those of the users, Extractable developed an information architecture and user experience blending strategy and tactics to satisfy each group's requirements.

The Solution
The new site design marries HTC's global brand with a distinctive American experience. Visitors are greeted with warm, active imagery selected to embody the flexible, productive, and professional lifestyle HTC's products enable. The homepage provides global navigation as well as an icon-based navigation option that identifies key product categories by form factor. Customers can navigate toward their desired content via their choice of text, iconography or text search.

A new "Work + Play" section was created to demonstrate how HTC's Smartphones and Pocket PCs make life's little challenges easier and more fun, and Flash teasers were added to promote most key products. In addition to the WWW site, Extractable implemented a mobile site specifically geared to handheld wireless users and optimized for compact QVGA displays. Viewable at http://america.htc.com/mobile, the streamlined site is designed to provide a first line of support to HTC customers on-the-go.

Another development priority was search engine optimization to ensure that users seeking product information and support could locate the new site quickly, even when searching by a carrier’s model and branding. Usability testing was performed on a nearly complete prototype to optimize user interface and page design.