Conversion Optimisation Specialists
analytics, user research, testing & optimisation
About Us
PRWD was founded in 2006 by Paul Rouke, and has since become recognised in the UK as one of the leading usability and optimisation consultancies.
We work collaboratively and openly with our clients to plan and deliver on-going optimisation programmes. Our team have helped brands increase online sales by over £80m in the last 5 years. Please get in touch if you would like to work collaboratively with us to dramatically improve your online performance, we'd love to speak to you.
Paul Rouke, Head of Usability & Conversion
Paul Rouke founded PRWD in 2006 following 7 years working in usability and customer experience at the UK's largest home shopping business Shop Direct Group. At PRWD, as well as providing usability evaluations, user testing and usability training directly to PRWD clients, Paul is one of the few industry professionals providing both public and in-house training for the highly respected Econsultancy, the leading source of independent advice and insight on digital marketing and ecommerce. Paul Rouke can be found on Google Plus too, although this isn't kept as up-to-date as the likes of Linkedin and his Twitter account.
Through his training courses Paul thrives on helping businesses and individuals learn how they can improve the performance of their online operations.
Paul has over 13 years usability experience working with large and blue chip brands, including:
- Speedo International - usability consultancy
- Lakeland - usability testing and consultancy
- Molton Brown - usability and persuasion expert evaluation
- Bank of America - user experience evaluation and redesign for online banking
- Booking.com - speaking on persuasion principles
- Monsoon Accessorize - e-commerce user experience evaluation for usability and persuasion
- AllSaints - remote user testing and recommendations
- Manchester Tourist Board - remote user testing and recommendations
Matt Lacey, Usability & Conversion Consultant
Matt is one of PRWD’s most prominent consultants working on usability, customer research and conversion projects. Matt loves to take a big-picture view and work on creating clear and compelling online strategies.
Matt has already worked on projects with some of PRWD’s most prominent clients including:
- AllSaints
- Monsoon Accessorize
- Speedo
- Manchester Central
- British Cycling
Craig Sullivan, Optimisation Strategy Consultant
As one of the worlds most respected practitioners in optimisation, Craig has tried and tested pretty much every trick in the book.
Craig is also a User Experience champion with a wealth of experience gained working with high street retailers and leading brands. His skills base includes UX, Usability testing, User Centred Design, online marketing, customer insight, web analytics and multi-variate testing.
- 10 years usability and user experience
- 6 years A/.B and Multivariate testing
- 5 years site optimisation expertise (over 30M revenue lift)
- 3 years International site optimisation programme management
- 14 years project and product team management
- 10 years hands on and technical web analytics
- In depth customer insight research skills
- Marketing optimisation specialist (SEO, PPC, Email, Landing page, funnel, forms, mobile optimised sites, apps)
- Video on Demand and integrated video
- Contract negotiation, SLA and KPI development
- Startup Advisor and Mentor
Paul Postance, Optimisation Strategy Consultant
Starting from a technical background moving into commercial, Paul has 14 years digital experience and has worked in blue-chip and household names such as Yahoo, Thomas Cook and RBS. Most recently at Shop Direct, the UK’s largest ecommerce business (£1.7bn turnover) he defined the strategy, structure and process to improve sales performance through optimisation. A driver for change in organisations and AB / MVT evangelist he has created tens of millions of pounds incremental revenue for businesses by applying data-driven decisions.
Specialities include:
- eCommerce consultancy and strategy
- Multichannel development and synergies
- Organisational problem identification and resolution
- Retail platform definition and delivery
Hayden Sutherland, Multi-channel Retail Consultant
Hayden is one of the UK's leading eCommerce and digital communications consultants, with over 15 years experience in the online industry. His strategic, commercial and user-centered focus, coupled with a history of large technical project delivery, allows him to recommend and facilitate significant online change to organisations of any size.
Hayden has worked with a wide range of clients including: RBS, Sainsbury's, River Island, Danone, Calor, SanDisk and AllSaints.
He currently specialises in:
- eCommerce consultancy and training
- Multi-channel best practice
- Online acquisition & retention strategies
- Technical Programme Management
Katie Brunt, Marketing Consultant
Katie has previously worked both agency side at one of the UK’s most acclaimed digital agenciesas well as working with a range of well known consumer brands. With a Marketing and Brand Management background, she specialises in Branding and Strategy, Social Media and Online Community Management. She has also managed Social Media, PR and Customer Service departments as well as working as a Marketing Strategist for a range of B2B businesses. Katie is a published author in her field of expertise and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the PRWD team.
Katie has previously worked with brands including:
- Durex
- Matalan
- TransPennine Express
- Benefit Cosmetics
- webuyanycar.com
- Jack Daniels Sauce
Econsultancy
Econsultancy is a community where the world's digital marketing and ecommerce professionals meet to sharpen their strategy, source suppliers, get quick answers, compare notes, help each other out and discover how to do everything better online.
Founded in 1999, Econsultancy has grown to become the leading source of independent advice and insight on digital marketing and ecommerce.
PRWD's Industry Relationship
- Paul Rouke delivers training for Econsultancy on Usability and User Experience
- Paul Rouke delivers training for Econsultancy on E-commerce Usability and Best Practice
- Paul Rouke writes expert usability commentary articles on their award winning blog
Smart Insights
Smart Insights help marketeers to "join the dots" by discussing the challenges of how to best integrate and optimise today's marketing channels.
The Smart Insights expert commentators including author Dr Dave Chaffey share best practices with commenters on the core digital marketing techniques, that's digital strategy, web analytics, site optimisation, social media marketing, search engine marketing, affiliate marketing and email marketing.
PRWD's Industry Relationship
- Paul is one Smart Insights expert industry commentators, providing tips and advice on usability and conversion optimisation
- Read Paul's article Increasing New Customer Conversion Rates
- Read Paul's article User Testing 101 - should we go guerrilla?
- PRWD and Smart Insights collaborate on client projects where suitable
What Users Do
whatusersdo is an online User Experience research service. You can set a task for their users and they then record their screens and spoken thoughts as they complete that task. You can then watch online videos of their screens and voices.
Clients use whatusersdo to test usability, benchmark competing websites, better understand user behaviour and get feedback on their online propositions.
PRWD's Industry Relationship
- As well as providing lab based, moderated user testing we use whatusersdo to produce quick, cost-effective and un-moderated user testing videos for our clients' websites and applications, which we then evaluate and provide recommendations for changes and improvements
- whatusersdo have clients coming directly to them to use their service, and where required we provide the analysis and recommendations to their clients based on our extensive user testing experience
UPA - Usability Professionals Association
The Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) supports people who research, design, and evaluate the user experience of products and services.
The UPA was established in 1991 and continues to be the organisation of choice for usability professionals worldwide.
PRWD's Industry Relationship
- Paul Rouke is a member of the Usability Professionals Association and has been since 2006
Manchester Digital
Manchester Digital is the independent trade association for the thriving ICT and new media industries in the North West of England.
Manchester Digital's vision is simple, that by working together they can make Manchester and the North West an even better place for Digital Business.
PRWD's Industry Relationship
- PRWD have been a registered member company since 2007
- PRWD sponsored and Paul Rouke presented at a Manchester Digital event titled: Usability - Whats The Use?
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU)
Manchester Metropolitan University was awarded university status in 1992 and is part of the largest higher education campus in the UK and one of the most extensive education centres in Europe.
The central campus is situated close to Manchester's city centre. There are six further campus locations, four in other parts of the city and two in Cheshire, 36 miles from Manchester.
PRWD's Industry Relationship
- PRWD are a partner with MMU for their user testing laboratory at their main Manchester campaus
- PRWD helped to launch the MMU user testing lab facilities in November 2010 - view the press release for the MMU user testing lab launch
Clients Comments
Hover over each logo to read comments from that client
Services Provided
Usability and User Testing"I have been very impressed with the user testing service PRWD have provided, from initiation through to delivery.
The insights that we gained from the users have been valuable, but what made the project a particular success was what Paul brought to the table. Without his considerable experience we would never have created the right scenarios for the users, or indeed have been able to glean the right information from the videos.
The report that Paul created was impressive from cover to cover, allowing me to create a long list of improvements to action. The meetings with Paul felt like a real collaboration, with him drawing on my knowledge of our site and users, mixing with his considerable industry experience. I would not hesitate to recommend PRWD to anyone who is serious about improving the usability of their website."
Stuart McMillan, E-commerce Operations Manger at AllSaints
Services Provided
Usability and User Experience Training"I became aware PRWD and was immediately impressed with the level of expertise and reference able collateral on show on their website.
It was a no brainer for me; being local was also a major plus point as there is clearly a lack of expertise in this field north of London. Paul proved invaluable on the day as he led us through ‘idea after idea’ in which we could improve our services to our clients. His knowledge of the subject was clear for all to see and his approach to training very professional.”
Taz Ali, Creative Services Manager at Hitachi Consulting
"Working with PRWD has been invaluable.
Paul is very logical and detailed in his approach and communicated his findings very clearly to help us see things differently. We’re looking forward to seeing the results of his recommendations."
Paul McDermott, Head of E-Commerce at Speedo International
“At Lakeland we’re committed to listening carefully to what our customers want, and tailoring our business to their needs. So when it came to launching our new website it was vital we included their feedback on our ideas during the build of the new site.
This feedback, gathered for us by PRWD via a series of usability tests, was extremely valuable and actionable and the resulting site has been received very positively”
Tony Preedy, Marketing Director at Lakeland
Services Provided
Usability and User Testing"A very good service that has provided some extremely valuable insights into how people really use our site."
Stuart Aiken, New Media Manager at Visit Manchester
Services Provided
Usability and User Experience TrainingPaul Rouke delivered his Usability and User Experience training course for Econsultancy, and it was attended by one of the web team at Benenden Healthcare Society
