Synature
Using design has helped Synature land major investment and a licensing deal for its online search technology.
Background
Synature, formerly known as Customiser, was founded in 2001 to develop a new way of searching for content – and people – on the web. It combines technology with psychological profiling to connect web users both with each other and with products and services, based on like-mindedness.
Problem
Founder Andrew Fraser soon discovered that turning his fledgling technology into a compelling business proposition was more challenging than he anticipated. In common with many technology start-ups, the business underestimated the time it would take to win investment and customers.
Fraser explains: ‘We thought the technology spoke for itself. But we realised that potential partners, customers and investors wouldn’t be able to visualise how it would work in practice.’
Response
In 2004 the business joined the Innovate service, and through the initial workshop and subsequent work with Design Associate John Boult, of consultancy Product First, Fraser discovered how design could make the journey to market much faster.
Customiser’s initial target had been large online retailers, a ‘tough nut to crack’, admits Fraser. The design work encouraged him to think more broadly about potential applications. ‘John and his team helped us in three main ways. They looked at how design could help with testing and implementing the technology, presenting it in terms of how it could fit into would-be clients’ businesses, and visualising what it could look like online. Very quickly, we had several design concepts that related to real-world applications.’ Those visualisations helped to sell the value proposition on offer to potential investors.
Focusing on product design subsequently led to important beta-testing tie-ups with two very different sites, E-Consultancy, an online marketing advice portal, and Lunarstorm, a social networking site. For the second of these, Customiser developed Lunarcube, which matches site users with others with a similar psychological profile. Fraser says this played a vital role in winning the MyTravel deal in late 2006 by giving the business a live demonstration of the technology at work: ‘It’s a good example of how design can speak for itself,’ he says.
Impact
In 2005 Customiser won financial backing from technology commercialisation consultancy ANGLE, becoming one of its Progeny™. ‘Design has really helped us boil down what we have into an essence that has traction. When I gave our presentation to ANGLE, I could see we were clicking with them,’ says Fraser.
The investment has helped the business, since renamed Synature, develop the engaging front end that’s vital in collecting the data that drives the psychological profiling. Designers Itineris helped create an interface and a brand that stand out from the blur of forms and tick-boxes confronting web users. Instead of a form-based survey, the qubox profiling engine functions like an entertaining puzzle in which users respond to questions by clicking on images and phrases.
The results so far with MyTravel’s Holiday Matchmaker are impressive: ‘We‘re very pleased with the significant numbers of people going through the puzzle and clicking on links,’ says Fraser. ‘We have a completion rate averaging around 80 per cent. For most online surveys, the rate of click-through conversions is usually pretty low – 10 per cent would be a good response – so we are out-performing that by a huge margin. That’s pretty significant and testament to how engaging our interface is.’ The success of Synature’s social internet site is just as striking, with qubox puzzles on subjects from love to celebrities getting an enthusiastic response.
With Web 2.0 and the increased social dimension of the internet developing quickly, the timing for Synature’s technology could not be better. ANGLE estimates that the market connected to it is growing so fast that it will be worth $1billion by 2008. Andrew Fraser has no doubt about how design has got Synature to the point where it can take its share of that market: ‘The penny dropped for me about how much design can do, and how broad the idea of design is. Understanding that design decisions could maximise the value of the company is exactly what I needed to do.’
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