As a brand conscious digital agency we setup Social Alerts to monitor what is being said about Cyber-Duck. To our surprise, we found a post on Freelancer.com, eLance and numerous other freelancer portals with an individual who was trying to hire a freelancer prepared to ‘rip off’ our website.

After numerous background checks we managed to track down the individual as ‘Kobi Segev’ and to communicate with him. He assured us that he was not going to rip off our website. He complimented our work and said that he likes our user interface design and that he wanted to model his own based on it.

We explained that we will not tolerate any attempt to copy our website or parts of it and pointed him to our copyright notice. We cannot, of course, stop people from building websites with similar user interfaces or layouts but we will not tolerate a blatant rip-off of our hard work.

A week later we received a Google Alert with a link to the ‘rip off’ of our beautiful website vandalised, desecrated and destroyed and posted onto a Vietnamese web server (our original website of course remained secure and intact at all times and the perpetrators could not access most of the source code).

Cyber-Duck will not tolerate ‘passing off’ and someone damaging our credibility so we got our brilliant lawyers from Preiskel LLP to ensure the duplicate was removed using the full extent of international law.

There is a clear difference between getting inspiration when designing an app, website, product or anything else and completely cloning it with no creativity or individualism applied.

Let this be a lesson to all innovators: Do not tolerate blatant copying.

The Eye Tracker allows Cyber-Duck’s consultancy and production divisions to dramatically enhance usability, conversion rates and ultimately ROI using features such as Gaze Plots, Retrospective Think-Aloud, and Areas of Interest.

The Tobii Eye Tracker looks like a normal computer screen

Research at Harvard Business School by Professor Gerald Zaltman found that at least 95% of all human behaviour is subconscious; eye tracking allows us to see what users are really thinking before they make the click. Traditional ‘think aloud’ methods rely on people verbalising their actions – something that isn’t really possible with subconscious behaviour.

To get the most out of eye tracking it’s critical to capture natural interaction without disrupting the user. Danny Bluestone, Cyber-Duck’s CEO adds: “We use Retrospective Talk Aloud to record audio-visual input from the user after the task to gain further feedback on problematic areas of the interface”. For example, if a user failed to accept a friend request we would then replay the video to that individual and ask them to talk about their difficulty with the task. When combined with the eye trackers gaze data, the feedback video provides valuable insight to enhance decision-making.

By bringing in an in-house Eye Tracker, Cyber-Duck will enhance website, mobile and SaaS (Software as a Service) user experiences, saving clients substantial amounts of time throughout the development lifecycle. Khaled Weir, Cyber-Duck’s Web Strategist adds: “We have been using eye tracking since 2008 with much success and we are now privileged to be one of the only digital agencies in the world utilising eye tracking in-house. Our clients, who develop both web 2.0 websites, mobile apps and SaaS can benefit from Cyber-Duck’s eye tracking at a fraction of the cost”.

Danny and Khal present the in-house Eye Tracker

Cyber-Duck firmly believe that in order to obtain intelligent decision-making with eye tracking, it is imperative to use fully qualified ‘hands-on’ user centred design practitioners who are best suited to make critical project recommendations. Cyber-Duck utilise the eye tracker from the creative, and wireframing phases all the way to ongoing usability analysis and competitor benchmarking.

The eye tracker was purchased from Acuity, Tobii’s exclusive eye tracking distributor in the UK. Jon Ward, Director at Acuity, mentions: “We identified Cyber-Duck as a leader and pioneer in User Centred Design and were impressed with their methodology. We feel that their in-house eye tracker will compliment their UCD (User Centred Design) process dramatically”

The New Designers event brings together over 3,500 graduates from the best design related courses across the country to the Business Design Centre in London. The purpose of the event is to allow these graduates to meet with potential employers and the media to exhibit their work.

New Designers is a great way to meet talented individuals whilst also offering a chance to network with top companies from around the U.K, and we want to invite you to come along to visit us. You need to be fast though, we only have 20 VIP tickets and we doubt they will be around for long!

Cyber-Duck’s clients can get free tickets.

EDIT: Event now over. Thanks to those of you who came along!

Already this year we have been awarded a prestigious ‘Best in Class’ Award at the Interactive Media Awards, along with being nominated as ‘finalists for Best E-business’ in the recent FSB Awards. Our success can be extended further by the news that we have won not one, but two much sought after Communicator Awards.

The Communicator Awards are well established within the media communications industry 16 years of running. They are sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, attracting companies and agencies worldwide. This year over 7,000 entries were received including entries from the likes of Accenture, T-Mobile and Hilton Hotels. We submitted our client website ‘Boonspace.com’ to the Interactive category and were pleasantly surprised to have won in two sub-categories; ‘Websites-Social/Networking’, and ‘Websites-Visual Appeal’.

In both categories we won The Award of Excellence – the highest possible acclamation. Full credit for this award should be giving to the team members that worked extremely hard on this project to produce yet another aesthetically pleasing, award-winning website.

We are now half way through 2010 and if we can maintain the momentum for the remainder of the year then not only will we have to build a bigger trophy cabinet, but Cyber-Duck’s credentials as a leading Digital Agency will be stronger than ever.

The show was a chance for all final year students from Interactive Media Design BA, Multimedia Design & Technology BSc and Computer Games Design BA to show off their final year projects which make up a bulk of their final marks along with their dissertations.

Matt gave a short speech about his time at UEL and what he gained from his experience there, along with how his career has panned out since! He then went on to give words of encouragement to a group of very promising young talent due to graduate from the university this year.

Matt was invited to the event by Tony Sampson (Senior lecturer and programme leader for new media degrees) to show the graduates some of the exciting and rewarding paths they have the opportunity to take in the new media industry.

After his words of encouragement, Matt presented awards to the 2 best final year projects which congratulate them on their innovation, presentation/delivery and research.
The stand-out projects to win awards were:

- Affect-ed by Matt Radbourne and Stuart Norman – The idea behind Affect-ed was to test emotionally designed prototypes and produce innovative (pervasive, ubicomp) software that can stimulate a more engaged learning experience related to ICTs. The project used infrared sensors to control interfaces on a larger scale than traditional computers, so a class for example could control the digital environment on their desks or even on the teachers whiteboard. The guys did their testing at local schools (they even got CRB approved) with their target users; school children. The project raises the question about how emotional design and affective usability can be employed to produce more engaging and effective education experiences when it comes to IT. More details here: http://bit.ly/bMsxuu

- Cloud Creative by Claudia Potton – another interface enabling people to engage in design experiences for learning. I.e. The space enables users to play, create art and share their creations. From creating visual poetry to abstract art based on physics anybody can be creative or trigger ideas / inspiration - http://bit.ly/dbPBjn

Try out our application here

Facebook applications are a key feature of the social network site, with over 500,000 active apps in existence, and 70% of users engaging with them on a monthly basis. The most popular apps are the ones that actively engage users.

Our app is called ‘Moustache My Mate’ and allows Facebook users to add what we think most modern men (and women?) are missing – a moustache. Once the app is loaded up, the user is invited to select a photo to add the ’tache’ to, and then position it in the most accurate way possible by resizing and rotating it to fit the photo. Once it’s perfectly lined up, the user can recommend the app to friends before previewing their masterpiece. They are now given the option of publishing it to their wall or of viewing a gallery of moustaches they’ve previously created.

We saw that there was a gap in the market for such an app and took it upon ourselves to fill it. It was important that we created their app using the latest AJAX technology instead of Flash to ensure that the app did not suffer from usability problems. Using AJAX will make the app much faster and easier to use.

Matt Gibson, Production and Marketing Director said, “The ‘Moustache My Mate’ app has been great fun for us to work on, and combines the talent and skill of our developers with the creativity of our online marketers and designers. We hope to promote the Cyber-Duck brand through the app and produce similar apps for our clients in the future.”

Due to be launched in summer 2010, the site is designed to build on the popularity of the brochure, ‘The EU: What’s in it for me?’ which was first launched in 2007 and showed U.K residents aspects of everyday life that the EU contributes to.

The website will be available at www.the-eu-and-me.org.uk and will offer information, multimedia and news in a concise and accessible format. A wide range of topics will be covered, including the EU contribution to economic growth, protecting consumer interests, fighting crime & policing borders, and making our food and environment safer.

Cyber-Duck’s role will range from strategic planning of the website and analysis of how to make it more accessible to search engines, through to design, web production and creation of multi-media interactive content that actively engages users.

Having already expanded the business through the successful acquisition of new high-profile clients, as well as increasing our talented team and winning a ‘Best in Class’ IMA (Interactive Media Award) for our production of the Vinifera Boutique website; Cyber-Duck have now been selected as a finalist at the prestigious FSB awards.

The FSB Awards are sponsored by some well established organisations such as TrendMicro™, London Stansted™, Lloyds TSB™ and the University of Hertfordshire to name but a few. With many businesses across the region entering the competition it is a massive achievement for us to be named as one of four finalists in the category for Best E-Business. To qualify for this award we had to demonstrate that we have pushed technology to its very limits to improve various aspects of the business, whether it is a superior customer experience, employee engagement or an improved product or service quality.

The awards ceremony will be a black-tie event taking place at Tewin Bury Farm Hotel on Thursday 13th May 2010. Anticipation is already building with members of the media including the Herts Business Independent and Capital Business Media providing coverage of the event. The Awards Presentation itself will be presented by BBC News presenter Susie Fowler Watt.

This is a fantastic achievement as it further solidifies Cyber-Duck’s position as an award winning Digital Agency.

To gain the award of Best in Class our performance had to surpass the standards of excellence that comprise the webs most professional work. The site was honoured specifically for excellence in the food and beverage industries. We managed to score an impressive 487 (out of 500) for the production of the website, with our scores for Feature Functionality and Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility being the particular highlights. A breakdown of the result is shown in the below table:

Our pride at winning this award was increased further by the revelation that we beat off strong competition for the award including the likes of Starbucks, Pepsi, Carte D’or, Waitrose and Magnum.

The achievement of this award signifies Cyber-Duck’s intentions to solidify their position as a leading Digital Agency and with every new award we receive come renewed vigour to ensure that our clients get best possible service.

The user feedback has so far been excellent with a first time buyer registering every 20 minutes – Hablib is already working towards its goal of allowing anyone in the U.K to buy, sell or rent homes at no cost.

Hablib.com brings together social media and property listings online. It offers an alternative to the usual property advertising offering; 0% estate agency fees on sales and 0% letting fees on rentals so that consumers can sell and rent properties online and free of charge.

Although designed to be extremely easy to use for all site visitors, behind the scenes the Hablib system is extremely complex. The site includes a wide variety of AJAX functionalities such as suggestive search, affiliate support, integrated payment gateways and APIs with other companies. Furthermore, all automated processes were designed to strictly adhere to the many regulatory requirements involved in offering property sales services.

The Managing Director of Hablib Anton Kreil, a high profile UK entrepreneur and star of the BBC’s TV show ‘Million Dollar Trader’ has said:

“From the outset it was clear that the user experience was a critical factor in realising my dreams for Hablib. My vision was to bring a fairer approach to the property market and I felt that Cyber-Duck were best placed to transform this vision into an online reality. Cyber-Duck have consistently guiding me through the inherently technical, regulatory and legal minefields that can surround a project of this nature and size. It’s been a great working relationship, and I’m delighted with the outcome”.

Read the official press here: http://ow.ly/1b63G