RISI is a leading information provider for the global forest products industry, offering their customers comprehensive news, pricing, competitor information and analysis to support strategic and tactical decision-making. Historically RISI offered their information products as quarterly print media products. Looking to reduce printing costs, increase analysts reliance on the tool, increase user satisfaction, and overall improve subscriptions; RISI knew that an innovative and interactive web application was what they needed. They had great data and resources but needed a partner that could provide a sound online strategy, innovative interactive interface, and intelligently restructure the product. RISI brought in Vibation’s Information Design expertise to transition several of their print media products to interactive web applications, the first initiative was RISI’s Economic Forecast.
I needed to place the project in the hands of a team that I felt confident would understand the product quickly, intelligently handle the complexities of our products, create innovative ways to enhance the product and still keep in mind the unique needs of our customer. As with all the projects we have teamed up with Vibation on, they delivered just that.
Iain Murray - Chief Operating Officer - RISI, Inc.
Adding Efficiency from Print to Web
Customers depend on RISI to deliver reliable economic forecasts of the demand, supply and prices for paper products. Traditionally RISI had offered the forecasts as printed documents and PDFs that contained commentary and forecast data tables. Although the commentary and data was very valuable to the subscribers the format was not conducive to the processes of the users. RISI wanted to stop the printing of their economic forecast products and add interactivity and value to their customers while reducing production costs. Vibation was challenged to design an online product that was superior to the printed product. The online product needed to make subscribers forget about the hard copy version as well as appreciate the added benefits of the new system. Based on the needs of the users, Vibation made a series of recommendations which defined a new, superior online product.
Pushing charts above the fold
Previously, charts where only visual graphs in the commentary text. Understanding that users open the document and quickly scan to the charts, we designed a system that supported and enhanced the behavior.
- Chart Comments - The chart comments show how the economic factors influence each element graphed, giving the user a better understanding of the forecast.
- Dynamic Graph - The new graphs are clickable so users do not have to look through the table to see the exact graphed value for each point.
- Related Content - The chart page prevents dead ends by providing links to related charts and to related commentary
Data Available Contextually
Subscribers use RISI data to plug into their own economic forecasts, so giving the users robust access to view and download the data is essential to making the product useful.
- Data Formats - To aid in the reading of the reports, the user can view the changed data in four formats.
- Download XLS - Every format of the table is downloadable, so the user can have the data the way they want.
- Related Content - For each data table there is a link to the commentary that describes the economic climate impacting the table.
Relevant Data that's Readily Available
The data tables within the economic forecast are very important to subscribers. Based on their focus and the types of analysis they do, each user is focused on a specific set of data. The My Tables section lets users save their favorite tables so they can quickly access the tables when RISI releases new data or each time they need to perform a new analysis.
Users want access to very specific sets of data and need to pull that information each time it is released by RISI. My Custom Tables allows users to create a series of custom tables by pulling data sets from any of the tables they subscribe to. Users are able to search through the data series available based on Grade and Data Type then add all of the series they wish to follow into a custom table. All of the functionality available in viewing standard tables is also available to the custom tables.
THE RESULT–Added Value, Added Revenue
With the launch of the new Economic Analysis portal, RISI was able to limit the printing to subscribers who chose to pay extra for a print version on demand. In addition, the new version added value to the existing product increasing the subscriber's reliance on the product. The portal not only stands out from the competition but it keeps the customers coming back for more.
About RISI - RISI (www.risiinfo.com) is the leading news, price, market and economic analysis provider for the global forest products industry. RISI was founded in 1985 as Resource Information Systems Inc., and quickly established itself as the premier source of independent economic analysis for the global forest products industry. RISI's mission is to create the highest quality information for and about the global forest products industry and deliver it to customers as part of value-added solutions. RISI works with clients in the pulp and paper, wood products, timber, tissue and nonwovens industries to help them make better business decisions.