In its simplest terms, building commercial websites is about marrying something the customers want with something the owning companies want to sell them.
It isn’t as easy as that, though. Often companies must speak to widely divergent audiences who have widely divergent reasons for coming to their site. It doesn’t help that everyone within the owning organization has a different idea about how the customer thinks and what is most important.
Mutually exclusive ideas can all be wrong, but they can’t all be right. So how can we know that our solutions are addressing the right problems?
1. Ask your customers what they think
There always seem to be good, tempting reasons to capture the preferences of your customers…. There never seems to be enough time or enough money… Which is why it takes focus and discipline to resist the temptations.
We will almost always know more about our own products and business goals than our customers, which is precisely why our judgment is so unreliable.
The Curse of Knowledge
In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath assert (and go on to demonstrate) that once we know something, it’s difficult to remember what it was like not knowing it.
For nontechnical people, this is why talking to IT can sometimes be like pulling teeth.
And before we’re too hard on IT, keep in mind that we all have interests that are boring and unintelligible to someone.
Similarly, our customers don’t care what we want, either, except when our demands unnecessarily encumber their ability to get what they want.
Knowing what we want and what we do makes it difficult for us to see things from our customers’ perspectives. The proper research can help us get out of that rut.
Doing without research means making sacrifices
With the right experts on staff, a “dead-reckoning” approach to website design can vastly improve the look of an inferior website.
However, the right experts will also know that proper research can do more than inform the design choices – it can be the difference between creating something that people can interact with something and something they actually want to.
Consequently, it can also be the difference between successfully meeting the right business goals and getting hammered in the marketplace by people whose actual (not perceived) wants and needs necessitate a redesign in a few years.
Examples of Preference Research
- Surveys
- Preference interviews
- Focus groups
2. Watch what your customers do
Irrespective of what they say they like, people behave in peculiar ways.
It is not uncommon in usability lab studies for participants who could not accomplish many goals set forth in the study to rate the overall experience highly in the post-test questionnaire.
This doesn’t make surveys or questionnaires unreliable; they are good for their intended purpose. It just demonstrates that data that indicates preference is not sufficient as an evaluative study – and certainly not a generative one.
Usability lab studies are but one method to observe customers. There are many other methods that provide insight into how customers behave both online and in the “real world,” such as log analyses and ethnography.
Examples of Evaluative Research
- Search and log analytics
- Card sorting
- Usability lab and field studies
3. See what you see
French philosopher Emilé Chartier once said:
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you have.” (Hat tip to Roger von Oech)
I once spent a lot of time putting together a solution for a very complicated problem. The solution came in the form of a plan and interface architecture for a Web application. After making some adjustments based on feedback from some colleagues, I was very proud of it.
The problem was, when we put it in front of our audience in a lab study, no one could understand by its appearance how and why they should interact with it.
I tried a few times to “tweak” it, but to no avail. Even though – after we explained what the utility of it – our audience loved the idea and could “learn” it, they couldn’t give us any useful feedback other than to let us know they didn’t understand how it could be tweaked to make its function apparent.
After just a few users, we were reasonably sure that it couldn’t be salvaged by simply tweaking the interface.
So we simply blew it up.
We started over. Only by doing this did we find a solution that actually worked. But for the first few iterations, I was holding out hope for some derivative of my first attempt.
We are all susceptible to falling in love with our own ideas, but there can’t be any sacred cows when it comes to usability studies or any other kind of research. When we discover that people prefer one thing over our better sensibilities say they should, or if they simply cannot understand how to use something we spent a long time creating, we ought not let that get us down.
After all, by ruling out a possible solution through this research, we’ve gotten one step closer to finding the right solution.
What’s more, we can be comfortably certain about that our investments are safe, because we tested our assumptions and were prepared to deal with the ramifications of all of our research.
Related Links
How Do You Spell Succes? (A “Made to Stick” review)
Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior
Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories
Rocket Surgery Made Easy
Apple’s Greatest Invention: The App Store
John Keehler
It may be that the greatest invention of Apple isn’t hardware, it’s the app store. With it, Apple has created the most important mobile development platform. But will this advantage withstand Google’s mobile strategy?
Most People Say “No” to Slow Online Video
Brian Kress
A new study shows online video viewers to be extremely fickle, with four out of five clicking away from a streaming clip if it pauses to buffer (even once), instead of waiting for the video to reload. The study, from Emeryville video analytics startup Tubemogul, crunched the numbers for 192 million online streams over the course of two weeks to identify how much buffering impacts the viewing experience.
How to Game Social Media (But Why You Shouldn’t)
Jeff Whang
While most of us consider social media to be relatively protected from marketing tricks designed to portray a more positive view of your brand than what’s actually happening in the marketplace, it’s in fact just as easy to manipulate. But that doesn’t mean you should do it. Click through to hear why. Sneak preview: remember Snakes on a Plane?
Forbes Adopts Ad Exchanges
Cheryl Huckabay
Forbes is adding to their inventory by using ad exchanges. Forbes is bringing relevant content to their audience in other places on the web through “content modules.” These modules appear in digital ad units spaces through ad exchanges, displaying trusted Forbes editorial. They can be skinned by advertisers to still reach the affluent qualified audience but at a lower rate, creating an association with Forbes in unexpected places.
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A New Kind of Coupon Solution: Groupon
Cheryl Huckabay
Need to distribute a 50% off or BOGO offer for one of your clients and only pay if it works? You might want to try Groupon.com. Groupon.com works on a rev-share model where they pay our clients back a certain percentage of an offer, only if the offers get purchased through Groupon.com. Offers are done by market and spaced out by category to keep their consumers interested and buying.
Emarketer: Seven Trends for 2010
John Keehler
Emarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey has published his annual trend report. While the recommendations aren’t ground breaking, they reflect the realities that 2010 will hold for an economy in recovery.
Google’s Next Big Thing (And It’s Not a Phone)
Jeff Whang
Forget the Google phone; Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, says what she sees as the real future of Google – the personalization of search. Read on to see what she means – and the privacy concerns that come with mining your Facebook friends’ status updates and giving those priority in search results.
Want Everyone to See Your Credit Card Transactions? Meet Blippy.
Brian Kress
Blippy, a service that lets you share your credit card purchases to make your them public, launched Friday in private beta. Yes, you read that right, it publishes all purchases from your credit card to any and all people following your account. Is this the end game in the rush towards transparency and the death of privacy?
Does the World Need Another Shortened URL?
Jill Krumsick
Shortened URL’s make sharing in our character constrained world an easier feat. Bit.ly, the most widely used tool, is getting a run for its money with both Google (Goo.gl) and Facebook (fb.me) launching similar URL shortening tools on Monday. Will Bit.ly’s first mover advantage hold up to the stiff competition?
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This article first appeared in MediaPost on December 7, 2009.
After reading the article regarding the new industry ad campaign from the IAB, I have to say I was saddened. As a 15-year digital marketing practitioner, I felt my heart sink while reading how the IAB has deemed my profession “creepy.” Granted, there are studies on people’s views of professions that rank ‘advertising’ right along ‘used car salesman’ for trust and appeal, but at what point did it make sense to highlight a misconception? While the intent was right, the execution was really off — especially the ad creative.
So many questions abound:
Why are we demeaning our industry with the very point that rallies our detractors?
- Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) must be dancing in the halls of congress.
What in the world were we thinking when we played up invasion of personal privacy as a fun way to make a point?
- Between ID theft, coverage of Erin Andrews and her peeping Tom and child predators stalking kids online don’t you think Americans are more than just a little concerned already?
And did someone really think we could convey the right information for such a complex message using demeaning headlines?
- There are more than enough studies out there that show how “snarky” creative always backfires. How will this endear us to the general public?
Yes, the creative is meant to turn a negative into a positive and right what are common misperceptions. But that’s like trying to turn the Titanic before hitting the iceberg. Folks, you don’t have to get off the boat, just take the warm weather route!
What this represents is a huge missed opportunity. We should be focusing on the positive benefits of online marketing – not the negative. Hints: The right message, the right time, the right place for the right person. Heck, you could have even gone green: “Less is more. We eliminate ad waste!”
If you need validation, remind folks it’s the same way you get smart recommendations for books on Amazon.com. And how you don’t have to re-type your cc info on your favorite sites. People appreciate convenience and personal benefit, not industry threats.
And not to totally degrade the effort, I’d like to state there are good aspects about this effort. If you participate in this industry at any level, make it a point today to read the entire “Privacy Matters” page. Every tab, every sub nav page.
There is good content and illustrations of important issues. So much so that if you read the content and think about it, they really got the entire campaign upside down. If they had highlighted the points in the support points, we’d see a totally different campaign.
Well, guess that leaves us with another important aspect of online marketing – Optimization! I strongly encourage the IAB to traffic out another ad campaign ASAP.
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Virtual goods – items with no intrinsic value in the real world – are a booming economy. 12% of Americans have bought virtual goods in the past year from an industry that analysts estimate to reach $1 billion in the U.S. for 2009 alone.
Payments for virtual goods are typically made through microtransactions, which allows users to spend just a few dollars to give a gift or get them ahead online. For instance, Facebook Gifts typically go for $1 each.
Until now, most social games have used fake brands for their virtual goods, but the opportunity for brands in the real world to make a virtual world impact has demonstrated its power. Similar to how we have seen brands impact more traditional video games, the presence of real world brands in the social gaming space will lend an extra bit of realism to the overall experience. As a result, branded virtual goods on Facebook are clicked on 10 times more often than their non-branded counterparts. At the same time, the brands themselves benefit from extra recognition, exposure, and consumer interest from simply participating inside the emerging media format.
We see brands as currently having three opportunities in the space:
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1. Sponsorships
– The brand presence in the space could be as simple as sponsoring a piece of the overall virtual good experience. Like other sponsorships, virtual good sponsorship does best at establishing leadership.
Purina brand pet food announced late last year that they act as the exclusive virtual kibble supplier in FooPets, a place where users can care for their virtual pet. As a result, every time you feed your little virtual Fluffy, a big bag of Purina is what pours kibble into the bowl, nourishing your companion.
2. Unlocking exclusive content
- A brand could act as a hero, giving social gamers deals on special or limited-run goods. The brand could be the provider of access, thereby building some affinity.
For example, Facebook recently expanded their virtual gift offering to include music, sports gifts, charity gifts and e-cards. While we haven’t seen it happen yet, a brand could be the provider of, say, free helmets for the teams in the bowl game that they sponsor, or a selection of holiday songs leading up to Christmas.
3. Selling branded virtual goods
- Branded virtual goods have the potential to provide an extra benefit for ownership. Not only would the user get a recognizable brand name on their stuff, but it could also unlock special advantages, creating a bit of realism and building brand equity. For instance, if Nike sneakers make your avatar run faster and jump higher in your social game, they might also in the real world.
Virtual goods are an emerging marketplace, creating many micro-economies from 1′s and 0′s that tap on our natural human need to give to one another and nurture what we have. As this marketplace grows, we expect that brands will be more and more prevalent in the space.
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Of the Three Screens, TV Finally Showing Signs of Decline
Jeff Whang
Even as YouTube and other internet video are constantly hailed as the future, a key data point that TV execs have relied on to sleep better at night is that as we watch more and more web video, we’re also watching more TV than ever. But for the first time, from Nielsen’s newest “Three Screen” report, which measures video consumption on TV, the Web and mobile devices, shows that TV-time dropped during the last three months.
Google Goggles Makes Search Visual
Jill Krumsick
Today, Google launched Google Goggles – a visual search application for the Android. Simply take a photo of a title, text, logo, place, landmark or even a work of art, and the new app will perform a search on it. Check out the short video explaining the new app and prepare to get googly eyed for Goggles.
Where and When Holiday Shoppers are Spending
Brian Kress
This holiday season is expected to be another record breaker for ecommerce, but not all online retailers are seeing the increase. In fact, the big boys of online retail are seeing rather large lifts, while long and mid tail retailers are still seeing declines over last year. comScore breaks down the holiday online shopping season so far.
Facebook Planning Another Face Lift
Luke Lancaster
Just a month after the previous homepage changes, Facebook is already planning their next iteration. These minor changes reveal their strategy and future direction. Read about the five changes they are planning and how they impact the user experience.
Social Sites Less Friendly to Video Ads
Susanne Romaine
Eyeblaster released a report using thousands of campaigns stats that ran online video ads in the last year. The report states video metric performance is stronger when ran in conjunction with email or on content sites, than with gaming or social networking sites.
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