Let’s face it – at one point or another, we’ve all had a bad user experience. For some of us, the memories appear in the form of a blinking red “12:00” on our VCR. For others, it’s the lid of your piping hot coffee cup that seems to crumble, popping off just as you pull out of the drive-through. For many of us these days, a bad experience can be an irritating remote control layout, while for others it’s called airport signage. And while we all have come to grudgingly accept commercials before a $15 movie, we all still feel somewhat victimized.
More often than not, we ask ourselves, “How could the designers have gotten this so wrong! I could have done better myself!”
To a degree, you may be right. At the end of the day, one of the many challenges of experience design is a disjointed process where the product or service is touched by specialists who don’t talk to each other or who simply see their own specialty as being “priority number one.” They all may have even seen the creative brief or statement of work – but, based on their specialties, they all translated it differently. The engineer may see “elegant” as exquisitely crafted with the finest chips. The designer sees “elegant” as the most beautiful shape, color or texture ever to have graced the human eye, while the salesperson sees “elegant” as whatever the data shows as selling most effectively this quarter.
So, how do good experiences get designed? A great house requires an equally great architect, and in that same vein, the user experience architect role serves to create good experiences. As a user experience architect, the fundamentals of good experiences are embedded in the study of human behavior. Here are some basic tenets that can be universally applied to any user experience:
- Clearly define the end result of your product or service, the budget and the timeline at all phases. If you have more than one step in the process, it will be all too easy to lose sight of what’s being done, why it’s being done and how it will be delivered.
- Define and categorize your users. Understand their priorities, the environment they’ll be in when they experience your product and service, and what’s ultimately important to them. User experience architects typically work with strategists to create “personas,” which are behavioral models for groups within your target market. These personas are referred to throughout the project as a sanity check to make sure that the user is always top of mind on project direction.
- Understand your business goals and make sure everyone else understands them, too. Help the team understand roles and who drives at what point. You don’t want your engineer to design, and you don’t want your designer wielding a hot torch, but if both have ample opportunity to collaborate, the results can be wonderful.
- Test your work early and often with actual users. Understand and study reactions to your product and service, and validate the work done. User experience architects understand how best to test and what to ask in moderated sessions.
- Don’t leave each specialty to define and interpret the brand vision. Let your user experience architect work with the business analyst to clearly articulate the vision, through validated documentation that includes user-centric perspectives.
There is a method to creating a good user experience, regardless of whether it’s an e-commerce site or a multichannel marketing campaign. At the end of the day, your user experience architect can apply tried-and-true methods to advocate a positive experience for the user. Your customers will benefit from the constant advocacy of your user experience team, and you’ll find yet another key method for differentiating yourself from your competitors. We may not be able to save you from 20 minutes of commercials before the movie, but we can help create the right kind of experience for your brand and for your organization.
In 2011, we saw major growth in tools for individual expression on the Web. No, this is not a post about the power of the so-called Mommy bloggers. This year, the democratization of media on the Internet focused on a new medium as content creators gravitated toward a more visual, more impactful medium than the typical blog format.
And it should not be surprising. The math has long been worked out:
One picture = 1,000 words
If we take this old adage about the worth of a picture as true, Instagram users definitely have a lot to say. With 15 million users having uploaded over 400 million photos in the year since the service’s launch, we’ve saved ourselves quite a bit of reading in 2011. It is also important to note that these users are solely posting from iOS devices through the Instagram network and on Twitter. We can expect these numbers are poised to grow even more rapidly with an expansion to Android devices and with Facebook instant-upload capabilities expected soon.
These snapshots are visual diaries that chronicle not only the events and sights that a user experiences, but emotions as well. The addition of filters after the picture has been taken allows the photographer the ability to infuse emotion and storytelling in a way that was previously only available to dedicated hobbyists. While many will lament the lack of craft that ready-made filters facilitate, the democratization of this ability will only serve to broaden the appreciation of the professional photographers who are elevating the medium.
But Instagram is only one example of a service that is taking advantage of this visual blogging trend; many others have attempted to catch the lightning in a bottle that makes Instagram so popular, both in mobile and on the Web. Within the mobile space, we have seen high-profile services like Foodspotting, Hipstamatic, Color and Path flood the social consciousness and make the act of picture-taking a social event once again.
Of these services, one that has shown particular merit in combining location-based sharing with this visual journaling is Path. The mobile social network is a companion app that registers location, music choices, musings, collaborators and photographs from the lives of its users. Limited to your 50 closest connections, this social service aims to create deeper connections and more honest sharing within networks.
Online, platforms like Tumblr and Pinterest have exploded in popularity because of their ease of use and ability to easily give others an inside look into our world. Compared to traditional blogs like WordPress or Blogger.com, Tumblr has gained significant ground over the past year in terms of unique visitors, visits and page views. Although trailing the more established blogging platforms in terms of total visitors, Tumblr users show more engagement with the content and view a significantly higher number of pages while on the site. Finally, while WordPress.com and Blogger.com have remained stagnant or declined, Tumblr continues to climb.
Likewise, Pinterest has rapidly grown in popularity among certain online groups, generating 6 million unique visitors in November despite an invite-only restriction. For a more in-depth examination of Pinterest, check out these profiles by Sarah Voges and Darlene Lo.
Both the simplicity of sharing and the emphasis on the user’s creativity are essential to these services’ adoption. Pinterest features dead-simple usability to create visual bookmarks for projects, inspiration and the ability to share boards with others. Tumblr is similarly designed for simplicity in getting started, choosing readily from free or premium templates to design your blog, and again in practice. Users are able to share text, images, videos and music through a streamlined editor, or find and consume blogs created by others through personalized streams. However, with less emphasis on long-form text posts, the creativity of the blogger is free to shine, leading to as many different Tumblr streams as can be managed.
Many factors have contributed to the rising popularity of these visual blogging services; among them, simplicity and self-expression are very important. But at a higher level, the idea that social networks are aligning to connect people with similar interests or passions in new ways has enormous implications for how brands can engage through social media. Rather than traditional message boards, forums or “fan sites,” there is now a broader range of interests being followed across the Web. As we move into 2012, we can expect to see visual blogging continue to grow in popularity, both in mobile and the Web, and we can also expect to see services start to leverage the vast amount of content that is created through this trend to “humanize” the web experience in new ways.
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At least one thing is pointing up in this economy. And that’s the level of digital ad spending. The Interactive Advertising Bureau released its Q3 Internet Advertising Revenue Report reflecting a 22% increase compared to the same period last year. This is the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year positive growth. In fact, the third quarter is always a strong performer, with increases occurring every year except three since 1996.
The major categories in terms of overall digital spending include Search at 49%, Display-Related at 37%, Classified at 8%, Lead Generation at 5% and Email Revenue at 1%. Within Display-Related, Display/Banner Ads make up 23% of the total pie, Rich Media makes up 5%, Digital Video is at 6% and Sponsorship rounds out at 3% of the total spend.
So does this mean you need to adjust your budgets to reflect overall spending trends? Here are some points and checklists to take into account before you jump on the digital budget bandwagon.
Where to Spend, Where to Spend?
As you begin to finalize planning for 2012, you might consider using the following as a budgeting checklist. To help with allocations or achieving business goals, you might assign a value to each effort – say 1 is “Extremely Important” and 7 is “Not Important”:
Owned Media
Company intranet/extranet
Brand website
Brand channels in social media (example: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter)
Branded content (content created by a brand)
Mobile site
Email marketing
Smartphone applications
Tablet applications
Search engine optimization
Paid Media
Paid search
Display ad units (including display ads on social networks)
Online video
Mobile display
Online sponsorships (online or integrated with cross-platform programs)
Branded content (produced as a part of a paid media effort)
Games (in-game advertising or sponsorships)
Earned Media
Digital word of mouth (including blogger outreach)
Social monitoring/listening
Online video distribution
User-generated content via social media
User-generated content via other online channels
Customer Behavior Matters, Too
You might also ask how the following consumer media behavior trends are occurring across your target audience and how they may impact the receptivity of your communications:
- Customers who migrate from device to device throughout their day
- Spending more time accessing the Internet via mobile device
- Customers who participate/access user reviews
- Watching more video and programming via a mobile device
- Increased use of location-based services
- In-store use of mobile devices (tablets and smartphones)
- Adoption and usage of digital couponing
- Downloading of apps or sampling content via apps
- Use and adoption of smartcodes or Quick Response (QR) codes
- Customers who are time shifting a majority of their TV watching
Now is also a great time to revisit your reporting and information resources so that you are making the best possible business decisions. Major digital measurement tools include:
- Digital campaign performance reporting
- Online brand impact studies
- Website analytics/reporting
- Search (PPC and SEO) reporting
- Mobile site analytics/app activity reporting
- Social media analytics
- Online listening/conversation analysis tools
- E-commerce sales performance
- Online audience measurement tools
- Online competitive site activity
- Online competitive advertising activity
Also consider some of the following major technology trends and how you might allocate proper resources to take advantage of the “next wave” of innovation:
- HTML5 development
- Mobile app development
- Tablet apps
- Near-field communications (NFC)
- Augmented reality
- Social gaming/social apps
- Gesture-based computing (think Xbox 360 Kinect)
- Digital displays/point of sale interactive experiences
- Digital imaging/exterior installations
Finally, you might want to check the last time you implemented a digital strategy. Has more than 24 months gone by? Not yet even taken the step to implement one? Well, now’s an excellent time to establish a current digital strategy to help with spending decisions…and so much more. And we know several savvy digital strategists who are ready to help (hint, hint).
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Since you’re probably either still hunkering down to avoid the lingering effects of this year’s extreme August weather or basking in the glow of your summer vacation, it’s hard to muster more than lackluster holiday spirit. Regardless of your spirit, it’s never too early to begin considering an e-commerce strategy for the holidays.
All indicators predict that this year will be the biggest for e-commerce thus far. It follows a trend that sees online sales increasing from year to year and outpacing non-e-commerce growth (see chart below). The 2010 holiday season brought forth the singularly biggest day for online sales yet, topping $1 billion in online sales on Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving). Consumers are also beginning to do their Black Friday shopping from the comfort of their couch, frustrated by jostling through crowds and waiting in long lines, only to find that what they wanted is already sold out.
In general, e-commerce outperforms same-store sales at many chains, thanks to shoppers choosing to research products online and then using the convenience of online shopping to complete the transaction. This trend holds for both business goods and consumer goods. Traditional brick-and-mortar businesses such as Williams-Sonoma have online sales accounting for 33% of total sales, and Staples counts online as 40% of their total sales.
So how do you capitalize on this trend? You may be concerned an e-commerce presence will snipe traffic from your brick-and-mortar stores. But if you embrace both, the two venues can provide your customers the choice they demand while providing you sales traffic between the channels.
For instance, in-store pickup of products ordered online increases impulse add-on purchases in-store. Consumers who can’t find the options they want in-store can go online to order exactly what they want, ensuring that your brand gets the sale. As long as salespeople are well trained and there’s perhaps a kiosk in-store, brick-and-mortars may even be able to stock less inventory on shelves.
Simply put, ignore digital channels at the cost to your bottom line.
An article aptly titled “Online back-to-school shoppers to spend 40% more than those who only shop in stores” from July 28, 2011, offers, “Specifically, online back-to-school shoppers will spend a third more than all shoppers for shoes and school supplies, and fully 68% more for electronics and computer related goods. Like most everyone, online back-to-school shoppers have felt the economic pinch, and to that end plan to shop for sales more often, comparison shop online, find and use coupons, and buy more generic or store brands, among other money-saving strategies. Much of that research will be facilitated by smartphones and/or tablet devices that many online back-to-school shoppers already own.”
What Features Do Consumers Want in Their Online Shopping Experience?
- Free Shipping – comScore’s postmortem of the 2010 holiday season reports that free shipping was used in more than half of all 2010 holiday e-commerce transactions, up significantly from 2009.
- Gift Ideas – Help consumers figure out the perfect gift for a hard-to-buy-for person. See Amazon’s best-in-class gift ideas.
- Comparison Shopping – Users want to feel that they are getting the most bang for their buck. Review Forbes’ best in class.
- Research – Consumers want to know more about the products they’re considering. Specifications and trade write-ups help consumers understand what the professionals think, but ratings and reviews from other consumers also strongly influence purchasing decisions. In a National Retail Federation (NRF) survey, shoppers were asked about how the economy was changing their behavior: 30.7% planned to do more comparison shopping online and 12.3% planned to shop more online in general.
- Pick Up In-Store – Consumers who have waited until the last minute to purchase gifts appreciate the convenience of shopping online, but with the option to pick it up in-store so shipping isn’t a factor.
- Coupons – Budget-conscious consumers who are trying to save money can be driven to make a purchase, given digital coupon incentives delivered though the website, email or mobile channels. In the same NRF survey, over 36% of respondents were likely to use more coupons. According to an article in eMarketer about 2011 back-to-school shopping (a good predictor of holiday sales,) “…the internet is viewed as a valuable source for saving money. The leading reason why shoppers…planned to shop online was because they expected to find better discounts (70%), were able to research prices and products (63%) and avoid potential out-of-stock items in-store (40%).”
Create a Positive User Experience
Your user experience is the digital reflection of your brick-and-mortar; keep it friendly, stocked and easy to use.
To deliver the most impact to your busy holiday shoppers, simply maintaining an e-commerce site just isn’t enough. Usability is key.
- Users must be able to quickly find a specific item (like using an intelligent search), but the site itself must facilitate browsing with clearly defined categories and hierarchies.
- Upselling or cross-selling is also important, using “products like this” or “customers who bought this also bought this.”
- Clear product images with multiple views and the ability to enlarge the image give consumers the confidence to click the buy button.
- A detailed description of the product, including dimensions, colors and other key attributes, must be readily available.
- Lastly, a site must instill consumer trust by displaying guarantees, return policies and accurate shipping dates.
Promotional Channels
The more touchpoints that are available to consumers, the more likely they’ll find you and purchase from you.
An important factor to a successful e-commerce holiday season is driving high traffic to your online product offerings. Money is being left on the table if you don’t consider using multiple channels to deliver the most impact to your busy holiday shoppers:
- Mobile – Mobile couponing or QR codes to provide more detailed descriptions and/or ratings and reviews. It’s particularly helpful for on-the-go consumers to find your location.
- Geolocating – Offer specials for check-in with Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Locations.
- Facebook – Integrated shopping, sales alerts, specials, recommendations, single sign-on to reduce cart abandonment.
- Twitter – An ideal channel for promoting sales alerts, specials, recommendations that can generate social media buzz.
- Online – Sales, free shipping, printable/online coupons, product comparisons, consumer ratings and reviews, in-store pickup (to increase impulse purchases), adequate inventory, callouts and/or billboards.
- Email – Hold “secret sales” or a “deal of the day” and offer other incentives for email sign-up.
Test It for Success
Unavailable or broken sites are like locking your doors on Black Friday.
By far, the single most important preparation for a successful holiday season is testing to ensure your servers and e-commerce engines can handle the huge volume. Nothing frustrates a consumer more than getting a busy server error or spending time browsing and shopping only to discover they cannot check out. All your investments and innovations for successful online holiday sales can be ruined by poor server performance. Make it a priority to ensure your technical infrastructure is in place to support the demand from your varied advertising channels.
A personal anecdote: There is a certain big-box retailer that offers fantastic Black Friday deals. I’ve been at their doors at 6 a.m. twice, shopped their sales, only to discover the slow-moving checkout line extends all the way around the store, guaranteeing a two-hour wait. I abandoned my basket the first year, and the second year, I checked the state of the impossible checkout line before even bothering to shop. I never returned to that retailer to purchase holiday gifts. Last year, I decided to try their online shop and see if I could get some of those amazing deals. Their site was incredibly slow, but I persevered, only to have my cart time out and empty at checkout. At this point, I won’t shop that retailer ever again. And yes, I tell my friends about those experiences, increasing the probability that they also will not shop that retailer during the holidays.
Remember, when your eye is on the bottom line, online and offline shopping can be complementary experiences providing great service to your consumers. Do you want happy brand advocates or vocal brand dissenters?
So while the leaves may not yet have begun to change, it’s time to plan your e-commerce strategy and spiff up your online store for the holidays. Your brick-and-mortar stores would never advance into the holiday season without adequate preparation. Your online presence should be no different.
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What if we had a crystal ball that could reveal what our target audiences were really thinking, a tool that wasn’t skewed by bias or prejudice and would reveal our target audiences’ true priorities?
While this would undoubtedly make all our lives much easier, surely this type of tool does not really exist. Or does it? With its dominant position in the digital space, Google has been collecting user data over the past 10 years and has gradually begun to make it available to users, usually at no charge. These tools allow advertisers to see what keywords users are searching, what sites they typically visit and can help gauge interests over time.
When used as a complement to the research tools we already leverage for our clients, these free tools can provide both support for existing audience profiles and can provide new ideas and insights surrounding user behavior and interest.
Before We Begin
Before we dive into this world of mind-blowing insight, a few points of caution are worth reiterating to ensure the data are used properly. First, these tools are, more often than not, best used as complements to the existing tools we have at our disposal, such as comScore, Nielsen and Scarborough. Their information, while sometimes able to stand on its own, is best used to add additional insight to these well-known and respected data sources.
The data from these tools are best taken not from one, but from many of the tools. Each will provide its own perspective and view into search, and it is only upon the combination of these different perspectives that a comprehensive conclusion may be drawn.
That being said, please open your mind to the possibility that these tools might not reveal anything at all. Sometimes an audience is too small or an interest is too specific for any tool to reveal meaningful and useful data. So these tools are not meant to serve as silver bullets when other data are lacking. Lastly, the data gained from these tools might be too general or have too many possible interpretations to reliably present as justification when presenting a media plan. Knowing all this, let’s take a look at what Google has to offer.
Google’s Tools
AdWords Keyword Tool
The AdWords keyword tool is usually the first tool used by the Click Here search team in generating keywords for upcoming and existing campaigns. It provides us with recommendations, based on actual search traffic from Google’s network, generated from a smaller list of keywords that we submit. The main value in consulting this tool is its ability to not only provide ideas for additional keywords and research ideas, but it also provides valuable statistics for the suggestions it provides. For example, entering “summer lawn projects” calls up a list of related searches including “scotts lawn care” and “miracle grow fertilizer.” Besides providing some additional competitive information, these results also show that far more users searched for the Scotts term, which could indicate less interest in DIY projects. Give the keyword tool a try here: http://bit.ly/dkrMYM.
Google Ad Planner
Google’s Ad Planner is primarily an online display planning tool that makes available a wealth of user data that are searchable with a variety of different criteria. For the scope of this article, I will be focusing on the keyword feature, which allows you to specify keywords your target audience may be using and identifies websites they may be frequenting. Along with the suggested websites, the Ad Planner provides information for each site, including demographic data, reach and monthly traffic, that are all based on data from Google’s network. For example, entering the keywords “house painting” and “home improvement” will call up sites like acehardware.com and lowes.com along with useful data on each site. In addition to these larger and more well-known sites, the Ad Planner will also suggest smaller, more specific sites that might not show up in tools like comScore. By sifting through these results, you can begin to understand a bit more about the behavior of potential users in your target audience.
Google Wonder Wheel
While perhaps not as exciting as it sounds, the Google Wonder Wheel has stuck around for a reason. Found as a link at the bottom left of any search results page, it allows you to follow a logical line between search queries by showing you related keywords to one that you enter. The tool derives its name from the way this information is arranged, with your term in the center of the wheel and the suggested keywords as the spokes surrounding it. Clicking any one of the “spokes” will move that term to the center and show additional related keyword suggestions, allowing you to move through a logical sequence of potential keywords. In addition to providing these connections, it can also provide you with additional ideas for your research. Give the Wonder Wheel a spin from any Google search results page.
Google's Wonder Wheel
Google Trends/Insights
These are two tools that provide essentially the same information, so for the sake of simplicity, only Google Insights, the more robust of the two tools, will be covered here. Google Insights for Search allows for keyword search volume to be seen across time. In addition to showing trending data, Insights also allows for the customization of the time frame, geography and number of search terms plotted simultaneously. Keeping with the home improvement theme, entering “home improvement” in the search box shows a slightly negative trend in search volume for this particular term since 2004. Along with this information, Google also provides regional data on where the term is being searched the most, as well as suggestions for other terms that are exhibiting above-average search volume for the time period. Two useful applications of the Insights information are spotting seasonal trends and identifying regional-specific interest, which can be useful when crafting plans for clients that might not have a presence nationwide or are trying to reach a certain area of the country or world.
Google Trends
Google AdWords Placement Tool
This is the only Google tool that requires an active pay-per-click (PPC) search campaign and gives some visibility into where our ads are appearing on Google’s Content Network. These are listings that look just like PPC search text ads, but instead of being triggered by a keyword search on Google.com, they are triggered by site content that is contextually relevant to the keywords in our campaign. Information from this tool can be very useful in understanding, like Google Ad Planner, where the users we are targeting might be consuming content online. These sites may provide additional insight into the target or provide you with additional ideas on where these users can be found.
To Summarize
As mentioned before, these tools are best when used as complements since some of the data they provide can be difficult to interpret in a vacuum. By using the (mostly) free tools provided by Google and marrying them with other established data sources, you can gain additional understanding about your target audience that can help create and support better media plans. For additional information, please feel free to reach out to any friendly member of the Click Here search team.
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There is a certain level of prestige that comes with coming up with a “big idea” or campaign. We want our ideas to stand apart from the rest of the marketplace, but let’s be frank – it’s a big marketplace. When executing a website, even the little details matter.
My Country, Right or Wrong
There are a number of reasons why you may need to collect someone’s address. For U.S.-only companies, this usually entails some sort of state selection drop-down menu. According to Jakob Nielsen, this annoys users, but they muddle through because they are accustomed to it.
“The drop-down menu is unpleasant, and we sometimes hear users sigh when they encounter it. That said, they know how to beat it into submission, because other sites have similarly annoyed them before.“
But at least the solution is simple (even if underused). It’s possible to still use a simple HTML element to make it easy for users to enter their state code. Amazon does it, they said. You should, too.
Country selectors, however, can be a bit more difficult (think 51 options vs. 195 options). To mitigate negative attitudes, then, we must make the experience easier than a drop-down menu, which means we need to go beyond the ready-made HTML elements at our immediate disposal.
This approach costs a little more time to implement, so if it is critical to your business to incorporate a country selection device, I highly recommend testing it with international users.
…But May We Always Be Right
A drop-down menu does that already, so – if we accept consumer reports that state drop-down menus are already annoying and prone to error – going from 51 options (50 states plus the District of Columbia) to 195 is even more of a hassle.
Advanced users will deftly point out that there are ways they can get to the country faster, such as by typing the name of the country when the menu is selected. However, in most cases, we must design for users who are less advanced, as well.
The best selection is the one the user doesn’t have to make, when the user is most likely to input inaccurate information. So, if it’s possible to prevent a mistake, use that option. Error prevention is always better than error recognition and correction, anyway. You may accomplish this feat in three ways.
- Don’t require information you don’t need. If you’re delivering nontransactional information and the delivery of that information does not REQUIRE certain information from the user (such as is the case with most electronic delivery needs), do not ask for it.
If you’re not asking for information, the user cannot enter it incorrectly. - Detect and select the option for the user. Geotargeting based on an IP address is an inexact science. Still, there are viable options, depending on your comfort level with uncertainty. As a failsafe, give the user the ability to both change the country if it does happen to be wrong and to instruct the system to remember their selection if you expect even a modest proportion of repeat users requiring this selection.
If a decision made for users is not obviously incorrect, they are less likely to change it. - Build country-specific portals. Sometimes the best thing to do is to let the user select a country of origin at the outset. When the user gets to the point that it’s time to fill in address information, the information required to determine address fields and formatting has already been made. FedEx and UPS both do this, and in their own ways make it easy for the site to “remember” the user’s preference for subsequent visits. Note, however, that this option works well for FedEx and UPS because the content is different for each country, but it may not fit with your business model.
If users believe they will receive and do receive a payoff for selecting the correct country of origin early (such as geocentric content), they’ll be less likely to select the incorrect one and have cause for changing it later.
The last option (which can be used in conjunction with the other methods) is to utilize a different device for country selection than a standard drop-down menu that is part of HTML. They are used primarily when it’s necessary to select a single option from a list of options. HTML’s other standard single-selection devices, radio buttons, are impractical for use as a country selector (when all 195-ish countries are options), because it would take up too much space.
Instead, simply give the user a better mechanism to select from a big list. Break it into chunks, organized alphabetically, in a modal window less subject to dexterity deficiencies.
(In this example, the business requirements dictated that U.S. be the default choice, and although Great Britain and Canada were secondary choices because of relatively higher volume of traffic than other countries, the other countries could not be excluded.)
Why is this important? This all seems like a lot of work for what seems to be a minor thing. Why bother? The users will figure it out, won’t they?
While one minor annoyance isn’t usually a big deal (though sometimes it is), many minor annoyances compound the negative attitude with which a user regards your brand. Even a good idea can be choked out by sloppy execution of the smaller annoyances. First, decide to fix them. Then, create a plan to find and root them out through continuous monitoring and testing.
References
Jakob Nielsen’s Alert Box
Rocket Surgery Made Easy
Expedia on how one extra data field can cost $12 million
How to Take Your Website from “Good to Great”
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No one knows everything.
Ask Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and Good to Great, who observed that companies that have risen above the rest understood that such progress was cultivated over time through focused discipline, not through big personalities and initiatives. He called this discipline “The Flywheel Effect.”
The term is based on the process for getting a large, heavy flywheel to rotate on an axis. From a resting position, it takes enormous effort to get it to move an inch. After a lot of time and many individual pushes — all to the same design – the flywheel eventually builds speed momentum until the its own weight is doing most of the work.
If someone came at the tail end of this process and saw the flywheel spinning rapidly and unstoppably, what could they say caused it?
“You wouldn’t be able to answer; it’s just a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave – no matter how large – reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel.”
Even the best web designers cannot anticipate every scenario, so the best initial design is going to be, in some form, incomplete.
Websites that must last more than a few months should be tested and refined at regular intervals to root out and correct problems that occur — even if “genius designers” have built it.
This cumulative effect of all this testing acts on a website like the tiny pushes on the flywheel. Over time, it becomes an incredible force.
The relative cost of doing nothing
Which costs more:
- A modest monthly budget for regularly testing and refining a website to make sure it doesn’t anger, frustrate or bore your audience, or
- Having a website that angers, frustrates or bores your audience?
At the risk of equivocating, the answer depends, really, on who you are, what you’re building and why. If people consuming your content or using your website for you to fulfill or significantly enhance your core mission, your inability to deliver it can cost tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost opportunities and goodwill brand equity.
Does having a good designer help? Of course, but as Jakob Nielsen points out:
“Design is an inexact science; even if you have a superb designer, not all of his or her ideas will be equally great. It’s only prudent to reduce risk and subject design ideas to a reality check by user testing them with actual customers.”
Pushing your website’s flywheel
Remember: it isn’t about a big splash. The goal isn’t a single, grand transformation, but in putting in the work to make dozens of small improvements over time that accumulate into a significantly better product.
The simplicity of the solution may be deceptive. Like the small pushes on the flywheel, repeated enough times, these steps can produce dramatic results. A competent cross-discipline UX improvement team engages in the following activities:
- Decide what to test
- Choose the appropriate testing method
- Test
- Analyze the results
- Pick a problem area to fix
- Implement fix
If, in the course of creating or redefining a strategy, the company has accurately identified appropriate objectives, metrics and scenarios, testing will always result in some call for change, big or small.
If the tests are designed well and the solutions are executed well, this will mean the website is always getting better. Even if an experiment lands a dud (which will happen every once in awhile), the team is confident that their strategy of continuous monitoring, testing and refining will root even mistakes out at the next or subsequent tests.
What of the rest?
Although Collins didn’t mention it specifically in his book, it’s hard to miss the connection between the other attributes of a “Good to Great” company and a “Good to Great” website as well.
Level-5 Leadership – Humble leaders know that they don’t have all the answers. They understand results are more important than credit and are willing to do what it takes to get results. Thus, they have the humility to admit that the work isn’t done at launch, because they know that they don’t even know what all the questions are, let alone how to answer them.
First Who, Then What – Intelligent, collaborative, adaptable and creative problem solvers always trump strict adherence to bureaucratic rules. A good interdisciplinary UX team will be willing to look at their own processes critically and nimbly change directions if they lose confidence in the results.
Confront the Brutal Facts – Willingness to test ideas and correct ineffective choices prohibit becoming too infatuated with any one idea. It is the hallmark of any study. Ask the hard questions and let the data guide decisions. But always keep the faith that the overall efforts will ultimately be successful.
Hedgehog Concept — The UX improvement team focuses on one issue at a time. Preferably they improve those qualities that fall at the intersection of three things:
- What their users are deeply passionate about
- What drives their company’s economic engine
- What the website can help them accomplish
Culture of Discipline – Every week, twice a month, monthly – whatever interval the company deems appropriate — without fail — test, analyze, change. Without the discipline to keep pushing the flywheel at regular intervals, it’s easy to give up after a few pushes based on the lack of dramatic results.
Technology Accelerators – The nature of today’s age is that technology is always changing. As new tools become available for either a website or a testing method, UX improvement teams should be aware of what technologies will help a company become better at meeting its “hedgehog concept,” online or off.
Given the rapid changes in technology and markets, a website redesign should never be considered “completed.” Even the best teams with the best plans must take time to implement everything. Immediately after launch, the work begins to transform your good website into a great one.
Anyone who has ever been through a major website overhaul understands how tempting it is to catch their breath before you planning the next major redesign. However, in any case where your website plays a critical role in communications or distribution strategies, the best time to start planning to change a website is while still planning the initial redesign.
It doesn’t have to be a major change. In fact, every major change to the exclusion of smaller ones forbids the minor course corrections necessary to refining an idea. More appropriate is a series of smaller changes determined through the disciplined efforts of the right people asking the right questions and addressing the problems those questions uncover… fearlessly.
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At Click Here we have a saying: “Never use technology for technology’s sake.” This simply means that rather than focusing on using new and emerging tech just to make a splash, we key in on problems our clients face and then find the best way to arrive at solutions. Technology, after all, should always serve us and not the other way around. It is important to stay ahead of the curve, but it’s also vital to keep a cool head and think about the implications of any new web tools. When implementing innovative technology for the first time, it’s important to ask a few questions.
1. Will this technology add value to the project? Rather than just being “cool,” will the technology benefit the user in some way? Will it solve a problem?
2. Has the technology been established; is it stable? There’s no point in using a technology that is so cutting edge that it is still full of bugs. Sometimes a new piece of web tech requires some kind of hardware to use, a webcam or a specific type of smart phone. If your target audience doesn’t have this hardware, then the technology is useless.
3. Is the technology convenient? Even if it addresses a problem, users will move on immediately if it gets in the way or takes too long. An animated intro may provide valuable information, but returning visitors are not going to sit through it every time.
These can be difficult axioms to follow for those of us who thrive on digital trends and bleeding-edge advances in web development. It’s always tempting to jump at the chance to implement something original and cool. Recent years have been littered with web properties damaged because the people behind them were too concerned with what they could do and not what they should do.
Recently, Google announced its plans to pull the plug on Google Wave after the web tool failed to live up to its promise. Google’s engineers saw Wave as an opportunity to implement some advanced document collaboration technology and didn’t give nearly the consideration necessary to what users would actually need it for. After a splashy demonstration at Google I/O and weeks of anticipation, Google began sending out invites to select users. The near unanimous consensus was that Wave was cool, but most people couldn’t figure out what it was for. It implemented some fascinating in-browser technology, but it failed to demonstrate how these technologies actually improved its users’ lives.
A great example of such a failure that members of my generation will remember was Nintendo’s Power Glove. Every kid on the block wanted a Power Glove until the day they brought it home from the store and realized that it was useless for actually playing video games. Almost two decades later, Nintendo redeemed themselves by doing motion control the right way with the Wii console. This time, they built the system using the problem/solution model. The problem was finding a way to get gamers physically active while playing and by doing so engage a broader audience. It should also be noted that while the Wii was a revolutionary implementation, it is also far behind competitors Sony and Microsoft when it comes to other technologies such as high-definition output and graphics acceleration. The Wii doesn’t need those things to be successful because it doesn’t address the problem Nintendo set out to solve. The Power Glove was an important first step in developing this motion control technology and while it was a failure, it paved the way for Nintendo’s future success.
A new technology that looks poised to take the Internet by storm is HTML5. It’s been buzzing for months now. Such web giants as Google and Apple have endorsed the updated markup language. However, over 40% of the web surfing world still uses a browser that does not support HTML5 (Source: W3 Counter). While it promises to be the future of the Web, using HTML5 right now just doesn’t make sense for many of our clients. To do so would be using technology for technology’s sake and likely not create an effective solution. As a web development agency, Click Here has a responsibility to our partners to be informed about such new advances, but part of being informed is being able to say “no” to new tech.
To stay in front of emerging tech, Click Here has an internal, cross-discipline group set up specifically to push these boundaries and come up with interesting ways to apply new advances in digital development. Whenever we come across something that piques our interest, we take it upon ourselves to brainstorm how it could be beneficial to our partners. Then we build prototypes and put them through the paces. That way the failures we learn from are never at the expense of a client. We are always on the lookout for the next solution; however, any new technology must always be measured against its ability to solve a problem. After all, technology without purpose may be cool, but it’s very rarely profitable.
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The sign of a good interface for a product meant for general public consumption is when the audience it’s designed for is delighted to use it. This includes but goes beyond simple matters of usability, architecture or aesthetics, and lies at the heart of how people are wired to interact with the world around them – and their attitudes and reactions both when they see it and after they interact with it. Failing to design it right can make your website seem cold and lifeless.
Think of the last time you shook someone’s hand. When you looked the other person in the eye, did he look back at you? Did his smile seem sincere, warm and friendly? Could you feel the heat radiate from his palm as his fingers gently squeezed around the ridges of your hand? Did it last a couple shakes – at least three seconds?
What makes such interactions pleasant is that they are welcome, warm and inviting. We find comfort in their predictability. We like it when people react and respond to us appropriately, and we are either bored or shocked when they do not.
Unlike people, computer interfaces (including websites) don’t think on their own. They can’t identify others’ intentions and sensibilities to respond appropriately. They require people – designers and programmers – to identify, predict and enable responses to user behavior so that the system works predictably, intuitively and in a way that inspires the appropriate emotion.
Put another way, designing a handshake is more complicated than designing something that looks like a hand. A fake hand may resemble something you can interact with, but without the intelligence and warmth behind it, it insufficiently reflects the humanity it represents. It doesn’t matter how much you try to make it look human. You can attach a wrist and arm – heck, the rest of the body. You can dress it up and even take it to a dance. But without that intelligence, without that interchange of appropriate responses to your actions, in the end, you’d just be dancing with a dummy.
Use People-Speak, Not Computer-Speak
Computers are part of our lives and, as such, the distinction between our languages has blurred a bit in recent years. They have changed the way we communicate. Did we say that we’re “processing” something before the popularization of the computer? Without context, we don’t know what a person is talking about when they mention a “desktop” or a “mouse.”
Whenever possible, let your interface do your talking for you. Don’t say “Click to submit” if your interface is obviously clickable (the words “Click to” in this case just act as a barrier between sight and cognitive understanding). Just let them know what it’s doing in their terms, not the computer’s.
And for goodness sakes, pay attention to your error messages.
Caption: Very few ordinary users will understand what this means or what they should do about it. Whether the system commits an error or a user does, the system should help the user recover from it. To do that, it must use language the user can understand.
Give Instantaneous Feedback
For a response time to feel instantaneous, it must take place within one-tenth of a second. A one-second response time, while noticeable, still leaves the user feeling like they are in control. Depending on the request, 1-10 seconds may be acceptable, but at 10 seconds, people lose attention and interest.
Once again, there are a number of tricks you can employ if there’s a possibility that something can take more than a split second.
In such cases, utilize the quicker interactions you have at your disposal – rollover states and latency notifications can be the difference in that first 10 seconds.
Caption: Apple’s navigation design helps people understand that what they are doing is having an effect on the system. Even if network conditions or connection speeds cause the next page load to take a few seconds, the user does not need to wonder whether they did something wrong.
If it’s longer than 10 seconds, be empathetic to your audience’s short attention span. Give them something to watch, read or do in the meantime.
Caption: BounceApp’s whimsical loading animation keeps users from thinking about how long it’s taking to process their request. While this exact approach won’t work for every brand, it fits (and helps define) BounceApp’s personality.
Make the Interface Predictable
Variety may be the spice of life, but inconsistency in interface and interaction design can be a major cause of frustration for the intended audience. Not only do people expect all interface elements to work the same on your own website (internal consistency), but also the way they work on other websites (external consistency).
Caption: One of the early usability critiques of the iPad is that the lack of conventions forces users to learn independent interaction rules for each application they use.
There are a number of methods we can use to make sure an interface is predictable (such as through typography, language, shape, color and placement); it doesn’t mean everything on every website always has to look exactly the same.
There are very few hard-and-fast rules of interface design that cannot be bent for a higher purpose. All design involves a series of trade-offs. It’s just important to understand the principles involved and to intentionally choose which trade-offs you’re willing to make.
The key to making your website (or any interface, really) feel like it’s an extension of you is to make it more life-like and less like a computer.
It is not enough to give attention to shapes, colors, sizes and dimensions. Plan the experience so that the entire system is sensitive to how people interact with it over time, providing appropriate responses to user activity so that the user feels like they are shaking the hand of a real person, not just grasping at a dead fish.
Related Links
First Principles of Interaction Design
The Design of Everyday Things
About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
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85 million. That’s the number of iPhones and iPod Touch devices that have been sold to date.
300 thousand. That’s the number of iPad devices sold on the first day of its release.
7 million. That’s the number of iPads some analysts are predicting in its first year of production.
For brands depending on Flash-based websites as their primary messaging tool, these trends will result in close to 100 million touch-screen devices in market that cannot access your information. Gartner reported PC sales in 2009 totaled 306 million devices, so obviously Apple’s influence in the market is not insignificant. Adobe claims that Flash reaches 99% of Internet viewers, but these statistics only measure Internet-enabled desktops. In other words, Flash is installed on 99% of all devices that support Flash. Mac operating systems show 14% of users don’t have Flash installed, and that number grows with every iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad sold.
More importantly, the iPad opens the floodgates to an entirely new kind of device. With tablets, just as with the smart phone, Apple was not the first to the fight, but they did bring the biggest stick. Thanks to the success of iPad, consumers will now be inundated with tablet PCs ranging from the Android and Windows platforms to various flavors of Linux. Who is to say how each of these many tablets will handle Flash? Adobe has been promising Flash on Android and Palm’s Web OS smart phones for what seems like an eternity, and yet so far the public has seen only demos. If you depend heavily on a Flash website to communicate important messaging about your products or services, these facts should be concerning.
That being said, it is a mistake to write off Flash entirely. There are still some things it does better than any other web technology. Web designers and developers need to be smarter about how Flash is utilized. Intelligent web production shops will be more judicious with Flash, using it where it makes sense, but always being conscious of how and when Flash content will be viewed. As web browsers begin to adopt support for HTML 5 and CSS 3, which allow for richer native experiences, these technologies should be harnessed where appropriate. Many big sites like YouTube have already begun the transition to HTML 5 for video. While the HTML 5 video embed still does not allow for near the functionality of Flash, YouTube recognizes that it needs to provide the option for those using devices that don’t support the plug-in.
On today’s Web, rich alternate content should always accompany any use of Flash. The days of quickly putting together a “Get Flash” page at the last minute are over. Those who browse on the iPhone and iPad cannot be treated as second-class citizens. The last thing a user wants is to see the infamous Lego brick that indicates a missing Flash plug-in when viewing a site. Also, while there may still be a call for Flash-based sites, the majority of web properties utilizing Flash need to be constructed as a hybrid of front-end web technologies.
There is enough room in the digital space for both Apple and Flash. However, Internet content producers that cannot adjust to a shifting landscape will be left behind. So what steps should web-savvy brands take to ensure users continue to have access to their content? First of all, ask questions such as:
- What technologies are we currently using in our web design?
- Why were those technologies selected in the first place?
- How do these specific web platforms render on Apple touch-screen and other mobile devices?
Knowing what technologies are utilized in your online properties is essential. Secondly, don’t panic. After all, Flash isn’t dead and in many cases it may still be the right platform for your users. If you determine that you have a sizeable audience segment using devices that do not support Flash, begin the process of creating alternate content. In some instances, it may make sense to replace Flash altogether, but usually you will not be able to completely duplicate the valuable, rich user interaction that Flash provides. When this is the case, make sure that the experience is also optimized for those browsing without the Flash plug-in.
As Adobe and Apple battle over the relevance of the Flash platform, the rules will continue to change. More than ever, careful thought and consideration is needed when deciding what technologies to use in the construction of your websites.
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