Experience Planner

Here’s a link to the Flickr stream of the “I <3 Wireframes” group.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/ilovewireframes/

I particularly like Martin Kulakowski’s sketch. A lovely, hand drawn UI. Hooray for nerds!

Working on a site with a serious Flash video sequence… and I find myself referring back to Chapter 2: Flow in Web Design from Andrew King’s book Website Optimization.

I’m particularly taken with this quote:

“Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor and former chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, pioneered the study of flow. He wrote that flow is the ‘holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement.’”

And, this one:

“People who have experienced flow consistently report the same nine dimensions:

• Clear goals
• Unambiguous and immediate feedback
• Skills that just match challenges
• Merging of action and awareness
• Centering of attention on a limited stimulus field
• A sense of potential control
• A loss of self-consciousness
• An altered sense of time
• An autotelic experience

Flow depends on how we perceive our skills and the challenges at hand. We may feel ‘anxious one moment, bored the next, and in a state of flow immediately afterward.’”

The chapter goes on to break out “experiential” and “goal-directed flow,” and it goes on to say:

“Less-experienced users tend to see the web in a hedonic, playful way, while more experienced users tend to view the web in a utilitarian way, or a means to accomplish tasks. The authors found that telepresence/time distortion, exploratory behavior, focused attention, and challenge/arousal correlated with recreational web use, while skill/control, importance, and experience correlated with task-oriented activities, such as research, work, and shopping.”

Which to me is very interesting. I’ve long noticed that some people “play” with websites. They look at the layouts and how  “pretty.” Other people “engage” with websites. They’re actually interacting with functionality, leveraging features to do what they gotta do. Flow is giving control to the users, responding back to them, and providing outs and multiple paths.

King A. Website Optimization. O’Reilly, 2008.

NPR’s Talk of the Nation recently did an interview w/Emily Yellin, the appropriately named author of “Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us,” a book about customer service.

The interview was very interesting … partly because of some of the work I’m doing right now. I’m preparing a business case and strategy for my clients who are interested in participating in social media, particularly that high-octane buzzword: Twitter.

The team has recommended Twitter b/c it is a very unique and very direct way for the company to interact with consumers. The best examples are @Zappos and @ComcastCares. These are my go-to examples b/c they put a face to the brand and humanize the relationship. They also take advantage of that desire to be in-the-know that early adopters tend to have. And, best of all, it’s fast and CS requires speed and freedom to respond. You may not know this, but depending on the workflow and requirements … it can take a good long while to put together a site. But, Twitter? I can drop a tweet in 2 seconds.

At any rate, during the interview, Ms Yellin mentioned that “customer service is the new marketing.” (She and the interviewer were talking about all the sharing/reviewing that is going on online with customers.)

I think that is very powerful b/c, to be honest, I do not believe that customer service is the new marketing. Great service has long been an important key to success. My personal belief is that you shouldn’t be in biz, if you can’t support the product/service usage by the customer in a civilized manner. (Which sounds really doofy and old fashioned … like it might smell like old books.)

However, digital communications platforms have not been around forever. And I do believe that they are changing the CS game.

Proactivity Rules
Take Comcast. Being a CSR at a cable company has to be rough–but they’re doing a good job chasing down complaints and irates. In addition to the Twittering, the co. also has a team that scours the internet (or at least has a Google alert set up) for any mention of Comcast. And, the resulting stories of Comcast’s customer svc are epic … nearly heroic. They’re EXTREMELY proactive–they’re going where the consumers are.

Facilitating Discussion and Listening to It
Brands/companies, in addition to participating in a dialogue with individual consumers, should also seek to facilitate consumer2consumer discussions. Sometimes, a brand doesn’t have to be talking to communicate. Listening is a key component of customer service. So, if you start a Facebook page, you should definitely tend to it and review the discussions going on.

Transparency, Honesty, Authenticity
Whatever you want to call it, social media and customer service require a firm commitment to honesty and accountability. I’m surprised too, but people take what you do and say seriously. If you hire a freelancer to write charming tweets for you, but position it as a charming, real person who really works at Brand X … someone is going to find out and say you’re a fraud.

Nothing Is Deleted
Just a little reminder: Whatever you say and do online, stays online forever and ever and ever. Nothing is ever deleted

[Note: I've not blogged in so long that I think I have a case a blogarrhea ... the next post will be more sensible.]

hello, nicely done
Wanted to give some recognition to the crew running CB2’s e-commerce site.

I’m obsessed with small design details that can help pull together a composition. And, I most definitely respect a crew that can bust those out under what I’d imagine were probably “tight timelines.”

a little background
CB2 is the cheapie sister of Crate & Barrel. Their prime prospect are those loft living, highly successful, aloof hottie 20somethings … and all of their peers out in the hinterland sub/exurbs that make up the 99.9% rest of CB2’s business. So, shake the net, and you get a design-friendly lot who may or may not subscribe to Ready Made.

so, i was saying
Knowing all of this, you can see how CB2’s background is a lovely little piece. I present to you the background via Zoom view:

CB2.com uses 5x5 graph paper as a background--equity win. Score!

stop me when i start to overanalyze
I’ve not done any research into CB2 as to how the website is put together. Likely it is inhouse, but it very well could have been put together by an agency.

Either way, the graph paper is a smart touch … it’s a simple little detail that can make a site seem like a cohesive piece.

Consider a semiotic analysis. A ruler, a pen, and graph paper are among the basic elements of design. Graph paper signifies design and design sensibility. High design, sure, sure. But it also connotes the act of design thinking and perhaps just plain thinking. Most of their consumers may never put pen or pencil to graph paper, but the background art gives them a little Moleskine Pocket Reporter of their own.

The biggest issue that I have noticed with Google Chrome is the choppiness of Flash video players… particularly on the first watch-thru. Really, really choppy. It renders funny videos not so funny.

For a little empirical evidence, compare Firefox and Chrome with this video: http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/11/12

This may be a dealbreaker.

It’s Monday, 01 December 2008, the Monday after Thanksgiving. For the past several years, news outlets have referred to this magic day as Cyber Monday … the unofficial start of the online shopping season. CNN Money has predicted that sales will be down this year (but is that really news?).

Unfortunately, it is to me when I’m shopping for my niece’s Xmas gifts.

Gap and Old Navy are temporarily down for site maintenance.

Oops! Someone in the marketing department is up the creek w/o a paddle… particularly as they sent many emails about today’s sale.

One of my great joys as an experience planner is to prevent outages such as this one. My recco for Old Navy and Gap (and, by extension, Banana): Do not close your doors on an important opportunity. Holidays and sales are among the gold standards of promotions. These holidays often are a yearly occurrence (exception: Leap Day) and can and should be planned for in advance.

Consider your online presence as crucial as any other channel. We see that brick and mortars get much love (although, we do see that more and more companies are moving more and more resources to web), but often consumers are researching online … or even just looking up hours and other store information. The web property should be consistent w/your stores and offer up to date information, of course … but, can we bring more of the “experience” of the holiday shopping season into the digital channel. The web property should be ready to sparkle — it should not only visually communicate “holiday sales,” but it should also work like a well-oiled machine.

One of my clients is in the baby category. Two holidays that I get to love and cherish: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Our site maintenance/updates are scheduled to launch 3 to 5 wks prior… b/c you don’t want to miss the opportunity to connect with your users, particularly on an important day.

Like most, I’ve gone through many a gadget. However, deleting this particular gadget was kind of a bummer.

I’ve had the Dictionary.com gadget for a long time, but recently they’ve added extremely prominent ad space to their once-fun widget. The ad space includes a large banner and a website address. It is in fact larger than the the word of the day. What an insult.

[UPDATE: While writing this brief opinion piece, I had to add dictionary.com to iGoogle. No ads... and an abridged definition was available upon mouse-over. Still, not as simple as the previous widget and so deleted.]

I was chatting with a friend recently when I made a critical error and asked, What are you doing this weekend? No, no. It’s not what you think.

I genuinely enjoy hearing what people are planning on doing with their free time, but they always reciprocate and ask me what I’ll be up to. And I can’t think of anything. I run errands and go out to dinner like a normal person, but that doesn’t seem convo-worthy. Really, my weekends are often spent reading through a pile of New Yorkers or watching a movie (or in times of nuttiness, working).

However, a couple of weeks ago, I took a week off. I hung out at home, and I’m proud to say I read the following:

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell: I keep Gladwell’s books and New Yorker pieces handy, b/c they’re excellent for quick, entertaining, provocative reads.

Sources of Power by Gary Klein: I’ve read chapters from Dr Klein’s book, but not the whole chimichanga. I am fascinated by decision-making, and there is so much knowledge in this book. I have taken many lessons from it, but reading it through was even better. I think it’s a must-read for anyone who works in a team environment, develops products that other people will use, and/or plans experiences.

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner: I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never read the book, just the blog. Economics is fascinating, and Mssrs. Levitt and Dubner make it a thing of beauty.

Microtrends by Mark Penn: I love subcultures and little emerging pockets of interest. Very cool, especially since it’s an election year.

Tapping the Source by Kem Nunn: Surf/noir… the seedy underbelly of the California dream… cults… good stuff.

So, all in all, I had an excellent vacation. Expect to see references to some of these books in future posts.

I was reading David Pogue’s article (16 October 2008) in the New York Times, “A Look at Google’s First Phone.”

“Like the iPhone store, this market is a gigantic development, rich with possibilities; as programmers everywhere create new programs, mostly free, this ‘phone’ will turn into something vastly more flexible — and patch many of its feature holes.

Better yet, Google insists that its store will be completely open. Unlike Apple, it will not reject software submissions if they don’t serve the mother ship’s commercial interests. For example, Apple rejects programs that would let you make phone calls over the Internet, thereby avoiding using up cellular airtime. Google and T-Mobile swear they would permit such a thing.”

The part that rang loudest was that the “store will be completely open…programs that would let you make phone calls over the Internet, thereby avoiding using up cellular airtime. Google and T-Mobile swear they would permit such a thing.”

Wow.

How often do you work on a product that is that user-centered?

To be fair, I’m not surprised that Google and T-Mobile are doing a completely open market. After all, we know the Google. I had T-Mobile for 5+ years. During that time, they launched T-Mobile wireless calls with a fairly good billing deal. (If you started a call wifi, you didn’t use any minutes; leave wireless and you still weren’t using minutes. And, if I remember correctly, the rate was $10/month.) They seem to be ok with getting their subscriber fees. I thought it was nicely done.

But, still. It’s open. Totally and completely open. That is going to make for a very rich collaboration between the companies and their stakeholders.

Google and T-Mobile: I tip my hat to you. Also, thank you. You are going to be a great basis for some rationale next time I propose a feature that is very user-centered.

Part of the experience planning toolkit at agency X is our library of POVs. We’re a fairly new discipline, so a library involves both backfill and the ongoing development of POVs. It fills our infrequent periods of downtime, but they’re handy as the basis of rationale that we provide to our client partners.

So, my assignment is to write about scrolling. To me, an argument about scrolling has its basis in the fold. And the fold has its basis in print. And the dynamics of user/print interaction has very little analogue in digital.

So, quit worrying about the fold and learn to love scrolling.

Ok. So, that would be my POV, but it doesn’t sound very POV-y.

So, where is the fold? My associates and I optimize for 1024×768. Jakob Nielsen’s post “Screen Resolution and Page Layout” says that 60 percent of all monitors are set at 1024×768 (Nielsen 2006). That data is going on 3 years old, but still seems to be applicable. [Anecdotal: I recently have performed some in-home research and found that a good number of folks from all across the socioeconomic spectrum were using widescreen monitors. I hope people continue to adopt them so that I can optimize for 1280x1024.]

However, I would say that what makes the fold argument hard for me is that there is no set fold. The ClickTale Blog has a great post on scrolling. They’ve done quite a bit of data crunching and their finding is in “ClickTale Scrolling Research Report V2.0 — Part 1: Visibility and Scroll Reach.”

In the post, they talk about the fold being a:

“broadly dispersed distribution with three peaks located at roughly 430, 600, and 860 pixels. These peaks correspond to the three most popular screen resolutions used today: 800×600, 1024×768, and 1280×1024, minus about 170 pixels used up by the non-client area of the browser. In other words, depending on the screen size, users will typically see at least 430 and up to 860 vertical pixels worth of information on their screens when they open their site, without having to scroll” (ClickTale 2007).

[BTW, I'd like to thank ClickTale for this great info and their excellent graphs. Very cool stuff.]

So, in my actual POV I’ll go into that ClickTale data more, but for this web rumination, I’m going to focus on 1024×768.

While 1024×768 is a nice chunk of real estate, with the advent of the scrolling mouse, it’s only the gateway. During in-home research, I found that when I asked users to visit a website, most would wait for the page to load and then immediately scroll. Often, it was to get that dearly-paid-for logo out of the way. A site without much below “the fold” did not often elicit a positive reaction. Granted, the sites were supposed to be topic sites meant to be deeply informative about a fairly broad subject.

When asked to go to a site with a lot junk in its trunk, users felt that the site was far more credible. The site drew reactions such as “wow, there’s a lot of info” and “I’m going to bookmark this.”

At this point, I should point at that for me credibility is huge. My work is focused on healthcare. And, there’s a lot of healthcare info out there. A lot of it is junk. For example, marketing quackery such as salves and poultices that cure lung cancer. The websites I design must cover a lot of education and “value add content.” I don’t want to just market a product, I want the consumer/business transaction to at least benefit the consumer–I want them to be knowledgeable so that they can make the decisions that are right for them.

What I’ve learned over the years is that the more information you provide to the user (depending on the subject of course), the more likely they will be to revisit the site, to sign up for the email program, and to share it out with their friends.

ClickTale, in their post, concluded that “visitors scroll in a relative way — about the same percentage of page views will reach the middle of the web page regardless of the actual page height in pixels.”

In “ClickTale Scrolling Research Report V2.09 — Part 2: Visitor Attention and Web Page Exposure,” they answer the question: sure, users scroll and scroll and scroll … but what do they pay attention to? After all, I often scroll to the bottom of the page. But, what do I really focus my resources on?

According to ClickTale,

“Visitors’ attention follows a similar pattern for pages of different heights. It peaks both near the page top, at 540 pixels, and near the bottom about 500 pixels from the end of the page…attention decreases exponentially as visitors scroll down the page…page areas near the top of the page get about 17 times more exposure than the areas near the page bottom…[However,] the footer is important” (ClickTale 2007).

Now, this is where scrolling finally gets interesting. It’s an experience planner’s prerogative to say “it depends” and then fashion a custom solution for the problem/opportunity. So, for my sites (which focus on knowledge sharing), a nice hefty page with clear, scannable headlines and text and smart use of graphics can help create a compelling experience for the user. Remember, I’m not in a hurry to sell people stuff. My sites are long-term relationship builders.

However, for experience planners who are working on more promotional sites, this may not ring true. We can safely say: Nail the important message within the top 800 pixels. For users who need more information, provide it to them … you’re not going to lose anything, and you may gain users’ trust.