Unlike the e-commerce sites mentioned in my previous post, BookMooch doesn’t have a central authority to control the transactions. The site is based exclusively on mutual trust. Therefore, it’s important to display clues about past mooches, so everyone can see who is playing fair and who is not. Nobody wants to use a point and mooch a book that will never arrive. Each user has a profile page that lists basic information on past activities, such as overall feedback score, books mooched and books given. Members can use that information to decide which members they should mooch from.

Reputation is a fundamental part of the experience on the site. Needless to say, BookMoochers with low feedback score are less likely to exchange books than those with higher scores. Other than score, the profile pages display additional clues about the community members. Their list of books given and mooched as well as their inventory and wishlist can indicate reading habits and preferences. Those records are open to any other user on the site, and they offer more information to assist BookMoochers during the transactions.

When a member puts Huckleberry Finn on her wishlist, she is not only increasing her chances of getting books. She is also letting everyone else know a little bit more about herself, as a Mark Twain reader. In the long run, the list of books given and mooched could serve as a way to cluster users with similar preferences. As noted by Bryce Glass on his post Reputation is Identity, on the Web “visible histories reveal shared affinities and allow users with common interests to find each other”. BookMooch doesn’t rely exclusively on user feedback to build reputation. The site also tracks its members’ regular activities and makes them visible to those who are interested.

This is an interesting approach for two reasons: (a) it takes advantage of the natural actions taken by users, instead of requiring extra efforts (e.g. filling out forms to describe preferences) and (b) it offers a granular perspective of each member, which is something particularly important for new users with no transaction history yet. Transparency is an important tool used on BookMooch and it helps BookMoochers make better decisions.

On my next post, I’ll go further and talk about reputation as an incentive for participation within online communities.

(This post is part of my research for the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management academic program at Kent State University).

“So our choices [on Amazon] are: either we can hire a bunch of people who sort of know how to get things done and that can write a bunch of guides and so on, on the net; or what we can do is build a technology so that everybody else out there who actually know this stuff better than we do, can go ahead and write about it and build these guides and push them out to people.”

This podcast brings up a very important fact: most online reputation systems are built with user-generated content. Amazon does not rely on experts to assign ratings to its products. Instead, the site uses a platform that is capable of capturing users’ inputs in many ways. Ideally, Amazon’s reputation system becomes more effective as more users contribute to the site. By combining multiple and diverse opinions, Amazon is able to filter the entire catalog, narrowing the list of options for each customer. As I mentioned on my previous post, ratings-and-reviews can provide guidance and therefore, improve decision making.

It is important to note that just because reputation systems allow users to send feedback it does not mean that users will actually do it. In an interesting study about ecommerce, Jared Spool compared the number of reviews for the book Harry Potter 7 on different sites, including Amazon, Target, Walmart and Barnes & Noble. One month after the book’s release, Amazon had the largest number of reviews – 1805 -  in contrast with Target, which had the smallest number -  just 3. Both sites use the same platform to offer product recommendations, despite the huge difference in the amount of user feedback captured by each.

Even though ratings-and-reviews are becoming increasingly popular and expected, designers should remember that this functionality does not rely on technology alone. Users have to be motivated in order to participate, and each community fosters participation in a different way. As noted in the example above, some communities are more active than others. And because user feedback is the foundation of most reputation systems, an early challenge for sites like Amazon or Target is in creating engagement.

Still, there are alternative methods for capturing user feedback. On my next post, I’ll talk about a smart approach for assigning reputation values to entities.

(This post is part of my research for the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management academic program at Kent State University).

As we know, online shopping can be very convenient. Sites such as Amazon offer an incredibly big variety of items. A search for “laptop” on Amazon retrieves more than 450,000 results. For any item, a customer can choose the best price, compare it with similar products and create bundles to get more for less. From one hand, this is a good thing and that’s what makes Amazon so attractive to customers. But it also poses a new problem: with so many options out there, how do I choose the best one?

Unlike a brick-and-mortar store, in which customers have the ability to see and sometimes even test the products before buying them, the Internet lacks some of the crucial elements a real shopping experience has. Whenever customers go to a store inside a shopping mall for example, they are able to make immediate judgments from their interaction with other people and the environment. Customers can hold the products, ask questions, evaluate if the staff is friendly, look around and see if the store is well-organized and observe the other people that buy things there.

All those physical cues are not present on the digital space. For that reason, e-commerce sites try to minimize the problem with good design, online assistance, discounts on shipping and so on. Reputation systems are also part of that strategy and they are built to facilitate the online shopping process. Amazon provides ratings and reviews for products. This is one way of helping customers overcome 2 problems: (a) the overwhelming number of available options for products and (b) the lack of personal interactions.

In a nutshell, reputation systems can improve decision making by aggregating user feedback and presenting it in a way that allows people to narrow their options. On my next post, I’ll talk about a little bit more about user feedback.

(This post is part of my research for the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management academic program at Kent State University).

There are different types of reputation systems, and some of them have people as entities that can build reputation. BookMooch – an online community that promotes book swapping – uses a feedback score to help users evaluate the reliability of their peers. On the other hand, Yelp – a website that displays reviews for services, such as hotels, bars and restaurants – lets its users give badges to those who provide useful information.

Even though online reputation systems can be very useful, they may also bring new challenges to the sites that use them. An early obstacle for any reputation system is in capturing user feedback. Just because a website allows users to provide ratings and reviews, it does not mean that users will actually do it. Another obstacle is in figuring out which reputation model is the most suitable for the product or service that is being offered. Because there is no universal reputation system that will work for all sites, the choice of which one to use depends on the type of community, the site’s purpose and the technology constraints of each project.

On my future posts, I’ll try to highlight the importance of online reputation in an information-overloaded space. I’ll also pinpoint the effects that may arise from interaction under such community-controlled rules. The mail goal here is to provide a quick report of issues to be considered when designing your reputation systems.

(This post is part of my research for the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management academic program at Kent State University).

• I enjoy making complex things easier for the intended users
• I love the moment when you know you’ve found a way to remove frustration away from your end users’ experience
• I enjoy helping to define the solution
• I enjoy solving client and user problems
• We help bring order out of chaos
• We are evolutionary, not revolutionary
• We help drive persuasion by giving people what they need to make a decision

Here are also some comments provided about Bridge:

• There’s something new every day, no monotony
• People’s egos are checked at the door
• Under crazy circumstances, people are still trying to work well together and be nice to each other

And my overall favorite comment was: “Can you imagine a world without Experience Planning”?

I certainly cannot. Experience Planning provides a unique advocacy for the end users, by understanding their cognitive thought process. We help to make the complexity of digital marketing beneficial and compelling to the end user. We match business needs with user needs, leveraging the technology. We enhance the emotional experience, knowing what compels people to act, creating persuasive design. It’s an exciting and rewarding field.

If you’re interested in Experience Planning careers at Bridge, we are currently hiring. Please see our job postings at http://www.bridgeworldwide.com/digital-agency-jobs

Pattern Tap

• Constantly updated

• Categorized collections for locating specific types of UI inspiration

• Faceted search through tags for filtering needs

• A Community of highly involved users

• Clean and intuitive design and navigation of its own

Quince

• Collection of old and new patterns

• Categorized collections for locating specific types of UI inspiration

• Alphabetical, tag, and user task related faceted filtering

• Search feature available

• Clean and intuitive design and navigation of its own

• Visualization of UI relationships

• Beautiful liquid layout

• Built with Silverlight

Welie

• Large pattern list

• Screenshot examples

• Filter by need of the user

• Visio tips and tricks, Macros!

• Hasn’t been updated since June 2008

Yahoo!

• Yahoo! provided content

• Categorized collections for locating specific types of UI inspiration

• Faceted navigation style

• Why, why, when, and how certain patterns should be implemented

• Limited examples, Yahoo! specifics provided

• Links to YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library) for JavaScript code for building mentioned interactions

jQuery

• Smaller collection

• jQuery specific widgets and actions

• Useable live demos

UI Pattern Factory

• Specific to best in practice examples

• Video examples of interactions

• Vote for new patterns to be added to the collection

• Voting involved community, new posts are rare

UI Patterns

• Similar to PatternTap

• Nice screenshot collections for a quick sneak peek

• Footer provides quick breakdown of available design patterns

O’Reilly

• Excerpts from the book

• Touchpoints with What, When, Why, and How

• It’s O’Reilly, good stuff, period

flickr Web Site Group

• Large collection of images

• Images are tagged fairly consistently

• Search for the inspiration you are looking for and get results

• Very little explanation to screenshots provided

flickr Janne L

• Large collection of images from an individual

• Not organized for specific UI feature surfing

• Very little explanation to screenshots provided

CSS Mania

• Large gallery of CSS Designs

• Beautiful interface designs and inspiration on navigation and layout

• Little to no organization, only a monthly gallery filter

• Updated regularly and offers a great RSS feed

• Many similar galleries
  http://www.CSSLeak.com

Visual Complexity

• Large gallery of Data Visualizations

• Fantastic organizational structure

• Faceted search for filtering

• Beautiful examples with great explanation and information on the data shown

• Updated regularly and offers a great RSS feed

Experience Planning folks analyze forms particularly closely to ensure that the form is usable – logical flow, clear error messages, few distractions and a clear call to submit.  A simple, clean form with minimal design elements is often the preferred approach, but is this always the best solution?

John Broady from Omniture Digital recently performed a study to compare increase in ‘request more info’ form submissions for two universities. The universities tested two versions of the form: 1) a very simple version of the form without design detail and 2) a version of the form with stylized page design, hero shot, colorful submit button, and benefits messaging.

Results were very surprising. One university saw a large lift from the simple form but not the stylized form. The other university saw a large lift from the stylized form but not the simple one.  Did audiences randomly respond differently to the two formats?

Upon further analysis, Broady and his team found a clear distinction between the two options – the sources of referring traffic.  The university that showed a lift via the simple form had the majority of traffic originating from other pages within the university website.  The university that showed a lift via the stylized form had the majority of traffic coming directly from search engines.

Why is there such a large distinction? Users coming directly from search engines are likely clicking on links and determining within seconds whether to stay on the page or keep searching. Visual impact of a page is very important to capture their attention.  Users coming from other pages on the university site have typically ready to convert. They’ve investigated other content on the site and too many visuals or fluffy messaging can be a distraction for this user.

When designing an online form, it’s a good idea to consider 1) whether a form page is a primary landing page from search, 2) whether the majority of site traffic originates from a search engine or from other site pages, and 3) ultimately which user origination type is more valuable.

Wireframing is a very powerful tool in building the foundation for a website. Wireframes allow your team to visually recognize the interactions between pages and content. There are many different ways of integrating wireframes in to your process and it might be different from project to project.

Some wireframes may be very low fidelity, where the focus is strictly the layout of content and where form and button features might appear. Other wireframes can be of great detail, at times referenced as prototypes, truly representing the interactions involved allowing team members and clients to actually see movement and interaction with form and button elements. Wireframe prototypes can also provide a hint at the design of the final website, but should not distract from understanding changes may and often times will need to be made based on issues with the interaction and/or experiences after testing. Wireframes are great for agile development and are meant to be rapidly produced and polished as you tweak with the interactions.

Integrating wireframes into your design process will provide a more stable direction into the final creative and technical end of the process, with confidence all interactions are accounted for and provide that consistency for a better user experience.

For further reading, Smashing Magazine has compiled a list of 35 Excellent Wireframing Resources to inspire you to adopt this very concept.

Adults who are exposed to new technology or approaches most often bring fears with them, that they will break something, or fail. Adults also have preconceived ideas of how something should work, based on past technical experiences or best practices.

Don’t get me wrong, best practices are certainly useful, as they help people feel at ease and achieve their goals quickly. But it’s also essential to explore new approaches, by being reminded about what’s fundamentally intuitive. And while young children may not be your target audience, there is much to learn from their raw intuition that can be applied to creating new breakthroughs in user experiences.

Help Your End Users Have No Fear

Whether it’s typing an email that doesn’t make much sense, browsing a beloved cartoon character’s web site (and perhaps even playing a game), or snapping away pictures with a digital camera with reckless abandon, children have a passion for learning as much as they can with less understanding of any related consequences. It’s amazing to watch them rapidly learn new technologies simply because they don’t have a fear of what could happen if they go down the wrong path.

That reinforces the value of our profession. As user experience professionals, we strive to make our end users have a great experience, and hopefully chip away at any preconceived fears they have. So as we work on our deliverables, we can think about how to make our target audience forget any of their fears. And we can help transform them to experiencing that sense of wonder and exploration of a child, where small touches can make a big difference in the full experience.

Of course many of us don’t get to work on projects that naturally capture that inner child. But how can we help plan for making the ordinary into extraordinary? How can we educate our team members and project stakeholders on understanding their end user, and collaborating with them to capture that excitement in the end project? These are questions we should all ask ourselves when we start a project, and never stop.

Leverage Intuition to Explore New Opportunities

In this day and age, projects with tight timeframes and budgets occur much more frequently than projects that naturally provide time to sit back and explore our inner child, for new, creative ideas. So instead we often fall back on best practices and what’s been done before.

We can easily fall out of that habit by observing a young child, who is working with almost pure intuition to accomplish his goals online. It takes us back to that basic cognitive thought process, and what is instinctly apparent to end users–so easy a child could do it.

It’s amazing to watch a child who doesn’t know how to read, as she understands what to click on from supporting simplistic visuals and icons. And how the user interface can guide her down an intended path.

You can almost see the wheels in a child’s mind turn as he explores buttons and other functionality without hesitation. It’s also mind opening to hear the child say what he thinks should be possible before he even does it, or what he is looking for if he is stumped. It often makes the most perfect sense.

From this experience, it reminds me to always try to start with a clean slate. Try not to think about how it’s been done before, and put the logo or navigation in a location on your wireframe simply because it’s a best practice. Stop and think about your end users, and what would be fundamentally intuitive to them to explore a new approach.

Of course, the best way to gain this understanding is from user research. Gain an understanding of the target audience’s mindset, how they interact with technology, and what their fears and goals are. Then start creating. Try new approaches that will help users forget their fears, and return to exploring what’s intuitive. And then test your new approaches with users. Refine and test again.

Understanding what’s innately intuitive, first through a child’s eyes and then with your target audience, can help your end users overcome their fears so they can accomplish their goals, find delight through the extraordinary, and find their own inner child.

Planning: the challenge of complexity - Anne Benvenuto

Well it is now closing in on Q4 of 2009 and it is surprising to still think of this as a “new” idea. Anne suggests “if there’s one thing we all know about the times we are living in, it is that they are changing far faster than ever before”. That is still true today and if this is the case then why aren’t more agencies chasing these opportunities. As planners we need to be ahead of the client, ahead of the customer, and ahead of the trends. We need to set the landscape and determine where our customers are moving next.

Anne recognizes the complexity of this type of responsibility, but she also has not suggested that we work alone. She wants us to work better with our team, with our technologists and our creative team. Learn to collaborate, pull together ideas and be ahead of the curve, and as a team, succeed.