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.

Last April, I joined Todd Zaki Warfel’s seminar on data-driven personas at the IA Summit. In his presentation, he showed some really excellent templates for presenting persona data, which I frantically copied down. In fact, I’ve already used a variation on his template for one of my own projects.

But now Todd has shared the source files for his templates, which I highly recommend that you download. It includes the page layout in an InDesign file and an Illustrator file with his graphs. I’ve found the graphs to be particularly useful, since they’re really easy for clients and team members to scan and digest.

One of the most interesting notes that I remember from Todd’s IA Summit presentation was the amount and variety of data that should go into a persona. He recommends at least 3 sources, including a mix of qualitative and quantitative research. (e.g. in-person interviews + survey + secondary research on your target demographic)

In my own experience, I have to agree that this range of data is invaluable. When you have a complete, data-driven persona in front of you, you feel much more empowered to say that a new feature or design decision will actually improve the user experience, or drive more ROI. This confidence is good for both the agency and the client.

Whitney Hess gives a nice summary in a post called 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design.

Of particular interest is a mention of the “U” in User Experience which aligns with how we think about Experience Planning here at Bridge.

Russ Unger, experience design strategist, likes to say that the biggest misconception of UX design is the “U.” “There are a set of business objectives that are needing to be met—and we’re designing to that, as well,” he explains. “We just can’t always do what is best for the users. We have to try to make sure that we are presenting an overall experience that can meet as many goals and needs as possible for the business and the users.”

As user experience designers we have to find the sweet spot between the user’s needs and the business goals, and furthermore ensure that the design is on brand.

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.

There has been an interesting overlap of topics between two of my favorite reading materials:

1. Seth Godin wrote about three ways to think about your audience’s background.

2. Jared Spool posted to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) email list about his view of User Centered Design (UCD) and Activity Centered Design (ACD).

Seth is probably thinking about giving presentations, and knowing how much background knowledge your audience already has. (Should you explain what YouTube is? Does your audience already know what you said on this subject last year?) And here are his three options:

• Inquire. Ask some people in your target audience so you know what they do and do not already know.
• Assume. Make a reasonable guess about what they already know.
• Punt. Don’t ask or even guess. Just pretend everybody already has all the background they need.

His point is that too many people choose the third option, and end up missing a chance to connect with their audience.

Of course, this sounded all too familiar to me, since user experience professionals run into this question all the time. Who am I designing for? What do they need to know? What do they want to know? etc.

So it’s interesting that Jared Spool recently outlined 5 ways for UX professionals to think about their audience:

• User Centered Design. Discover at your audience’s goals, needs, and context before you design.
• Activity Centered Design. Consider only the activities or steps necessary for the design to function.
• Genius Design. People who have been designing for years, and have great intuition, can just follow their instincts.
• Self Design. Assuming you were the audience, what would you want?
• Unintended Design. This represents those who did not think about their design from anyone’s perspective. They just put down something they thought would work.

You can see an obvious correlation between the options Seth and Jared both put forward.

The clear takeaway is that, just like you would never give a presentation without thinking about your audience and what they need, you should never design a product (digital or otherwise) without thinking about your audience.

Thanks to the current emphasis on Design in business, we don’t see very many clients recommending Unintended Design any more. But I have seen clients try everything from Self Design to User Centered Design. And I can tell you that we always see better results as we move along the scale that diminishes personal bias and increases our user insights.

P.S. The discussion on IxDA about User Centered Design is actually really interesting (if you’re into that kind of thing). You can jump to my response or read the whole thing.

As anyone who has tried already knows, creating community is hard. But Christina Wodtke recently explained why it’s so hard in way I thought was pretty enlightening. She refers to Lewin’s Equation, which is…

B=f(P,E)
Behavior is a function of a Person and his Environment.

Wodtke goes on to explain that, as websites turn over more and more control and content to users, we have less and less control over the environment. Therefore, we have less control over how people behave.

So I thought I would highlight a couple of unique, innovative ways to use our limited control of Environment to positively affect user behavior.

Example 1: Mail Goggles
How often have you written an email late at night, mindlessly clicked “Send” and then regretted the email the next morning? Maybe it was filled with typos. Maybe it said something horribly offensive. Either way, you wish somebody had pointed out that you weren’t thinking and should have just gone to bed.

Thanks to the new Gmail Labs program, that kind of mistake can be a thing of the past. Google engineer Jon Perlow developed an add-on for Gmail called Mail Goggles, which cleverly stops you from sending email while your brain is off.

When you send an email late at night, it asks you a series of math problems (difficulty can be adjusted) that must be correctly answered before the email can be sent. If your mind isn’t totally sharp, it prevents you from hitting that all-important Send button.

Example 2: Audio Playback of YouTube Comments
If you’re not already familiar with the web comic XKCD, then you need to get up to speed. It not only jokes about internet memes, it creates them. In fact, it sometimes has a profound impact on the web’s most influential sites.

In this case, an XKCD comic illustrated what life might be like if YouTube required everybody who writes a comment to hear their comment said back to them before it gets posted.

The people at YouTube liked the idea well enough that it’s now a live feature you can try out. It’s not required like the comic joked, but it is the first button you see after writing a comment. Even before “Post Comment”.

The Future
Do you think this is what the future of influencing user behavior looks like? Even before these examples came out, people commonly pointed to sites that use an informal tone to influence user behavior. Maybe the secret to influencing user behavior is presenting it in a way that’s fun, lighthearted, and which people choose to engage with.

Note: For more thoughts on building websites so that users choose to engage with them, check out the Marketing with Meaning blog, written by Bob Gilbreath, the Chief Marketing Strategist at Bridge Worldwide. He regularly discusses examples of how marketing can be so good that people choose to engage with it. Good stuff!