Design By Candlelight

Why Bill Gates Was Successful

[Link from Fast Company]

Sheer determination and persistence gets us farther than anything else. Take Colonel Sanders for example.  He talked to hundreds before he finally got someone to take him seriously and thus Kentucky Fried Chicken was born.

Social Media is Not a Solution

Lately I have noticed an increase in the amount of requests for “Social Media UX Designers”. This worries me. It worries me much like the Pied Piper whom led all the rats out of the village only for them to drown in the river. This is a drastic illustration of my perspective but it does illustrate a point.

Social media is about connections and sharing experiences. It will not suddenly give your business a boost without your business having a product/service your customers (ie users) fall in love with. If you as a business create a product that the users love they will run to Facebook or Twitter or any other service to let their network know about it. On the flip side, they will also say how much they hate it.

Business needs to understand this important distinction and consider their business strategy before implementing a social media tool to their toolbox. They need to ask why they think they need it and strategize that need along with exploring what users need. Combine the two with a social media strategy that fits your business and you might find you have utilized a tool to create a solution.

The Break Up

Time to start listening again.

Tags: voice of the consumer

UX of Automated Systems

It can be said, I believe, that most of us hate automated systems. If given the option, we’d rather talk to a live human than a system. Today, it seems the automated system is taking over and the human touch is becoming a thing of the past. This is a great cost saving device for companies but could very well leave your user (ie customers) running elsewhere.

An example:

I called HSBC recently for a wire transfer between my accounts. When I reached a human, I was told I needed to use the automated system. After pressing the several numbers (1, 1, 3, 1, 2) to get to my destination, I am then given a confirmation code (#000000 for example) and a couple of fax numbers to send it to and then the system hangs up. This left me wondering what I am supposed to do with that.

I call up the help desk and ask, “What am I supposed to do with these numbers?” The conversation follows as such:

Help Desk: Go ahead and write down on a piece of paper your details, the details of the receiver, any contact details needed, and please sign it and send it in.
Me: Any piece of paper?
Help Desk: Yes
Me: Ok so not so automated then?
Help Desk: (after a laugh) No.

Not only did this leave me frustrated but it also left me wondering about the security of the system. Can anyone get my details and send my money elsewhere?

Leaving your customer frustrated and nervous about a situation will entice them to look elsewhere for the same service. This then becomes a loss in revenue for your business which can be easily fixed with a proper system.

Personally, I think I will be returning to PayPal for all my “wire transfer” needs until HSBC either:
1) Truly automates the system
2) Allows me human contact
3) Creates an automated system online

Tags: automated systems, user experience fail

Consumers, Design, & Strategy

I use my Twitter account mainly for work and gathering information from my friends about the latest and greatest going on in the UX community. With following 88 rather active Twitters, it’s often hard to keep up with all the articles they post so in an effort to not only summarize for myself but also pass on to anyone reading, here’s what I have seen over the last week:

Whitney Hess has posted the following:

Jess Bezos’s, the founder of Amazon.com, says, “Obsess over customers“. More importantly:

Obsess over customers: “When given the choice of obsessing over competitors or obsessing over customers, we always obsess over customers.”

Invent: “Any time we have a problem, we never accept either/or thinking. We try to figure out a solution that gets both things.”
Think long term: “It requires and allows a willingness to be misunderstood.”

It’s always Day 1: “There’s always more invention in the future. Always more customer innovation. New ways to obsess over customers.”

What I like about this video she has posted is it gets back to a point I have made about never losing touch with the customer. In all my experience with Six Sigma, Change Management, and User Experience, I think the only thing that really touches the customer is a culture of asking and consistently testing and iterating on your product line with your customers (or users). Hence why I have fallen into User Experience as a career.

——————————-

On top of this Business Week recently posted an article about the IDEA 09 Design Awards calling the article, “Designing a Better World” where they said, “Business leaders should care about design because it hits the bottom line… more than anything else, design builds a business.”

Tags: business strategy, communication, customer experiencee, design, twitter, User Experience

FOWA (London): Work/Life Balance

Is the future of digital a 4 day work week? Or will we work harder to become millionaires in 3 years? Tune in and find out.

Tags: business, startups

Talking to Others About What We Do

(Or how I embarrassed myself in front of a room full of people.)

I’ve been at a negotiation seminar all weekend when during the last day I went up on stage to share my 30 second escalator speech. I delivered it only to be told I was insulting my client! I said, after several edits, “Who I work with is IT Managers who has the problem of unorganized web architecture. I help them attain more clients and build loyalty.” It sounded good to me!

However, the leader of the seminar pointed out to me that it is very likely that my client is someone who created that system and consequently would be quite put out by that statement.

After some work I ended up with, “Who I work with are web based businesses who would like to work with the customers they didn’t know they had.”

Much better right? Right. The experience taught me something though. As professionals we often talk in the language of the people we work with. We need to remember when engaging our audience(s) that they may not always known or understand what it is we do. We need to always keep in mind our audience. Consider it user experience within language…

Tags: clients, language, relationship building

Surviving A Downturn (User Experience)

Tags: self promotion, survival, User Experience

IxDA 09 Redux SF

I went to the SF Redux of Interaction 09 and had a great time not only getting to know some new people but also learning more about Interaction Design. Here’s some quick thoughts and notes of what I saw:

——

Steve Portigal was up first to walk us through his sold out workshop called, “Well, we did all this research … now what?”

My Twitter Feeds on SP:

“Who cares about terminology. Examine, infer and apply to business or design.” I’d say apply to both. Why should they be different.

“Stay out of solution land. Try different methods”

When stuck come up with really bad ideas to encourage creativity.

——-

Second was Kumi Akiyoshi with “Feeling: What Makes an Engaging Product?“.  The slides from the presentation are below:

Third was Ian Swinson with “Postcard Patterns”.

Postcards = simple straight forward messaging

——-

Fourth was Nadya Direkova with “What’s in a game? A look at game design best practices as prime influencers of interaction design.”  The slides from the presentation are below:

Twitter:

Is google a single player or multiplayer game? How many of us get to design apps in 3d?

This is review so far. It’s all about the same from my game design class at Parsons.

Simply controls. Friend invites to play with friends. (AdverGames)

Create a reward in health. Physical Therapy… Doing # of exercises = whatever

——

Kim Goodwin “each one teach one” – people are now saying I experienced good design. This is easier than that.

Twitter:

“Nothing special about the iPhone. Technology is simple. It’s design they are selling. And we’re paying a lot of money for good design.”

“Corporate Americas new found belief in design is fragile.”

A lot of good ideas end up collecting dust. “It’s someone else’s fault. We need to take responsibility.”

Sales people understand progressive commitment. Get people involved in the research and so on to understand reasoning. Pushes commitment.

Even those who are use to rational decisions can be susceptable to emotion. (Ie the Mini Cooper)

Bargaining a normal part of Change Management. “I’ll have the salad with the cake.”

Ixd = generation creation

——

In summary -

Personal gripe: Another thing about less is more on presentation slides… Less information focuses the audience on you and what you are saying. Avoids info overload

At the bar afterwards: “We’re designing behaviour”

Tags: conferences, ixda, san francisco, User Experience

Music on Websites

While exploring the option of spending a couple weeks in Italy in a dance intensive, I visited the site of the recommended hotel: Park Hotel La Grave

In process my computer crashed and on reload Firefox reloaded all my open tabs. Then as if from no where, there was music filling the air on a constant loop. I started going through each tab scrolling up and down frantically looking for the off switch. It was no where to be found. Instead I find myself reminded of Eddie Izzard’s skit about trying to get the printer to work:

No matter where I turn. I cannot find the off switch. Finally after 10 minutes of this frustration, I find the switch at the bottom of the home page!

Don’t get me wrong, there are definite distinct advantages to using sound in the right places at the right time. Jakob Nielsen points out that sound can “enhance the user experience substantially”. He adds that testing within a game environment using the same graphics but higher and lower quality sound led users to believe that the game had better graphics when better sound was utilized. However that was a game environment not a website.

When exploring the web most users are looking for information. In this case, I was looking for the amenities, price, and any reviews on the hotel. I didn’t care whether or not the hotel had a good atmosphere. After all in a hotel you mainly sleep. You aren’t looking for a home. Thus the music only frustrated me when I couldn’t locate the module to turn it off.

If you would like to use sound to create an experience than use it wisely and place it where the user can find it. The top right or even the right rail work beautifully for this purpose. The worst thing you can do to your user is frustrate them because you will lose them as a customer. Remember you never get a second chance to make a good first impression and on the web that is even more vital.

Tags: Gaming, sound, User Experience, web