UXIdeas blog

Social Media played a large part in the success of the Obama election campaign. Here’s a few notes from an InternetWorld seminar i saw by Leo Ryan from Ryan*MacMillan.

- In 2004 Howard Dean was the first presidential candidate to really understand the power of social media in his 2004 campaign. He utilised blogs and used the Internet to raise a large sum of money for the elctoral campaign. For more info on his campaign look here.

- On the other end of the scale, in 2006, Replublican Senetor George Allen used what appeared to be racist language towards a voulenteer for one of his opponents, during a speech. The volenteer was filming him as he said this and it wasn’t long before the video had spread like wildfire accross the Internet.

- In 2004 the Democrats created ActBlue, a website dedicated to the constant promotion and fundraising for Democratic politicians in the States.

- To successfully support a campaign online, engage with voters by creating a tool and effectively use other existing tools to;
1) allow quick and easy donations to raise money
2) engage with voters and promote the campaign
3) Foster organisation of supporters

- In the race for presidential nominations between, Obama used new media far more productively than Hilary. While Hilary only allowed users to send messages to her through her website, Obama  was fostering communities of supporters to come together and promote his campaign (using tools like Meetup). Also, while Obama followed nearly as many people on Twitter that followed him, Hilary didn’t follow anyone, which was effectively like telling the world that she wasn’t listening to them.

- Obama embraced every social media channel he could during his presidential campaign including Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Meetup.

- When reports came out that Obama’s friend; the Reverend Wright caused controversy, Obama chose to make his response through the Huffindon Post, allowing him to give a full statement without it being twisted by the mainstream media.

- Will.i.am made the unofficial campaign song ‘Yes we can’. Although not endorsed by the Obama campaign, it was incredibally viral and Obama was in a good position to respond and take advantage due to his massive online presence.

- After 100 days in power Obama sent out an email listing all the things he had done since being in office. In the email he prompted people, that if they liked it, to forward the email on to their friends. This is a very democratic email.

Leo Ryan then ended his seminar by saying that it is important to remember the thousands-of-years old ways that we communicate and that it is important to continue these online. Remember to be human and don’t be nasty and people will respect you more than if you use social media as a means of spreading slander etc.

Sara Linfoot – Head of Digital Innovation @ The Guardian

Sara’s job is to maximise the Guardian’s revenue through the development of new digital concepts. Here are some key points from the seminar:

1) Understanding user engagement

Guardian divide their users into ‘Casual’ and ‘Committed’ users
‘Casual’ users will come onto the Guardian website through search engines etc. and are not regular visitors. They don’t know much about these users and do not spend much time trying to engage them. ‘Committed’ users engage frequently with the website, leaving comments, entering competitions, etc. They are invaluable to GNM and a lot of research goes into users in this group.

Guardian consider several elements when engaging users
1) Respect users – Don’t be sneaky with CRM etc. Curate online conversations. Ask them for their opinions. Don’t filter negative comments out but learn from them.
2) Give immediate responses – Show you’re listening.
3) To moderate or not? – Only take down conversations if someone flags it as ‘offensive’. Consider how a commercial conversations should be moderated (will there be slander from brand competitors, etc)?

Help users to get involved
Allow them to; comment, tag, share, add, stop, take, skip, save, mash, react, subscribe.

- Guardian got users to upload their pictures and messages for Obama in the lead-up to his inauguration.
- They identify super-users and engage with them, asking them to carry out tasks for them (e.g. give them a camera and ask them to go down to G20 protests and report back etc). This really utilises citizen journalism.

Engagement is hard to measure
When it comes to measuring the success of Guardian communities, it is important not to focus on classic metrics but to focus on measuring engagement/influence. Some companies claim to be able to do this but the Guardian believe these techniques are too long and complicated and the area is yet to be properly understood.

2) How GNM (Guardian News & Media) is embracing content distribution

Guardian’s open-platform allows users access to Guardians content and data sets, which they can integrate with other internet applications.

Examples:
- One person used Guardian’s data on MP expense claims + mashed them up with Google maps, showing where in the country different claim amount were being shown.

- Another person used Guardian’s computer game reviews and mashed them with Youtube videos of those games.

3) Maxising amplification beyond GNM channels

Guardian currently engage with users through;
User-generated content, Audio, Video, Mobile, PDA, Magazines, Online, Events, Emails, RSS and downloadable PDFs (G24) and traditional newspapers (which are still central to the Guardian business model as they can me more in depth and people still like the experience of reading them. Now though the traditional journalists are more integrated with the online journalists and sit together).

In the future they also intend to diversify into other platforms
This includes Twitter and other social media. The future of GNM is focussed on engaing users outside the Guardian channels. The aim is to provide content to users wherever they might want to consume it. The more online communities they can tap into the the better. They will communicate with people using a combination of Text, Multimedia, Data (including data visualisation) and Community.

Old and new communication models need to be integrated
Before the Internet the Guardian was a broadcaster and it’s readers consumed its messages. In early Web people started to communicate in small clusters (in forums etc). Now with the wide range of social media available, the everyone including the Guardian is interconnected. The old models are still important though and need to work with each other to be most effective.

EuroIA 2008 kicked off with a keynote speech from Adam Greenfield of the Nokia Service User Interface Design (SUID) team. In his speech he outlined his perceptions of Information Architecture as a practice and community and how it has missed some key opportunities to move away from endlessly designing for the Internet and branch out further into ubiquiteous media projects.

This appealed to me greatly as I have only been working in User Experience for just under a year and already find working on endless web projects frustrating.

However. I felt that his talk failed to offer any conclusions to the problem he outlined. Of course it is up to the whole community to make things happen but I would have liked to hear his ideas on how the practice should move forward, instead of merely stating that it isn’t. Otherwise, this talk got me thinking as I’m sure it did others.

Last weekend the DLKW User Experience department flew out to Amsterdam to attend this year’s EuroIA conference. It all went down at the Tuschinski theatre in the centre of town, which was is a strange, haunting place and a damn nice place to spend 2 days.

Amsterdam its self is a fantastic place. Everybody is really laid back and the girls are amazing. We stayed on a house boat on the Amstel, where we held a lil’ drinks party for some of the other IAs at the conference. Met some really interesting people at the conference and really got a feel for the IA community (Hello to all of you).

All in all a brilliant few days. Next year is in Copenhagen so keep your eyes out for that. I will be putting up some notes on some of the speakers soon so watch this space.

Guardian’s Map of Olympic Medals

Somebody at our office sent round this link. It gives a graphical display of all medals won by which county at the Olympics since 1896. Wonderfully done. Really like the arrangement of balls into a world map. Balls.

Oylmpic Map

http://www.tex-server.org/

This link came into my inbox yesterday. It appears to be some sort of a portfolio site for a guy who I think is called Marc Kremers. His site makes it difficult to know exactly what he does. It’s absolutely chaotic and goes against all user experience design stands for. It’s impossible to find the content you’re after and its not at all clear how you are supposed to interact with the site. Despite this, playing with it becomes addictive interactive experience. It’s like looking through a jumble sale with some absolute treasures buried there somewhere.

On the 8th, 9th and 10th of May, I went with a group of colleagues to the Offf festival in Lisbon, a ‘cutting-edge festival exploring the latest in digital aesthetics and software language’. The event was situated in a fantastic warehouse called the LX Factory, which was an amazing setting to spend three days in. The food, beer, people and atmosphere were all great, not to mention the insights of all the many artists who presented their work and thoughts. Here are a few of my highlights from the 3 days:

Erik Natzke – Uses Flash to create absolutely beautiful motion graphics and print work. He allows the computer to draw strokes and decide the outcome of a piece, while maintaining control by selecting defining the palettes and behaviours the computer can use.

Erik Natzke blog 1

Erik Natzke blog 2

Erik Natzke on Flickr

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rAndom International – A collective of RCA graduates; Stuart Wood, Flo Ortkrass and Hanneswith a view of ‘creating unique and experiential design projects’. Although they come from a product design background, most of their work revolves around new media. They have a very lateral way of thinking and I noticed they use a similar brainstorming method to the Design Interactions MA course at RCA, where ideas are drawn rather than simply written. Koch established

rAndom International blog

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Joshua Davis – Similar to Erik Natzke, Joshua Davis creates illustrations, which have a Flash-generated random element in the process. Davis randomly places drawn elements according to rules that he writes in Action script. He will then continue to play the Flash movie again and again, hundreds of times, until he sees a composition he likes, before he exports or prints it.

Joshua Davis website

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Alex Trochut – A typographer and illustrator, equally passionate about disciplines. In a festival full of massive egos, it was great to see this guy show us through his simply amazing work and be so humble about it. He received a very warm reception. Intricate doesn’t come close to explaining the detail of his work, and the processes he follows to arrive their.

Alex Trochot website

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Group94 - A Belgian based digital team, who specialise in creating portfolios but also work on commercial sites. They take a fresh approach to each project, not sticking to one style. I liked the fact that, when their new website was delayed because of the amount of work they had on, they sat their Head of Project Management on o chair and forced her to admit that it was her fault the site was late. They kept doing this and putting it up as a placeholder until the site was finished.

Group94 website

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There were so many other brilliant other designers there too. I well recommend Offf for anyone with an interest in new media creativity and interaction design.

Nicky Cheshire, Sales Director of ‘Alive’ gave a talk about the opportunities for outdoor advertising that they provided. ‘Alive ‘ are an arm of ‘CBS Outdoor’ who are media owners of several outdoor display mediums, most memorably seen around London Transport. These mediums include DEPs (Digital Escalator Panels), XTP (Cross-track projection), 57″ LCD displays and LED bus displays.

According to ‘Alive’, the time people spend travelling is on the increase (the current average commute being 45 minutes). This makes it important to reach consumers as they move around, for example in a city like London, between home, work, shops, evening entertainment, etc. Digital media allows brands to reach these travelling consumers in a more exciting and dynamic way.

‘Alive’ claim that the delivery mediums they offer have been well received by consumers (brightening up the otherwise mundane experience of public transport. They also can provide a great advantage for companies who need a quick turnaround on a campaign (for example the National Lottery who need to quickly spread the word of a rollover jackpot), or for companies who need to appear cutting edge (Digital companies like Sony will benefit from pushing their products through digital mediums).

The mediums also provide new creative opportunities, which Advertising Agencies can take advantage of. The positioning of the LCD screens down the escalators has been used to effect but brands like Sony Bravia, who had the coloured balls from their famous Ad bouncing down through all the screens to the bottom of the escalator. There are also locative advantages to the media. Campaigns can appear in locations relevant to the product they are selling (for example a ‘Britain’s next top model’ campaign at oxford street tube station, next to Topshop). Also GPS allows the content on the LED bus displays to change depending on the buses location.

Furthermore, there is potential in the technology to expand on these advertising opportunities. It is possible to involve RSS feeds, allowing advertisers to create interactive, dynamic work using information sent by the consumers or sourced from the Internet. Currently transport authorities are nervous user-generated content offending and this functionality is rarely adopted. However, ‘Alive’ see this social interaction as an integral part of the future of ‘outdoor advertising’. Channelling conversations and interactions though the medium can provide a ’social glue’ to bind the campaign and the consumer together.

Lisa Halabi of Webcridible usability consultants outlined eight tips to building a successful eCommerce site:

1] Categorize products thoughtfully, allowing user to select based on what criteria they might browse by (i.e. age groups, product type (its OK to have more than one browse criteria, though don’t go overboard)). You may want to show links to subcategories underneath too, to give the user an idea of what they will find in each section. Also, put the products in the centre of the screen, nice and visible.

2] Allow the user to refine a product list by providing them with filter options, i.e. brand, most recent, most popular, etc. You might also allow them to customise how many items appear on each page, how detailed the information is, etc.

3] Featuring ‘Related products’ or ‘People who bought this bought…’ helps the user find the product that is right for them and drives additional purchases.

4] Allow users to generate their own reviews on products. Products with user-generated reviews have much higher conversion rates and less returns. Even a bad review of your product is helpful as it will boost the credibility of the good reviews.

5] Show detail of what other users are doing (I.e. the feedback on buyers/sellers on eBay divided into ‘Good’, ‘OK’ and ‘Bad’).

6] Show scarcity of products with a stock counter or by saying ‘While stocks last’, ‘Selling fast’, etc.

7] Let users know what information they will need to complete a transaction. For instance, if a user is trying to buy car insurance online, they will need things like their bank details and car registration handy. Telling them this at the start of the process will ensure they don’t get frustrated by having to keep leaving their computer to get things all the time.

8] On forms, ask the user for the bare minimum. The more you ask for, the less you’ll get.

The first talk I saw yesterday at InternetWorld2008 was from Peter Cowely of Endemol UK. Endemol are an established television production company (responsible for shows like Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, 8 out of 10 Cats, and many more) who are embracing the challenges presented by digital media. They are now making a transition from a ‘Television’ production company to a ‘Content’ production company operating in the emerging on line entertainment market, pioneered by projects like Lonelygirl13 and Katemodern.

Endemol’s on line productions use different combinations of media to support a central video element. ‘Cell‘ is a 20 part series designed to be viewed on mobile phones, which was supported by a WAP site, website, Youtube site and a social-networking site. Also, watch out for ‘Gap year‘ coming soon, which is a reality ’show’ following six gap year students round six countries for six months, where viewers/users can send in suggestions on where to go, what to do etc.

Endemol’s main hurdle at present is the lack of funding that is available for on line projects. Where they could once seek commissions from broadcasters, they are now having to re-assess their business model. Advertising is a new source of revenue, though this doesn’t provide the returns that they would have previously received. Production budgets are small and they are reselling their content to as many other countries as possible around the world, to make up for this. The hope is that if a on line production becomes popular on line, it can then move onto television and DVD.

This was the case with ‘Cell’, which was funded by 02 and sold round the world returning their investment. It is now possibly going to appear on television format soon. Other projects like ‘Gap year’ and another called ‘Beyond the Rave‘ have been created in partnership with social networking sites such as Myspace and Bebo, who can deliver the content exclusively on their sites.

It is an exciting area to watch as traditional television production companies find their feet in the on line market. Other on line productions to check out are, ‘Signs of Life‘, ‘Quaterlife‘ and ‘Sophia’s Diary‘.