UXIdeas blog

Giles Colborne, CXpartners

I attended this presentation motivated by my incresing interest in mobile technologies and mobile user experience. Since I haven’t had any opportunity to work commercially in this field I’m trying to get as much as I can from books, podcasts, articles and presentations like this one. I’m also a heavy internet user on my mobile phone!

Giles was also the moderator of chinwag live: real world usability we went a few weeks ago where he promoted some good discussion with the public and speakers. I don’t know why but although these events are most for (and by) computer geeks we usually experience lot of technical issues. Giles’ Macbook simply didn’t turn on but he managed to do the whole talk by heart. I just missed some live examples!

He started the presentation talking about the high mobile internet usage in Japan where around 80% of teenagers are highly active mobile internet users. This trend will eventually become a reality in other countries when flat rates and higher speeds are adopted.

Some other interesting points:

• The mobile phone is a blackbox. Unlike PCs, people have no idea where the files are stored and how to save or retrieve the data
• Even text messages need to be designed
• Screensavers, wallpapers simply don’t work due to limited screen sizes
• Everything downloaded will cost money, therefore it needs to be relevant
• People don’t use calculators or calendars in their phones (I don’t)
• It’s an intimate media and the user has an strong relationship with their mobile phones
• SMS is a very effective way of getting the messages across (reminders, vouchers, phone numbers)

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.

Another presentation from Imano… I generally don’t like these presentations which someone gives you the recipe for the success in 5 steps. But I particularly liked this one because of the well-known principles she pointed out and put together in quick, simple and friendly presentation. It’s also very relevant to our daily activities here at DLKW. All the clients seem to want to create the next ‘elf yourself’ (no longer available) viral campaign and we also want to generate good results for them. The presentation was based on Imano’s ‘8 steps to successful viral marketing’ but it was shortened to 5 steps due to the time constraints.

I particularly like the ‘get the sales’ step which ultimately will prove whether the viral was effective or not and also will help us to identify issues that may arise during the campaign and act accordingly. Sometimes we can’t predict these issues on the user testing or early stages. She mentioned one example whereas a user decided to have all the high scores in the scoreboard and spent hours playing the game. They needed to act quickly to change the rules and keep the other user’s motivation – they did that by allowing only the user’s high score in the scoreboard.

1 – Make it simple to interact

• Can it be explained in 10 seconds?
• Can someone read it without reading the instructions?

2 – Make it relevant

• Keeping it on-brand
• Driving a core message at the heart of the campaign

3 – Reward the user

• An end prize is not enough
• Intermediate rewards
• Instant gratification

4 – Word of mouse

• Intrinsically viral in nature (send to a friend)
• Further incentivisation (more)
• Ensure the opportunity
• Appropriate placement and seeding

5 – Get the sales

• Track the metrics
• Put sales opportunities within the campaign
• Track activity (sign ups, open rates, click troughs, revenue)
• Make changes based on analytics

Unfortunately I can’t show you the case studies here… They’re not live anymore. But I managed to get a screenshot of KLM fly a friend from their presentation.

Elisa del Galdo, HFI
Day 2, Internet World 2008

This was an interesting presentation, and very relevant to us as an integrated advertising agency. The premise was that it is no longer enough to ensure that a website is usable. Usability ensures that users can do what you want them to online, but tells you little about whether they will do it. This is because consumer decision making is based far more on emotional responses than rational ones – by 80% to 20%, according to some sources.

HFI has a name for the new user experience yardstick that we should be striving for: PET (persuasion, emotion and trust). Elsewhere, I’ve heard it called desirability. This is what we have to optimise to make sure that a user ‘converts’ – for example, buys a product, signs up for a newsletter, or completes a questionnaire.

Elisa gave some examples of online shopping experiences that appeal to the emotional side of decision making in an effective way. These were:

• Bluefly (http://www.bluefly.com/). Hesitate for a while on this site, and up will pop a chat dialogue with your ‘personal shopper’ at the other end. Chances are you’ll be so flattered with the personal attention that you’ll make a purchase – even one you didn’t want!

• Oxfam (http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/). The Water World section of the shop appeals to emotions in a positive way, showing the beneficial effects of your gift with smiling, happy people. The positive feeling generated makes users more likely to ‘convert’.

Elisa introduced PETscan, HFI’s methodology for evaluating online decision making. The techniques used are explained in a white paper available from HFI’s site. The trouble is, people are notoriously bad at telling you how emotions guide their purchasing, so it takes a very skilled facilitator to extract and interpret this information. PETscan takes roughly twice the time of a standard usability survey, and can only be performed on live sites. HFI realises that these factors would make PETscan an expensive luxury for some clients, so they recommend ‘PET-inspired’ activities, which can take place at any time during the development of a website or application.

The main learning for us at DLKW is that we must adapt and expand our user-centred design techniques. Incorporating user motivations into our personas and user journeys will really help. So will working closely with the design and copy teams to identify the most persuasive ways of communicating with the user. This is the beginning of an exciting journey – we’ll keep you posted!

Federico Grosso, blinkx.com

From a technological perspective I reckon this presentation was one of the best I’ve seen in internetworld2008. I thought the idea to ‘understand’ the video content was still in research but actually they’ve built a comprehensive (and commercial) solution. This is how it works (from blinkx website):

“blinkx takes a holistic approach to video search: the power of its solution lies in using every characteristic of the video itself to understand the content. For example, blinkx listens to the sound track using speech-to-text technology, looks at the images on screen using advanced video analytics, and reads other information embedded into the file by using media-analysis plug-ins to extract, for example, closed captioning. In this way, blinkx is processing as much information as possible to enable both extremely accurate search, and more advanced operations such as automatic hyperlinking of related content or implicit query, which understands the content a user is producing and viewing”

They provide a plethora of services including the search itself, desktop application, blog plugins, etc and with their contextual advertising model it’s possible to use keywords to trigger relevant ads. For instance, if a mobile phone operator would like to display a message/ad every time someone complains about their brand they can do that!

Of course it’s not perfect as it should be. If you type ‘DLKW’ keyword in blinkx you just get 2 results. I did the same on youtube and it’s about 20 results, most of them relevant – and they’re based mainly on the video descriptions.

Apart from the innovative technology they also bring in some new ideas which might open up our UX minds like the ‘video wall’ and new ways to integrate video to content.

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‘.

Simon Norris, Nomensa

I’ve attended this kind of presentation a couple of times and actually we do a very similar here at DLKW (in a workshop). It’s an introduction about UX, what is it, why “experience is everything” and how UX increases returns and is a core asset for successful online companies. I’d say that’s the way we sell UX! I’ll share some comments here.

According to Simon, UX is the “overall experience that a product delivers” and includes understanding behaviour and translating it into designs.

Here is his UX cloud which I captured in my notepad:

This one was the first presentation of the day which someone talked about trust, a recurring theme on most presentations I’ve attended. Trust is something the users ‘feel’ and not something you can simply impose somehow on your website. Trust is an experiential factor and needs to be worked out from a user experience perspective. Rating systems, user comments, credit cards can give the users a better sense of trust. I’ll be thinking more about this…

Imano, Heena Shah

I got a bit late for the Google University Adwords presentation so I decided to enter in the first room with available seats and it happened to be this one. By the way it was quite interesting (and short) and she talked us through the new trends and the future of fashion ecommerce segment.

Social interaction:

• Social shopping
• Loyalty schemes
• Relational items
• Widgets
• Blogs

Examples:
http://www.osoyou.com
http://www.like.com

Future

• Digital mirrors: how the product would look
• Digital reality: how the product would feel (haptics)

More:
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2168427/technology-give-real-feel

Conclusions:

• Fashion is one of the fastest online growing sector
• All companies are online
• Video and visualisation tools will eventually fill the gap between real and virtual

I believe those points would work as a general trend and not only for fashion. But they’re fantastic! I didn’t want to talk about food in this blog, but… could you imagine feeling the ingredients and even the taste online before you try out new recipes?

I just noticed I haven’t added an introductory post about
internetworld2008 – which is probably going to be the main subject for the 1^st
week of the blog. Each of us is going one day of the event and at the end we’ll
share our thoughts. Since we’ll share it internally anyway, why not share this
in a blog?