Linköping Service Jam 2012
Nu är det dags igen. Förra året var en succé med en hel helg av roligt umgänge, idésprutande och massor av tjänsteskapande. Det är naturligtvis Global Service Jam vi pratar om.
Den 24 februari 2012 kommer designers, studenter, akademiker, affärsmänniskor, kunder, skådespelare, antropologer och andra som brinner för tjänster och användarupplevelser att träffas på mer än 40 olika platser världen över.
I en anda av experimenterande, innovation, samarbete och vänskaplig tävlan kommer vi ha mindre än 48 timmar på oss att utveckla och prototypa helt nya tjänster inspirerade av ett gemensamt tema. I slutet av helgen kommer alla dessa helt nya tjänster att presenteras för världen.
Vill du också delta i denna världsomspännande händelse?
Antrop anordnar ett lokalt jam i Linköping. Det är kostnadsfritt och allt du behöver göra är att anmäla dig på http://gsj12lkpg.eventbrite.com
Jammet startar 17.00 med mingel och uppvärmning i Antrops lokaler i Corren-huset på Badhusgatan 5 i Linköping. 18.30 avslöjas årets tema. Klockan 15 på söndagen redovisar alla lag sitt resultat. Vad som händer däremellan är helt upp till dig!
Det är som sagt gratis att delta, men vi tar ut en avgift på 300 kr om man anmäler sig och inte dyker upp, utan att avanmäla sig senast dagen innan.
Har du frågor kan du kontakta Victor Saradlic på victor.saradlic@antrop.se eller läsa mer på http://www.globalservicejam.com
Vill du läsa mer om vad vi gjorde förra året på Global Service Jam kan du läsa om det här och här.
Välkommen!
En diskussion om IT i vården
Läkare som coachar sina patienter via digitala kanaler – det var den diskussion som jag tyckte var mest intressant när STIMDI i slutet på september ordnade en paneldiskussion om IT i vården. Panelen bestod av personer som arbetar just med sådana frågor, men med olika perspektiv.
Antrop representerades av Elin Axelsson, som under en längre tid har hjälpt Inera med interaktionsdesign och kravinsamling för funktioner och användargränssnitt för Pascal, ett nationellt ordinationsverktyg som i första versionen är inriktat på dosordinationer. Inera var också representerade, i form av Marie Eliasson som är projektledare för Pascal. Därutöver deltog Kerstin Beckman från OmVård.se, Jonas Söderström från inUse, Bengt Sandblad från Uppsala Universitet. Moderator och initiativtagare till debatten var Zayera Khan.
Zayera Khan, Bengt Sandbladh, Kerstin Beckman, Elin Axelsson, Jonas Söderström och Marie Eliasson redo för samtal.
Diskussionen om coachande läkare berör egentligen synen på vård i stort. Traditionellt träffar patienten vårdpersonal då och då, och däremellan förekommer mycket lite eller ingen kontakt mellan parterna (detta gäller förstås inte all vård, men en betydande del). Journalsystemen används för att förbereda inför, och dokumentera efter, ett besök.
Ett annat sätt att se på vården är att den ska fungera som en kontinuerlig kontakt mellan patient och vårdpersonal. IT-systemen borde i sådana fall vara ett alltid tillgängligt stöd för patienten. Hälsovärden kan löpande skickas från patienten till vårdpersonal som då kan monitorera utvecklingen i hälsotillståndet, och ge rekommendationer och stöd via digitala kanaler. Läkarens roll skulle i ett sådant scenario gå mot en mer coachande funktion och man skulle kunna dra nytta av fördelarna med positiv förstärkning, det vill säga att ge positiv återkoppling när patienten gör bra saker.
Samtidigt är det viktigt att det inte blir merarbete för vårdpersonalen, fokus ska förstås inte vara att hantera olika IT-system utan patientens hälsa. En förutsättning är således att dessa mer moderna IT-system ger mer tid till att ägna sig åt patienten, till exempel genom att möjliggöra en effektivare dialog, att eliminera besök som egentligen inte behövs, och att använda de besök som görs på ett bättre sätt.
Gradvis sker ett generationsskifte inom vården, där yngre personer som vuxit upp med internet och har en stor vana av och höga förväntningar på IT-system, ersätter äldre personer som inte är lika vana vid och medvetna om vilka krav man kan ställa. Det är nog inte orimligt att föreställa sig att den yngre generationen dessutom kan föra med sig en annan syn på vården i stort som kan påverka ett sådant kulturskifte (även om det givetvis finns andra faktorer som spelar in).
För vår, och övriga UX-branschens, del är det intressant att följa och förstå förändringarna i synen på vård, då de kommer att vara faktorer som i olika utsträckning påverkar vilka typer av IT-system som kommer att beställas, utvecklas och användas inom vårdområdet.
Jag fick intrycket av att denna paneldiskussion kommer att bli startskottet för en större satsning på UX inom vården från STIMDI:s sida, vilket vi på Antrop tycker vore både välbehövligt och väldigt spännande att vara en del av.
Framtidens UX-research: WUD 2011
I torsdags förra veckan höll jag en presentation på World Usability Day i Stockholm med titeln “Framtidens UX research”
Huvudbudskapet i presentationen var att vi måste lyfta oss från den nivå vi normalt jobbar på i projekt idag. Oavsett om vi kommer in i tid och får göra ett bra arbete är vi i ett projekt alltid bundna av projektets ramar. Dessa är ofta knutna till organisatoriska strukturer och ansvarsområden och berör därför ofta bara en kanal (t.ex. Web) och en begränsad fas (t.ex. Boka biljetter). I verkligheten är kundens möte med en organisation mycket mer komplext och sträcker sig över tid, rum och kanaler. Genom att lyfta perspektivet och arbeta med att undersöka och användningsupplevelsen över tid, rum och kanaler kan vi åstadkomma flera saker:
- Vi kan bidra med strategiskt viktig information för att prioritera budgetar och satsningar till där de ur ett upplevelseperspektiv gör mest nytta
- Vi kan innovera och hitta möjligheter till produkt– och tjänsteutveckling som grundar sig i verkliga behov men som inte är begränsade till strukturer som speglar organisationens uppbyggnad och ansvarsområden
- Vi kan förstå och förbättra användningsupplevelsen mellan faser och kanaler och skapa lösningar som sömnlöst följer med och stöttar kunder i hur de naturligt rör sig genom tid, rum och kanaler.
Irritera inte dina användare: använd informationen du har
Jag satt i helgen med en hög räkningar och andra “viktiga papper” framför mig. Flera av papprena började lite smått akut kräva åtgärd trots att jag gjort mitt bästa för att ignorera dem. Man skulle nästan kunna säga att jag passionerat avskyr pappersarbete av den här typen. Så, jag var inte direkt på mitt bästa humör.
Jag satte i alla fall igång med att betala räkningar på min internetbank, Nordea. När jag skulle betala min bilförsäkring missade jag bindestrecket i Bankgiro-numret och möttes av följande felmeddelande när jag försökte gå vidare.
“Ange kontonumret med streck enligt följande exempel på format, för PlusGiro 1234567–8 och för Bankgiro 1234–5678 eller 123–45678.”
En tanke slog mig direkt: Varför använda exempel och inte de siffror jag faktiskt skrivit in och varför inte direkt berätta vilka mottagare som äger kontona?
Sålunda slängde jag ihop följande skiss där man får välja ett av de tre möjliga kontonumren. Information visas dessutom i direkt anslutning till det fält som anses vara felaktigt ifyllt.
Under arbetet med skissen märkte jag dock något intressant. Inget av kontona Bankgiro 534–79499 eller PlusGiro 5347949–9 existerar. Alltså måste det vara Bankgiro 5347–9499 jag menade när jag skrev mina åtta kontosiffror utan bindestreck. Så egentligen hade Nordea inte behövt besvära mig med ett felmeddelande över huvud taget!
När jag ändå satt med min hög med “viktiga papper” så passade jag också på att ansöka om föräldrapenning. Jag ska nämligen få mitt första barn vid årsskiftet, vilket känns helt fantastiskt. Det kändes inte riktigt lika underbart att försöka använda Försäkringskassans webbtjänster.
Det tar ett tag innan jag lyckas logga in på Försäkringskassan med min e-legitimation från Nordea. Detta fungerar nämligen inte på Mac, utan jag blir tvungen att starta en virtuell instans av Windows. Jag tror det här är Nordeas fel, men det är en annan historia.
Väl inloggad tar det ett bra tag innan jag lyckas hitta en fungerande väg in föräldrapenningsansökningsflödet. Några steg in möts jag av en del underliga texter. Jag får information om att jag måste skicka in mitt moderskapsintyg så fort som möjligt. Det skrivs också om min graviditet (i biologisk bemärkelse). Detta trots att jag är inloggad och att Försäkringskassan mycket väl vet att jag är av manligt kön.
Varför utgå ifrån att den som söker föräldrapenning är kvinnan som är gravid med barnet? Och ännu viktigare: Varför inte anpassa texten efter mottagaren som ni ju ändå har väldigt mycket information om?
Hur bemöter du dina användare? Frågar du dem om information du redan har? Ger du dem information som du egentligen vet inte är riktad till dem? Tänker du på att de antagligen inte är på sitt bästa humör utan bara vill bli färdiga så fort som möjligt?
(Bonusbuggrapporter till Försäkringskassan: 1. Första gången jag tog mig igenom det tämligen långa och komplexa föräldrapenningsansökningsflödet så krashade det på sluttampen, antagligen för att jag tryckte en andra gång på “Slutför” när inget hänt på tre minuter. 2. Det går inte att komma tillbaka till listan med sökresultat genom att trycka på webbläsarens bakåtknapp.)
Could it be fun to drive safely?
On a regular basis Antrop’s consultants get the opportunity to spend one day to work on an idea, one that doesn’t have to do with any of the projects we work with for our clients. The only condition is that at the end of the day, something tangible needs to be delivered, may it be a high-level concept, a prototype application, some nice illustrations or a written analysis of something. A while ago we spent one day working on an idea about how one could make our roads safer, and this is the concept we came up with after one day of researching, brainstorming and wireframing. Although the concept is developed for Sweden (and the research is based on Swedish data), we are quite sure it could be applied elsewhere.
In 2010, 249 people were killed and 2325 injured in traffic accidents according to the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket).
This is of course disturbing, and far from the vision formulated by said authority; nobody killed or seriously injured in traffic.
The tricky question is how we can improve traffic safety and lower these dreary numbers. Seemingly, the major part of safety improvement today concerns technology; construction of the car body, materials, auto-detect and auto-stop systems, crash barriers etc. Even though such efforts are important, all accidents cannot be eliminated by technology. Human behaviour is still a contributing factor, and, we might add, a significant one. We wanted to address this aspect.
One way of influencing our behaviour on the roads is the legal system with laws and sanctions. However efficient – and necessary – this may be, we believe another approach could be used in parallel to influence our behaviour even more.
We started to discuss how we could make people want to drive more safely.
First of all, what driving safely means and entails isn’t entirely obvious and easy to pinpoint, but for this concept we refer to following traffic rules, keeping speed limits (especially in dense areas and around schools) and not driving for too long without taking breaks (we are aware that this is a bit simplified, but we feel it suffices as a hypothesis in this case).
Since feedback loops are known to be a powerful method for changing people’s behaviour (see this great Wired article if you haven’t already), we figured that would be a great tool to help create the desired behavioural change.
Positive reinforcement when you do something good, as opposed to negative feedback when you don’t, is in our experience more effective if you want to increase the motivation for behavioural change. Many features of what is often referred to as ‘gamification’ are examples of such feedback. Although some regard the notion of gamification as over-hyped – and we agree that there might be some truth to that – there are some very interesting aspects of it that are difficult to dismiss. Positive reinforcement is one, playfulness another.
We have seen that movements like pedometer challenges, where companies and organizations compete against each other under game-like conditions, help improve people’s exercising habits. Services like RunKeeper and Nike+, also characterized by gamification features, have grown dramatically and people share their exercising results in various social networks. Volkswagen’s initiative The Fun Theory illustrates that people can be influenced to use stairs instead of escalators in the subway if it is more fun and reduce speed if positively reinforced.
Today, in many countries, the infrastructure (e.g. 3G-connectivity and GPS) and high penetration of smartphones and other mobile devices, enables quite advanced services. Nowadays modern cars register a number of parameters that can provide information about the driving, and they are also equipped with advanced interfaces where drivers and passengers both can monitor performance and interact with the car (see some examples from Ford below).
So, based on our thoughts and insights on positive reinforcement, gamification and the technical possibilities we came up with the following concept.
The overall goal is to make it fun and rewarding to drive safely. The concept consists of an app for mobile devices and a web site. You use the mobile app when you drive, and it keeps track of how you drive, and helps you drive safely along the way. For instance, it asks you to slow down when you are going too fast – but not by nagging but by encouraging you to drive slower in order to gain more points. It can also warn you that there is a school around the next corner or remind you to take a rest after every 100th or so kilometer. Your driving is rated and after every trip you will receive a score. You will also get cheerful messages whenever you make good decisions along the way. All information is given or presented to you in positive and playful ways. It will be a bit like playing a game, where you are the main character on a mission to drive safely.
The web site presents more information on your driving, for instance you can view relevant statistics as graphs and tables. The web site is also where you manage and monitor your challenges, regardless of whether you are competing within your company or with the entire nation. Of course you can share your driving information, if you so wish, with your friends and followers on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
We believe that this needs to be a broad movement in order for it to make any significant difference. Therefore we think that there could be challenges similar to the popular pedometer challenges, and winners could be given public attention in TV shows (imagine the lucky winner being handed a prize cup by, say, Kenny Bräck on Allsång på Skansen).
We believe insurance companies could have an interest in this and safe driving could be rewarded with lowered insurance premium. If this would reach a governmental level reduced car taxes or dropped congestion charges could be possible incentives. Also, obviously, some major TV network must be involved. For marketing and PR purposes there could be campaigns where you during limited periods of time compete with well-known people, like for instance Swedish racing celebrity Tina Thörner.
What do you think, would you use a service like this? Do you think it could influence how people drive?
User Research – How I Saved Time Using Audiobooks
When 2 researchers is 1 too many, what do you do? When we’re doing user research at Antrop there’s almost always two of us present per interview session: one is performing the interview and the other takes notes. The document that we use for note taking is as structured as the interview guide, and that gives you the pleasure of getting a rough structure in the raw material – from the beginning. The major benefit of this is to streamline the research process, as the note taking never takes longer time than conducting the interviews.
But this is not the case when, for some reason or another, you are alone doing the research. Then you have to perform the interview by yourself, record the session, and write down notes afterwards by listening to the recording. Is that a time-consuming activity, or what?
In a recent project I had to pursue the latter approach, since somebody else already had made the interviews.
At first, I started off using the iPod app on my iPhone to listen to the interviews. But it was tedious listening in real-time during periods when nothing much was said … Then an idea crossed my mind – what if I use the Quicktime player on my Mac and listen to the recording in 2x speed? Unfortunately, it turned out to be slightly worse, since I couldn’t hear much of what was said.
I was ready to give up, so I had to tell myself: This is going to take a whole lot of time, Erik, BUT in the end it will be worth it. It will be worth it.
And then it happened! I realized that iPod has a special function for the audiobook format to listen to a book in 2x speed while still making it clear and easy to hear what is being said. Hooray!
So, I converted all of my mp3-files for each location where we had done interviews (about 3–6 files each) into one audiobook per location using Audiobook builder.
This worked so much better. I could focus my attention on getting the right insights instead of listening to every word the informants had to say. Relief!
4 smart advantages:
- The format makes it possible to listen to a recording in double speed while still maintaining clarity (using the iPod app).
- There is a button in the iPod app to jump back 30 seconds in the recording. This is ideal if you are typing and suddenly realize that you don’t remember what was said.
- You can collect several recordings into a “binder” (an audiobook) and jump between files.
- The app remembers your position in each file and lets you resume where you left off in each recording if you skip between files or books.
Now, what’s your tips for a streamlined user research? Keep the discussion going in the comments.
Android – To Industry and Beyond?
As you may know, Google has taken an (arguably) open approach with Android that makes it suitable for use in other domains than just mobile phones. About a week ago, I attended a full-day conference devoted to the use of Android beyond smart-phones and tablets that the Swedish Institute of Computer Science organized: Android-dagen. Several presenters from the industry and academia gave interesting talks and demos.
These are my 5 key takeaways from the conference:
- Android is being used in more and more products, such as medical equipment, cars, airplanes and even coffee machines and point-of-sale systems. This is mainly due to demand for better user experiences than traditional embedded systems can deliver.
- It is easy to create something and get it out there fast. There are a lot of skilled Android developers today, and unless you want to use the brand name Android on your product itself or in the marketing of it, there are very few restrictions from Google on what you are allowed to do or not with the Android OS.
- Although Android doesn’t meet all of the industry demands with regards to e.g. performance and certification issues, it can be used to build attractive user interfaces on top of underlying systems that are built on some other operating system. It can also be used to quickly prototype and test ideas, by building on things like the Open Accessory Development Kit and Arduino.
- There is a lot of off-the-shelf hardware, mainly phones and tablets, that can easily be stripped or modified, but there are also a lot of device manufacturers that will allow to you slap your own logo onto their hardware for a small fee.
- Most of the patent disputes that are plaguing Android right now are related to mobile phones and multitouch, and several of the presenters argued that as long as you stay out of those areas you should be fine.
Here is a very short write-up of the presentations that I listened to:
Android on Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Robert Niemi from Enea highlighted some of the advantages with Android: large developer base (400,000 Android developers according to Google), and cheap hardware, that is possible to buy off-the-shelf and customize if necessary. He also spoke about how Android is sneaking into the automotive and aerospace industries, with the Android-based in-flight entertainment system on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as one prominent example.
Check Your Blood Pressure
Nur Yilmazturk-Andersson from the Wind River Android Centre of Excellence talked about Android in the medical industry, and did a live demo of a tablet application that gathered information from a pulse oximeter and a blood pressure monitor in realtime. (She also took the opportunity to bash poor Robert Niemi for his high blood pressure and prescribed rest and relaxation…)
Robot Operators with High Expectations
Tomas Lagerberg from ABB Automation Technologies talked about the challenges of industrial automation (including equipment lifespan and requirements of real-time monitoring and reaction down to millisecond levels), and concluded that Android currently might not meet the requirements as a basis for automation industries, but could be a viable option for thin clients running on tablets or phones as a part of a larger IT infrastructure. He also highlighted the importance of an attractive user experience, since the smartphone-swinging, tablet-touting kids of today are tomorrow’s robot operators and process engineers. They will have very high expectations on their workplace user interfaces as well.
A Platform for User Interaction
Olavi Kumpulainen from Prevas talked a lot about the legal and certificatory challenges of using Android in the medical industry. He concluded that Android is perhaps best suited as a platform for user interaction, while the critical underlying systems are built on something else.
Snowball – Not Quite a Mobile Phone
Björn Ekelund from ST-Ericsson talked about how to leverage the mobile phone development when innovating around Android in other industries. He stressed the fact that the mobile industry is way ahead of all other industries when it comes to components. There’s nowhere else you can get components with such high performance and low power consumption for such an attractive price. He also presented Snowball, basically a kind of mobile phone hardware without the telephony radio features, but with GPS, accelerometer and all the usual sensors. It is intended as a convenient way to quickly get up and running with Android-based innovation and ST-Ericsson is also building a developer community around it.
The Importance of User Experience
Vladan Jovanovic from Freescale talked about how industry interest for Android is growing, with the user experience as one of the main drivers. However, there are currently a lot of hardware issues around Android. There are a lot of devices out there, but typically they don’t meet industry requirements in terms of long life span, temperature resistance and ruggedness. There is also a lack of support for for peripherals such as Ethernet ports and more. These are problems that Freescale aims to solve by providing custom Android hardware that fits the industry needs.
A Nice Development Environment
Patrik Lindergren from Chargestorm pointed out that there are a lot of similarities between a mobile phone and embedded systems in e.g. modern excavators: touchscreen UIs, 3G connectivity, GPS and more. Thus, Android is a good fit for industrial applications as it also has advantages like a nice development environment and simulator. It is also possible to write C/C++ code than can run natively on the device if high performance is required.
Linking The Digital World with The Physical
David Cuartielles from Arduino and Malmö University talked about the Internet of Things and what is missing for it to really take off. Apart from lack of usable design tools and viable subscription and roaming models for 3G connectivity (which makes it hard to manifacture devices with built-in SIM cards in one country and ship them worldwide), David pointed to the need of more mobile configuration user interfaces. Currently too much has to be done on a PC instead of mobile phones and tablets. He then demonstrated how Android Open Accessory Development Kit can be used together with Arduino to quickly prototype devices and services that can link the digital and the physical world.
User Interfaces Made by Antrop
To sum it up, we can expect to see Android being used in more and more different devices and at Antrop, we are of course ready to take on the challenge of designing their user interfaces. Personally I love designing for more “odd” products and have experience from UI design for appliances of all sizes: from professional ovens and humongous inserter machines for printing presses to one-button Bluetooth bracelets with minimal displays.
Actually, one of Antrop’s first major projects was designing UIs for programming industrial robots. Perhaps we will soon come full circle, but this time using Android?
Are we personalizing away diversity?
When working in the user experience field, personalization is a topic that comes up at some point in many – if not most – projects. Not only do we often recommend our clients to use personalization to enhance the usability of their intranets, web sites or apps, we also help them implement it.
In all these cases personalization is considered, by our clients, by their customers/users and by us, to be something that improves the user experience. You rarely hear about the down-sides of, or risks with, personalization.
In his TEDTalk from February 2011, Eli Pariser talks about this issue:
Eli exemplifies with two of the world’s most well-visited web sites; Facebook and Google. In his first example, Eli shows how Facebook edits out links to articles that he is less likely to read. Links posted by Eli’s conservative Facebook friends have almost disappeared from his feed as he has, historically, clicked on more links posted by liberal friends. Consequently, Eli’s political views and his perception of the world is continuously reinforced and not really challenged by people who are different-minded.
The other example shows that when two of Eli’s friends google the exact same search phrase at the same time they get different search results, based on where they are (geographically) the moment they hit the search button, what type of computer and browser they use and some 55 other hidden factors. For one of the friends, a search on “egypt” results in hits regarding the uprising and protests, while for the other friend no such hits make it to the top of the result page; instead his results mainly concern travel.
I think personalization is useful in general, but at the same time I find it quite worrying that there are “invisible” algorithms that filter out information without us really understanding what gets filtered out. I am convinced that information that we often don’t really “want” is, in fact, extremely important to us. Not being able to see opinions contrary from ours or the reports that go against the consensus and question our belief systems could, in my opinion, pose a great threat to us regardless of whether we are a business or a society.
According to Google’s Eric Schmidt, “it will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them”. From a usability point of view, this could be argued to be something good as usability efforts usually strive to adapt information to the users, but on a higher level this is a somewhat disturbing statement and I feel it should trigger a deeper discussion about personalization and what negative effects it may have.
There are of course differences between public internet services and, say, corporate intranets. On intranets, much of the content is ‘neutral’ and users usually need to find a specific piece of information. For instance, when Anna looks for her employer’s travel guidelines on the intranet, personalization can be very helpful in presenting the travel guidelines that are valid for her instead of those valid for her colleagues in other countries.
However, many intranets contain a lot more than official information; there are the unofficial discussions, the employer-generated ideas and the informal notes from both successful and failed projects and initiatives. Even within an organization, not being able to see the whole picture just because you are based in a certain country or belong to a certain organizational unit, may lead to less knowledgeable employers and interesting opportunities being missed.
On a more individual level, it can be very rewarding to depersonalize your information consumption every now and then. Read a magazine about something far from your interests or talk to people with completely different views and opinions. The worst that could happen is that you get a little bored for a while, but it is far more likely that you will learn new things and gain new perspectives — and that is very rarely a bad thing.
Copy and Content for Better Conversion
“Design should serve the words, not the other way around”. Jason Fried at 37 Signals knows what good copywriting can do for your business.
Today I would like to give you some inspiring examples that I believe will give you serious cravings for a content strategist with brilliant writing skills right away. I’m going to show you how 37 Signals, Telenor, Tetra Pak and Amazon improved conversions, ROI, sales, efficiency – or what ever objective they had in mind. And how some of them also made the users happier.
Test Different Kinds of Headlines
Let’s start with Jason and his team. They use A/B-tests to constantly improve their collaboration tools. Well, the tests themselves don’t improve anything, but the more or less radical changes of copy, concept and design that the team did as a result of the tests, do.
For example, the team rotated five versions of headlines and subheads on the signup page of Highrise, to see if they had any effect on signups.
The original headline, in imperative mood, performed worse. That’s interesting – people in my profession (including myself) usually recommend clients to be more imperative when they write headlines. This is a commonly used recommendation with regards to plain language, based on the fact that the human mind is more receptive to active verbs (like “start”).
Nevertheless I prefer the winning variant, because it doesn’t explicit tell me what to do, but gives me a reason to start an account. And I’m not alone – this change of headline resulted in 30% better conversion rate.
In the presentation of Highrise, the team made the headline more emotional. A new headline along the lines of “Know your contacts by heart” was used instead of a more fact oriented “Manage your contacts efficiently”. Do you think it gave better or worse conversion? Listen to this podcast interview with Jason Fried.
$300 Million by Renaming a Button
Next example. Have you ever heard story of Amazon’s $300 Million Button? Before usability tests were made, you had to go trough a login form to manage your purchases, with fields for Email Address and Password, buttons for Login and Register, and a link named Forgot Pass-word. You still do, but one of those words was changed after the tests.
The test showed users didn’t want to register. As one user expressed it:
– I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.
So Amazon (or in fact Jared M. Spool at User Interface Engineering) simply changed the Register button to a Continue button, with the following microcopy below:
“You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.”
The results:
- The number of customers purchasing went up by 45%.
- The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million the first month.
- For the first year, the site saw an additional $300,000,000.
Why Deleting is Improving
Another way to achieve success is to put your website on a diet. Cut the crap, says Ove Dalen at Netlife Research. He spoke at the Content Strategy Forum in London recently, on the topic why deleting is improving. Take a look at his presentation and especially the Telenor example. The telecom giant reduced the web content by 80%, resulting in increased sales, more self-service, and improved customer satisfaction.
The intranet of Tetra Pak is another example. To improve the ability of the employees to do frequently performed tasks in the intranet, Gerry McGovern at Customer Carewords recommended the diet approach. And by removing more than 50% of the content, they didn’t only improve the quality on the intranet, but also got better search results.
Gerry McGovern is questioning why the time it takes to create and publish content is measured and managed, but the time spent by employees, who need to use these resources, is not. It’s an interesting aspect, but let’s save that discussion for next time.
Now, why don’t you give in to your cravings for a content strategist?
My name is Nina and I’ll be happy to improve your content. I can’t stop talking about the benefits of having a content strategy, and I’m at the top of my game when I can work together with an Interaction Designer and an Art Director.
How to create an Experience Map
In a previous blog post I talked about experience mapping and how we found it to be a useful tool in some of our recent projects. In this blog post I will focus on the process of creating an experience map.
Three steps to create an Experience Map
In a recent project we worked together with a large international company to help them gain insight into their customers’ experiences, in the context of e-commerce. As a part of this study we created an experience map and I will use this example to describe what steps we found crucial in this work.
The effort of creating an experience map can vary depending on resources and level of ambition. Some dots quickly scrabbled on a piece of paper during a workshop is sometimes enough to get everyone into a customer focused mode. However, when aiming for deep insights and grounds for strategic decisions there is a need to dig deeper.
1. Listen to the customers
To create an experience map you obviously need experiences. If possible you want real ones, told to you by the customers themselves. Simply knowing that certain behaviours occur is a poor source for new ideas and new thinking. The more real life experience you get from the customers, the more insights and ideas will come from the project.
In this particular project we based the experience mapping on a set of in-depth interviews with people of the designated target group. The interviews took place in the participants’ homes and the interviews were recorded on video, to be used later for presentation of the study. We were two people in the team, one person interviewing and the other person taking notes, taking photographs and recording video (multitasking is king). Our goal was to capture stories of real examples and true situations, as experienced by the customers.
Projects like this generates a great deal of material. To avoid drowning in information, we planned some time for a debrief after each interview. Sitting down at the nearest café, we listed all interesting observations from the recent interview.
2. Pinpoint experiences into the map
To start working with the material we needed a way of displaying what we knew. We took over a conference room at our office in Stockholm and plastered the walls with inteview findings. It turned out to be crucial to have a permanent place for displaying our findings and it became a natural place for creative meetings. The customers interviewed were central for the project and we posted their photos on the wall to make sure to we kept them in mind.
To begin the mapping process we printed out all observations listed in the debrief document, on small pieces of paper. On one of the walls we wrote down the main steps found in the customer experience and posted the paper notes onto the wall, under each step. The experience map slowly began to emerge. Some sorting out and some merging was done before finally transferring the result into digital form.
3. Look for opportunities
The experience map and the video recordings were important deliveries in this project, but alone they are not enough to develop the basis for innovation. Conducting the interviews and participating in the creative meetings, the team will gather a lot of insights that are hard to fully transfer to the rest of the organisation. Therefore, it’s important that we also state our conclusions and suggest what implications this will have on the service and on potential developments. Throughout the project we used one of the walls in the project room to collect all conclusions, impacts, opportunities and concepts emerging from analysis and discussions. This was later presented together with the experience map and selected video clips.
Three is not a crowd
Working close together with the client is crucial during this type of project. The outcome will be a basis for strategic decisions, rather than short term design suggestions. Therefore, it’s important to transfer the general understanding of the customers and their experiences with the service. So make sure to involve the client during both interviews and creative sessions throughout the project. To really add value we then need commitment not only within the project team, but also in the rest of the organisation. The magic will happen when findings and conclusions from the study are actively discussed, argued and refined throughout the organisation – across the traditional silos.
