“Aren’t people in Hong Kong and China different from the rest of the world? Don’t they like clutter and pages full of content and links? All the sites are currently designed in this way, it must mean that people like it.”

Below is a prime example of a very popular site that just overwhelms users with content and flashy stuff:

Notice how much space the navigation area takes and how many links it includes. Also note this is the gaming area of the site, but the main content inthe middle at the very top is a news digest. See it live at http://games.sina.com.cn.

So, in this article I decided to use two examples from real life to try to show that industry standards and the status quo are not always there because they are best and that with a bit of faith in the concept focusing on really pleasing the user/customer can help you make a difference.

Chinese Restaurants in Hong Kong

Hygiene has been a ubiquitous problem in Hong Kong for ages. Tales of food poisoning pop up in the newspapers regularly. Yet hygiene inspectors and the government seem totally useless in trying to solve the issue. As a result, the norm now in Hong Kong when people go to their local “Dim Sum” restaurant is to start by washing bowls, spoons and chopsticks with tea before they are deemed safe enough to eat with.

Some might point to this habit as part of the local folklore, but as a user experience practitioner I cannot help but being revolted by a situation like this. Restaurant hygiene everywhere in the world is taken for granted, so why would Hong Kong people have to be worried about it and take matter in their own hands. Is that the best solution to this problem? Will we soon have to bring our own chopsticks to restaurants because of hygiene reasons?

In Hong Kong the traditional "Dim Sum" starts with a cleaning session

Yet, everyone around is just used to this situation and now this cleaning process is part of the going to a Chinese restaurant experience, deeply embedded into people’s habits. Does it mean new restaurants should not care about hygiene in their kitchen because of the current status quo?

Real Estate practices

Hong Kong people spend a large amount of their time hunting for flats. In a sense you would think that something so important for Hong Kong people would have long been optimized so that anyone could take part in it with very little learning required. On the contrary, many rules and ways have to be learned first before hunting for a flat in Hong Kong.

One such rule concerns square footage. Simply looking at square footage on a advertisement for a flat is useless in Hong Kong. The information is only meaningful when looking at the combination of the square footage with the building where the flat is located. That’s because the advertised square footage is gross (it includes walls, public areas and lots of other things), so depending on the building where you want to purchase your flat, the net square footage might be actually somwhere between 70% and 90% of the gross one.

Knowing the real size of a flat requires learning the utilization rate in all buildings in Hong Kong. Great to train memory, but...

So, it is impossible to go out and shop for say a 800 sq. ft. apartment and just look for this number on advertisements. You have to look at flats with a higher square footage and calculate yourself depending on the utilization rate of the building what is the actual usable size of a flat. This is the standard in the industry and people who took the time to learn the rule take pride in having mastered this trick. Still, this obscure rule makes it very hard for many people to actually know the size of their apartment. Not very user friendly.

Conclusions

I see two conclusions to draw from the above two examples. First, standards are not right just because they exist. Historical factors, bad regulations or bad designers may be the reason for such standards to have appeared. If nothing is there to challenge the status quo things remain and the end user suffers, while company fail to differentiate and offer better services.

The second conclusion, very important in Asia, is that the culture here is one of adaptability. People are used to made do with what they are given, instead of rebelling against it and trying to change things. As a result (and because of many more cultural traits) it is naive to think that users or customers in general are going to openly criticize an existing situation or design. As mention above, it takes a leap of faith, but focusing on users and their needs is bound to pay off here, as everywhere else.

Related posts:

1. Funny Company Name
2. The end of User-Generated Content?
3. Follow-up on user-generated content…

Reading on the Kindle

In a world of ever greater device integration, ebook readers seem to be anachronisms. iPhones enable phone calls, taking pictures, web browsing, gaming, reading and much more… all in one device!

What do ebook Readers do? Well, they allow their users to … read books. So, what is so special about ebook readers that makes them an item of choice for many? And how can the ebook experience be pushed further to lure more people into purchasing them? These are the two questions I’ll focus on in this first post.

In a second post, I will focus more specifically on the Kindle interface design with its goods and bads.

Why ebook readers?

I remember two specific conversations I had after purchasing my Kindle. In one over MSN, a friend of mine showed his total incomprehension when I said I had bought a device entirely dedicated to reading books. His iPhone could be used to read documents and books. Why would anyone buy an ebook reader? And in another instance, another friend as we were discussing the Kindle with other IxDA members took out the book she was carrying and said that she could never switch from physical books to electronic ones. She mentioned the much wider array of sensory stimuli she felt as she was reading her book – its smell, the coffee stains on it, etc. (More on this in my previous post about Steve Portigal’s research)

Good for any book?

As I was trying to justify my purchase to these two friends it appeared clearly to me that ebook readers are not for everyone, and are not for every book as well. It does not make any sense at this point to purchase a design book or say a book relying heavily on visuals on the Kindle. The technology with the black and white screen is just too limited for that. But I would argue that it only takes a try to realize that for more or less any other kinds of books, an e-version is a very good option.

Good for anyone?

Then, are ebook readers for everyone? Well, in Hong Kong especially where there is very little reading culture, an ebook reader is just not going to be appealing to the mass market. People read very short articles or reports. And for that a mobile phone and a computer are very good reading tools. The great contrast and clarity of eink may not represent a huge plus. The advantages of ebook readers appear more clearly for people who read a lot of books. In my case, I have no significant bookshelf space in my small Hong Kong flat, every book I buy lies around somewhere and ends up being a burden after I finished reading it. Only books that I really enjoy and would read again find their permanent place in my home (this may actually still make me buy real books after I enjoyed reading them on the Kindle).

Giving more choice?

Another major problem – also pretty specific to Hong Kong – is that the choice of books in bookstore is very limited. Many times, Amazon.com is the only channel available to get books here and the Kindle seemed a good solution to alleviate this problem. Unfortunately, a few searches for books in the Kindle store after my purchase revealed that the Kindle’s range of choice was actually pretty limited as well, thus not solving this problem in the end.

Real-time Connectivity

Finally, and for me one of the most important feature of ebook readers is their real-time connectivity, arguably not an ebook feature, but more the fact that they have wireless connection. Now watching a show on TV, reading an article and simply walking in the street, if I see a book mentioned, I can just go on the Kindle store and download a sample of that book to see if I am interested. This really has changed the way I purchase and consider books. I now have around 10 samples on my ebook reader and one of them will be my next read. No more aimless trips to the local bookstore not knowing what to buy anymore.

So, can ebook readers get better?

My feeling since I purchased a Kindle is that this is not a mature product yet. It has great features and changes the reading experience, but it could be much more than what it is right now. There are two main points I’d like to highlight here. The first one has to do with publishers and the other one with social media.

Wake up publishers!
Since BusinessWeek stopped the Asian edition of its printed magazine to refocus on the web, I canceled my subscription. A very high price and articles less relevant to me were the main reasons. I now have resubscribed to BusinessWeek on the Kindle. The price is much more affordable and I do not have to carry any magazine around to read the articles. Still, I wish I could get my Asian version of the magazine back. If printing cost is the main issue why printed magazine are refocusing their activities, aren’t devices like the Kindle opening up a brand new low-cost store front for them? Plus, the ease of purchasing content on the Kindle, the trial periods and the scary lack of realization users have when spending money (better have great self control if you buy a Kindle) really make the Kindle a very attractive platform to sell content. Somehow, I am very ready to pay to get a magazine delivered to my Kindle rather than pay a subscription on a website to get roughly the same thing. There is a huge difference having content “delivered” to you instead of having to “go and get” it yourself.

The new paradigm of sharing
The world is changing and reading has evolve with the times. One of the biggest paradigm shift to me in recent years is the fact that doing is not enough anymore. We don’t do things for the sake of doing them anymore. The end result of what we do needs to have a “resell” value, it has to be shareable and broadcastable, it has to help us build our personal brands. Blogs, like this one, are great example of course. But the change is more profound. Kids are now publishing videos on YouTube explaining others how to use the software or game they just purchased. If nobody knows what you are doing, it seems that the value of doing that thing drops tremendously.

The same shift applies to reading and I personally see great opportunities in this space. What if reading became something we shared with everyone else? What if highlighting content in a book meant it was posted to Twitter? What if we could easily create blog posts out of the notes we took? What if we could create discussions for example on Yahoo Answers around specific aspects or paragraph of a book? What if each book would automatically have its own Ning-like social network? ebook readers and their connectivity really have the power to integrate very well into the existing ecosystem of user-generated content. It looks like Amazon’s competitors and Amazon itself are gearing up to offer more of these. Amazon just released the Kindle for PC for example which could be a great enabler for this kind of additional features.

To conclude

In terms of reading experience, I love my Kindle. I wish it would do more and I feel right now it doesn’t offer a complete experience like the iPhone does for example… but I am confident very soon it will do more and when it does I’m sure I will always keep this device close to me. And Amazon’s latest software release allowing us to read pdfs on the Kindle is a great move in the right direction.

Related posts:

1. Reading Ahead: A Research by Portigal Consulting
2. Two videos about the future of reading
3. The web auditory experience

It seems like a simple enough design principle, but it is actually one that is very easily forgotten. It could be the technology guy who is more interested in developing a technically challenging feature rather than a useful one. It could also be the marketing guy who decides what is in the best interest of the users forgetting simple privacy concepts. It can also be that the project team just loses its focus during the design process and comes up with a final solution that lost entirely its touch with the initial goal.

While I was visiting Ocean Park (one of Hong Kong’s main theme parks) two weeks back I saw a sign that reminded me of a simple design projects going wrong.

definition of queue jumping

This sign was positioned in front of the queue of a specific attraction. The aim, it seems to me, is clear. Some visitors of the park must have complained about queue jumping, or the staff in the park witnessed visitors jumping the queue and did not know how to react. As a result, I’d say the goal adding of such a sign was to warn people that they should not jump the queue. A simple enough goal it would seem.

Nevertheless, the park seemed to believe that the best way to achieve that goal was to provide visitors with a definition of queue jumping. No warning. No directions saying what would happen if some people are caught jumping the queue. Not even a mention of whether queue jumping is good or bad.

It must be that at some point in this tiny project of designing a sign, somebody raised the question: “But what if people argue about what represents jumping the queue?” and somehow (like it can happen in any projects) this question took over the process, leaving behind the forgotten initial goal of the sign and leaving visitors to the park (at least me) puzzled at seeing a sign like that in front of the queue of an attraction… so at every stage of a project, remember to take a look at the initial goal and make sure your solution addresses that goal.

Note: Of course, all this only holds if the initial goal makes sense in the first place…

Related posts:

1. Leading answers
2. IxDA F2F: Inputs, process and outputs in interaction design
3. Service level – Comparison between Hong Kong and France

So, what can we do about it?… Well, my first step has been to take part in a petition locally in Hong Kong to pressure the government to put caps on carbon emissions from the two power companies on the territory. If you want to give a hand, just access the pre-formatted letter online and send it.

Related posts:

1. Forcing Change Through Bad Experience
2. Agile User Research
3. Enthusiasm is not enough

Last week (two weeks ago now) we had another meeting with fellow IxDA members. This time we tried to set up a discussion instead of just socializing randomly and it seems that it went pretty well. We split the 8 people we had in two groups and chatted for a bit. The idea of the discussion was to cover the inputs, the process and the outputs that we use in our current design-related jobs.

While the first group of 4 people focused on specifics about the processes and the deliverables used, in the group I moderated we spent most of our time exchanging stories and discussing the environment and culture in which we work here in Hong Kong.

I especially like to discuss the Hong Kong user experience environment, because we are all struggling to get people to recognize our work here. Most stories practitioners exchange are about how difficult it is to get their manager or client understand the point of interaction design or usability. So the question is: “Is there any secret weapon to be successful in such an environment?”. Well, we are all still trying to figure it out, but let me try to summarize a few points:

Cultural Differences

The first very important criteria is culture. If you are working in a very “local” (meaning Chinese I guess) company, you will have a hard time. “Local” companies have a very top-down approach to work where subordinates do not ask questions, they execute. In this environment, designing interactions, which require developing a good understanding of users and business goals, is very difficult. A tip that some of the people in the discussion raised is to play on the lack of understanding of the people around you. Lack of understanding usually creates greater freedom; so just do your job as much as possible the way you think it should be done, choose your own deliverables and focus on showing the value of your work. Do not go head on fighting against corporate culture.

Take the Time to Educate

If your company has already some understanding of the issues, then continue to educate people around you. Involve them in decision-making. Make them feel like they are making decisions themselves based on your deliverables and inputs. Work on clear deliverables that other teams can use. Education is a very slow process and can be frustrating, but it can lead to great results and get people to really see the value of interaction design or usability. Integrating your deliverables in decision making is key there… after a while other teams will request for your deliverable to make decisions.

Be ready to become the “problem solver”

Starting to ask questions is dangerous. In some cases, once other people identify you as the critical mind of the company, everything will get thrown at you. Whenever a tricky decision has to be made, you will be requested to help. You will become the person who “thinks about stuff”. Be ready to take on that role for a while at least and face the consequences. Don’t forget along the way to protect yourself and involve others in decision making… or you will not last long.

Networking

Networking in critical in all areas of business and it is even more so in Asia. A good network within or outside an organization will greatly help. Most business deals here are made with people who “trust” each others, meaning have a personal relationship. Focus on keeping good relationship will make your work easier (and harder at the same time, see paragraph above).

Anyway. The conclusion is that there is no silver bullet to solve the usability/interaction design/user experience situation in Hong Kong. From the discussion we had, corporate culture is the main factor affecting all this. As long as companies do not care much about their customers and bosses are only interested in having their ideas implemented (regardless of business sense), interaction design will not flourish fully. Let’s hope the corporate climate continues to evolve in the right direction…

Related posts:

1. Concept Models – Dan Brown's presentation at Interaction 08
2. Agile User Research
3. Usability Sense: One Control to Rule them All!?

There are two main points that made me think about how Agile methodology could have an impact on my work: user experience / user research.

1. How can we make research more agile?

The Agile concept is to break down every project in small fully functional modules that can be delivered in a very short period of time (could be 2 weeks for a development project). This helps focusing on the core features of the project, while leaving the rest for later. This also helps starting the design even without knowing all the business requirements and actually supports better defining business requirements along the way as the client sees the system build itself from scratch.

In this post, I will just focus on the research part of user experience. Indeed, the interaction design part can be incorporated quite easily in an Agile methodology, but the preliminary research appears more tricky to me. Indeed, when we start a project we first want to know what the customers or users want. We have an array of tools to address this from quantitative ones like surveys to qualitative ones like usability testing or ethnographic research. Studies like this can actually last for quite a long time and from the client’s point of view it is hard to visualize what they will get out of it. What if we could break down any research into small items that would last maybe under a week and deliver clear conclusions at the end of each week. Being new to Agile stuff, I still need to think about that some more… the first problem I see is how to perform a relevant study (in terms of sample size for example) in such a short time… But with this in mind, making research more iterative helps design a better research in the end by fine-tuning the study objectives bit-by-bit.

2. Should I work towards not having a job?

From Martin’s point of view and following Agile concepts, the developer and the client should be in direct contact. This makes the role of the Business Analyst on such projects redundant. Of course he mentioned that on most projects Business Analyst are actually key in creating a bond between the different parties, but that made me think… Are researchers like business analysts?… In an ideal case, if my client (I mean, the operational teams) could talk directly to his or her customers, everything should be better. What if instead of designing punctual studies, researchers should all strive to design systems that allow their clients to stay in touch with their customers on a continuous basis, making our role as researchers redundant.

That’s pretty much the concept of customer experience. Stay in touch with your customers on a continuous basis so that you can better design your products and services depending on their changing needs. Still maybe more could be done to integrate advanced qualitative methods into the operations of a company. We see more and more ethnographic research within companies… but my feeling is that more is possible.

Just some unfinished thoughts…

Related posts:

1. Reading Ahead: A Research by Portigal Consulting
2. TED Talk: Clifford Stoll – An Agile Mind
3. Your brand spans multiple touchpoints

In contrast yesterday Argha was on the total opposite side of the spectrum. His approach was show me the money, show me the numbers that supports me getting into that Web stuff and then I will think about it. Obviously the audience at Web Wednesday was not expecting this, and it did not make for a very entertaining discussion, but reality checks are always good. Doing something without thinking about the money and a sound business model first is like entirely relying on luck! It might work, you might get bought by some big guys… but the drains are full of the “hidden” majority of these company who tried to follow that path.

… just my take away from yesterday’s talk…

Update: Listen to the podcast of the Interview on Web Wednesday Blog 

Related posts:

1. Buy on Hong Kong Now Broadband TV: Short Review
2. Service level – Comparison between Hong Kong and France
3. Hong Kong people and the environment

From: Nicolas_lassus@yahoo.com (That’s me! … usually a sign of a spam email or virus)

Subject: (French Consulate in Hong Kong and Macau) Confirmation (in French of course)

Seeing the subject line I thought that the consulate was reminding me that my new passport I requested was sitting in their drawers waiting for me to pick it up… but wrong I was! Although I cannot recall ticking a box saying I want to receive anything from my dear Consulate when I applied for a passport a month ago (my last interaction with the consulate), here I get a “confirmation” for my subscription to the Consulate information newsletter.

Luckily there is a link for me to modify my subscription in the email. This leads to a page where I can choose between HTML and text format, and where I can unsubscribe. Note though how the link says “modify your subscription” and not “if you want to unsubscribe bla bla bla”. But then I stop… would unsubscribing from this newsletter make me a bad citizen? Will the government flag me and check my tax receipts for omissions (I actually never worked in my own country, and thus never had a tax declaration done there)? Anyway. I decided that it was safer for me to at least pick up my passport before removing my name from the distribution list… or at least see what the first newsletter will look like.

It is funny how governments in the UK and Canada seem to be at the forefront of user experience and accessibility… and how the French government still does not get the concept of letting users opt-in to a newsletter… scary!

No related posts.

So, all the best to the Airgini team!

Related posts:

1. Social Networking: The growth dilemma…
2. Privacy with Web 2.0
3. Few Links: Social Networking

Anyway, it seems to me that there is a tough dilemma when building a social network. The problem is that the number of users and the amount of interactions going on in the network is everything. Indeed for most social networks (excluding a few business-related or referral-based ones), the networks do not have a clear revenue model. As everything is advertising-based the indicators to get funding and be recognized in the industry are basically number of users and page views. Unfortunately, these indicators in some cases go against user goals and go against the long term survival of the network.

We are now all used to this. We grow a social network and at first all is going well. We have our close friends there and we are having fun exchanging news, pictures, videos, etc. However after a while, our network grows, previous friends, former colleagues, people we actually met via our social network gets added and all goes out of control. Indeed the whole concept is based on encouraging users to “make” more friends. Games are put in place to push them to add people to their network, and simply when somebody asks sombody to be his or her friend it is really hard to say no. It feels like a no return kind of decision. Even though we might never meet the person in real, we just cannot say no to people that easily. And once they are added to our network, we have little control over what they do with their access to our information, thus the beginning of the end and often users drop-out from the network.

Although it means taking more time to grow the network it seems to me that social networks should learn from real life more. Instead of just facing a “friend” or “not friend” situation, users should be able to grow relationships slower and keeping them under their control without feeling like they are making others feel bad (or having themselves the perception that they could make the other person feel bad). It works in this way in the real world. When we meet somebody for the first time, we do not usually invite them home to look at our family pictures or read our private diary. It is just normal that relationships take time to build. It should be the same online. It is of great convenience to be able to exchange information with friends online, but users should not pay the price of this by losing their right to privacy… and if social networks do not realize this, they will all sooner or later face the fact that when the hype is gone, people will choose privacy over convenience.

With all this said, the problem still remains. In a short term focus world like the one we live in, we demand quick results and a slow growing network just does not make sense… or does it?

Related posts:

1. Hey! Nielsen – Corporate Social Networking
2. Few Links: Social Networking
3. Kindle Lover? – The eReading Experience