Trends « Psychobserver

Archive for the ‘Trends’ Category

20th
Feb
2008

Agile User Research

On February 5th, Hong Kong had the chance of having Martin Fowler speak about Agile Methodology. I have to admit that I was actually dragged to the talk by my developer colleagues… I did not really feel like going to a very technical presentation where I would be totally lost. I was really wrong not to want to go. After I actually understood that XP did not mean Windows XP, but eXtreme Programming (he he… embarrassed smile) I really enjoyed the talk.

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…

22nd
Jan
2008

The web auditory experience

For a long time, the Web has been about having a visual experience. But now, there are signs that it is changing. With more and more videos on the Web, with Skype causing (or maybe causes are elsewhere) people to wear headsets in office and with music being added to websites, the Web now has the opportunity to deliver a richer experience using both visual and auditory cues.

It looks that the first focus of this evolution is to tackle one of the most critical problem with the Web, the fact that people don’t read. I was reading (… so people really don’t read?) an article today and next to the title was a button saying: “Click-2-Listen”.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on it and listened to the article being read to me. In the end, I missed most of it as my colleagues were talking to me and I could not be bothered to press Pause/Play all the time. The quality of the speech although impressive is nothing like a real human talking. In the end, I think I prefer by far reading.

I guess the nice thing with this text to speech service is that you can download the media file and play it later maybe on your mp3 player when you are on the way home. It seems to me that if we are in front of our screen, we’d rather read through an article which is a much more flexible task rather than listen to the article. The service could then be much more targeted towards people who download the file for later.

Two companies offering the service are:

News Worthy Audio
Odiogo (I really like the tagline: “Gives your text content voice … and legs!”, which plays much more on the listen later feature of the service)

16th
Jan
2008

Steve Portigal's Interactions column: Persona Non Grata

Request a copy of Portigal Consulting new column: Persona Non Grata (link to ACM Interactions Publication). Check out their blog to see how.

A really good article on Personas… It is well written, entertaining and to the point; i.e. Personas are misused in most cases and a tool meant to “help companies actually get closer to their REAL customers” has been transformed into a tool used to “be perceived as close to real customers”.

Should personas be dumped altogether or should researchers educate marketing and design people about how to use them to actually make a difference in the product lifecycle (instead of just being as a marketing tool). I am for education… but how long will that process be?

14th
Jan
2008

Online World vs. Real World – An Increasingly Blurry Line

A great article featured on Experientia’s Putting People First: “Technology and the World of Consumption” from the blog apophenia. The article is interesting already and the discussion below is even more.

“her daughter moved seamlessly between the digital and physical worlds to consume”

The whole idea can be summarized by the quote on the right. Up until now, the real and the online worlds have been considered as entirely separate, selling different products and services, and addressing the needs of different customers. But more and more these differences are disappearing. With the new generation growing accustomed to the online world, the distinction is less and less relevant. Consumers are learning how to adapt their shopping behavior to optimize their experience regardless of how retailers are thinking and planning their offering.

Thus behaviors like searching online and buying in the real world, or the reverse – searching in the real world and buying online – becoming common place. This transition is far from an easy one. If we look at the services industry for example, banks have been struggling for a long time to move their customer from branches to the ATM and then online. Only now are they seeing younger customers using cheaper channels. In the case of the banks, cost has been driving the transition and helped companies doing the necessary changes pro-actively (even before customers actually wanted those changes).

But what about retail? The cost component and the complementary of both worlds is not self-apparent. That could explain why companies are slower to react. But react they will have to. Both real and online worlds have their place. They both address different kinds of needs, but surely both will have to adapt to the changing habits of consumers. Personally I see this as one of the most interesting potential for innovation and changes in customer experience.

25th
Nov
2007

Social Networking: The growth dilemma…

I recently did some work for a mobile social networking start-up here in Hong Kong helping them with their interface and their user experience in general. Although my focus was on the interface (and the project very short as usual) we happened to talk quite a bit about strategy. In fact, I always find it hard to focus on user experience and user interface without poking my nose into the overall strategy behind them (I’d like to spend more time on that, but it is not the point of this post… maybe for a later one).

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?

29th
Oct
2007

I design experiences… huh?! I mean I manage experiences…

I guess “Experience” and “Design” are two really trendy terms and it is only normal that they are put together to form “Experience Design”. Nevertheless, it really bothers me to see them put side-by-side like that, as the resulting meaning is really misleading. As Wikipedia puts it:

Experience design is the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, and environments — each of which is a human experience — based on the consideration of an individual’s or group’s needs, desires, beliefs, knowledge, skills, experiences, and perceptions.

Wait a second?! Say that again. Experience Design is not about designing an experience??

That’s right!! Experience Design is about designing the elements that will contribute to creating the experience, like a product, or a service, not designing the experience itself.

So, I cannot design an experience?

No, an experience cannot be designed! An experience is created out of the interactions between a company and an individual, and most importantly is anchored in our unconscious / emotional selves. As such an experience is non-tangible and different for each individual. Good luck designing that! (refer to my older post for more on what is Customer Experience)

For example, if you are in a bank queuing up and the guy behind you stands too close. This will affect your experience with that bank, but it has not been “designed” in the system (one should hope). Or if your teenage kid installed some weird flashing animal-shaped cursor and changed the mouse settings on your computer, this will affect your experience with a website. Even more simple, if you are in a bad mood that day, that will affect your experience with any company. The experience a person will have with a company just cannot be designed.

Hasn’t Apple designed a great experience!?

Apple is usually mentioned as delivering “THE” most impressive experience among companies. But that is a terrible mistake. Apple, as great as it is, does not deliver one single great experience. Apple has designed great products, great strategies and a great system in general to reach customers on an emotional level and lead them to develop their own positive experience with the company. If you ask Apple fans around the world each will have a different story about why they love Apple. There is no Apple experience… but a multitude of people having great experiences with the company.

What do I do if I cannot design an experience?

Not being able to design an experience is not a problem. The right way to do is to manage the experience people have with your company. This is really well explained in Lewis Carbone’s “Clued In“, where he sets up the standard approach to follow to manage experiences.

I have been pretty happy with the term “experience management” on my side. I think it conveys very well that you cannot control every aspect of an experience and that the best you can do is try your best to manage it and make sure that all the negative uncontrollable factors affecting your customers can be minimized.

As part of the effort to manage experiences, designers (in the general sense) are indeed key. You need to design workflows, design interfaces, design products, etc. to make sure your customers can have a positive experience with your company. It is just that you are not designing the experience per se.

Coming from the usability field, I like it when the “labeling” of something is clear and prevents confusion or misunderstanding. As such I think the label experience design really does a bad job…

9th
Oct
2007

Yahoo Pipes: Am I a geek if I like it?

I have just discovered Yahoo Pipes… and I quite like it!

I am in the “very beginner” stage regarding this type of applications and to be frank I feel a bit geeky getting into it. But it seems to be that this kind of mashup applications could be changing a lot of things on the Web and letting users customize even further their web experience.

Yahoo Pipes

For now, I kept it simple creating two “Pipes”:

A pipe that selects only Intermediate and Upper Intermediate lessons from my Mandarin Chinese online school instead of all lessons
A pipe that looks for keywords like Usability, Experience and Interaction in some blogs and feeds that I read regularly

But most more can be done with these things. Ideas can be found on the Yahoo Pipes website. For more information about Yahoo Pipes and other similar application, you can read the following article from NY Times about Mashup applications.

On Digg, one can find an older post about “What is Yahoo Pipes?“. Here are some of the answers before the service was available to all:

“perhaps its something music related. maybe one of those searches based on humming a few bars”

“Can’t Think Of What It Could Possibly Be”

Despite being not too clear at first maybe, I like the name of that service. It feels like we are now able to rewire… sorry, repipe the whole Internet according to what we want.

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »

Categories