keeping it simple swiftly (kiss)

So we all know that simplicity is deceptively harder than it looks, but lets look at how we can help make it easier to keep it simple. (see it is hard :) )
I like to try and pare it back to the following acronym "SIMPLE":

SUGGESTIONS(and ideas) - always get suggestions and ideas from real people. They do not have to be your customers or potential customers, in fact it is often better to listen to people first and then find out what they need. This becomes the basis of your success, that you constantly engage with people to listen to the market and what they want
IMAGINATION/innovation/inspiration - think with an open mind and be aware that what turns out to be simple may not even be the original idea you started with
MOVEMENT - act, do something, now. Start small and just do small things. Those quick wins. Then you have something out there that you can improve on and change over time. And of course when you change things you interact with your audience for more suggestions and ideas.
PURPOSE - what is the problem I'm trying to solve. This becomes your key purpose, goal and outcome.
LEARN - you learn as much if not more from failure as you do from success, and remember its not a failure if you learn from it and don't repeat the same thing. You also learn from success and history. most times you are only ever reusing what someone else thought of, just refining it for a different use.
EXPERIMENT - think of it as an experiment. what do you want to try and do/prove, and then do something so that you get a result. Does the result get you to where you wanted to go.
Yes - does this still fit your goal.
No - does your goal need to change to better define the problem.

If we are honest, achieving simplicity is hard, that's why things are hard to use. Many people have tried to replicate Apple's success, but very few actually achieve it. It's as much a learned skill as it is intuition, and being in the right place at the right time. That magic that only comes along once in a million. But by using the principle SIMPLE, you at least have a greater chance of standing out in the crowd.

staff insights - what do your staff think?

So working for a company that have quite diverse staff and locations got me wondering why most companies including my own, dont use staff to help under stand what people want. Surely staff know what they want, but also understand how they can help ther company.
It is interesting that compaies dont make use of such a fantastic free resource. So what does your company do? Does it listen to staff, or really only listen to customers?

Patterns Patterns everywhere

So on of the tools i think is really important but often overlooked and really usefull in Systems Thinking, ui, ux etc is that of patterns.

What is a pattern.

Well you can think of the classic example of a pattern ie the dress patterns that you use when people sew clothes, or you could think about it in from a business context as a template that you can re-use. The benefits with a pattern, is that if you follow the steps you can get a fairly consistent output, and even if you re-use the same template again, you should get similar results. So we get consistent repeatable results because we follow and repeat the same steps over and over again.

Now something magical happens with patterns and templates. As we re-use these more and more we can see where we improve what we do. We change what doesn't work and fix it so that it does work for us. So why don't we use these more in business?

Personally because I see such strong results and clear benefits, they are my # 1 toolbox item that I use all the time. But how would I convince other people about the benefits. For me its a case of showing people.

I work with people to take me through a really common interaction they have with their customers. I look at what they do and whether they do it the same way every time they need to meet this customer need. If it's fairly consistent each time then it's a pattern and I would look to get a fairly standard flow and document it in some way - this doesn't have to be complex, just what works for the business. If they don't do the same thing, I seek first to understand why they have done something different and what effect does this have on their business, eg does it increase the time it takes to meet a customer's needs?

So I look for ways of working where people re-use what they already know to continue to help customers. The benefits with this are high. If you are comfortable with a way of working you have got to a point where you know it well. You understand it and you know what to do and what time is required to get the best result in a timely way.

Once you do something well you can innovate, make it better and faster so that you provide something more to the customer. Whether this be a cheaper product, a shorter timeframe, a transaction that is completed first time every time. Imagine how happy the customer would be if you not just met their needs but exceeded them!

Patterns are empowering because they allow that people that know the process to really own it, get the best results over time and change it so that it can work even better. Imagine if this occurred in all areas of the business. You could really start to see some great improvements for customers. As you are more responsive you can work with customers to anticipate their needs better as well as try and innovate to surpass what your customers expect. In this way you can open up to new opportunities as well as existing customers.

Try to start to see the patterns in your life and business and look at what you can do better and what you can innovate. The possibilities really are only limited by your own boundaries. Talk to your customers and even ask them what they want. If you don't do this you are really only guessing at what they want, and that doesn't always lead to customer satisfaction.

Gems from the web - 3rd Feb 2011

so I've decided to share my favourite things I've read from the web recently. Hopefully you'll like some of them as much as I did.
Punk Chip
Metadata for semantic information
[http://www.punkchip.com/2006/07/metadata-semantic-info/]
nice post on accessibility and metadata with code. It is a 2006 article , but it content is sadly still valid now in terms of accessibility.
Accessible Radio Buttons
[http://www.punkchip.com/2006/09/accessible-radiobuttons-checkboxes/]
Again shows both the markup and output and provides a bit of context about forms and how to design them well.

Super quick overview of WCAG 2.0
[http://www.punkchip.com/2008/05/overview-wcag-2-0/]
summary of some of the good points for accessibility for CAG update. Like the concepts of 4 principles ie perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

Bokardo
Creating engaged and passionate users (part 1)
[http://bokardo.com/archives/creating-engaged-and-passionate-users-part-1/]
talks about the social web and the usage lifecycle ie how users interact and what they need at different points in the lifecycle. Useful for design teams.

UX Crank
Design is a Side Effect
[http://dswillis.com/uxcrank/?p=480]
Discusses design and how it is crucial to good user experience, but that brand should not override user experience. Especially relevant is his 4 bullet points, but I'll leave u to read further.
Undefine Design
[http://dswillis.com/uxcrank/?p=457]
Discusses how design means different things to different people. Does design happen as a post development activity, does design include visual designers right up front. Design however, is just how it works, but you have to know how to do it well.

Goodwill hunting - the art of generating goodwill with your users

So i was re-reading Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" and a few (ok more than a few) pearls of wisdom came back to me as to why 'this' (this = user experience, interface design web standards etc) is so important to get right in the first place !! You need to be very clear about what drives customers away, and what keeps them happy.

Let's talk about what generates negative goodwill (I'll call it badwill):

• hide the most useful information where people can't find it - this includes contact #'s, store locations, shipping costs, prices, availability of stock, delivery timeframes
• Don't let me do things the way I want - I don't want to have to enter in (), -, etc. I will add my own 10 cents here, and if you need data in a certain format then at least tell me what format is required
• Ask me for information you don't need, OR I can't see value in providing to you - now this is CRITICAL !!!!!! If you ask a person for information you have a duty to make sure you use it wisely and it serves a purpose TO THE CUSTOMER not you as the business. People don't like forms where you need date of birth to send simple feedback. Equally annoying is when once you have it you spam us, or you don't leverage it eg log in and see your details in the form. Otherwise you face privacy and security concerns as well as people turning off you cause you spam
• Fake sincerity and caring - if you say that you care then BE HONEST AND BACK IT UP WITH ACTIONS. The web especially is a very impersonal medium and it is easy to make words sound like bland generic 'lip service'. Lets look at the famous words " your call is important to us". Really? cause if I'm holding on the phone for 1/2 hour then I would disagree. If it wasn't important to me I would have already black banned you and told my friends not to bother with you. CAN U AFFORD TO THROW AWAY YOUR CUSTOMERS IN THIS WAY ?
• Blinging up the content but diluting the message - so you put some flashy graphics or visuals on your home page. Do they dilute the message or keep your brand strong and at the forefront of your customers. Don't do anything cause it's the latest and greatest. Do something because it fits your business model, brand and media direction. Most people just want to find content, complete their tasks and do something else. Think of the bank queue, what would you rather be doing
• Present a website that doesn't look amateurish - While this might seem at the other spectrum to bling, this is just recognising that your content cannot look sloppy, disorganised or unprofessional. My personal perspective is to try and use standard HTML markup and CSS presentation to give your content structure but a level of professionalism and branding

Now on the other hand are the goodwill bulls eyes - the tricks that will really help you engage with your customers:

• What do your customers repeatedly do on your site and make it easier to do this every time they come back to your site - if you only do 5 things in a refresh always review this part of your site. Can your customers easily and repeatedly do this right first time every time. If they can't then try and re-design it so they can
• Show me what I want to see - tell me all the hidden costs, terms and conditions, delivery etc so that I can make an informed choice knowing all the facts. Whilst you may lose a few sales you will get respect from people who found what they needed to make a decision
• Make it simple and only make me do what I have to - save me from completing unnecessary steps or providing irrelevant information eg allow me to track an order on your site, and send me the order number where I want eg to mobile via SMS or to email and make it link to the order information right away
• Put effort into generating appropriate content - people don't generally come to a site to browse. They are after information to answer a question they have. Once people have found what they want INVITE them to comment on how well they could find content and how useful it was to them - this is your chance to get feedback from the source at time of transaction. This is GOLD !! Consider also taxonomies and controlled vocabularies so that you present the same message in the same voice consistently
• Know my questions and have answers to them already - if you understand why people visit your site and what they do regularly then you have your first set of FAQs
• enable print friendly content - this is absolutely spot on. How many time have you printed something out and find that half the content is missing. I would add to this and say enable device friendly content. Try and re-use content on different devices eg web, smartphone, tablet etc. The other one is email link - but allow the person to provide text so that they remember the context in which they are forwarding to someone - sometimes it can be to themselves to read later - you never know
• error handling - ok the default option here is to enable people to recover from errors. HOWEVER I PREFER TO GIVE THE POWER TO THE PEOPLE - give people enough information so they can get it right first time and complete the task or transaction without requiring assistance. This can be assisted by both User Acceptance Testing as well as Usability Testing - ie going through tasks/scenarios with people to see how successful the task is
• when required apologise - if you can't do what people want then at least acknowledge this. People are less likely to get annoyed if there is a message up front to say you can only purchase via phone between 8-6pm for example
• allow diversity and inclusion - this is one of my own must haves. I think it's absolutely necessary to ensure that every type of customer you have feels included on your website and can do what they want easily and successfully. For example elderly people can use bigger fonts, people with screen readers can read complete transactions and purchase online etc. Whilst there can be some overhead with this it does open your market wider to people that you may never considered customers previously.

So, that was much longer than intended but as you can see, pearls of wisdom for you to review and adapt to your own business. Good luck !

Holistic System Thinking

I was thinking about how I can use System thinking and Lean within my organisation. For those that don't know what systems thinking is, it's basically about looking at your organisation holistically ie as a whole rather than a sum of it's parts. "Lean" on the other hand is a methodology used to create innovation, change, reduction in waste in the business but I'll discuss this and a few other things in a future post.

So anyway, back to Systems thinking.

Imagine that your business is a living breathing organism. It consumes what it needs to stay at peak/optimal performance, breathes, has co-ordinated movement of it's parts, has bone for strength and muscle for movement, is made up of tiny cells that are the powerhouse that keeps the organism alive, but also has specialist cells that excel at single tasks/focus, the organism eliminates what it can't use and even has social skills within it's own kind and looks good for other examples of it's breed.

Now how does this analogy of an organism apply to your business /company?

Try and look at business from a holistic and systemic way of thinking ie look at the total business rather than just it's parts. Now look at what makes up the parts and how they work together and are even interrelated and connected.

A business consumes resources, it has a lifeblood and pulse of people that are skilled in certain tasks that deliver operational success, processes, policies and methodologies are its strength and backbone, but flexibility and innovation are the muscles that adapt, learn, grow, it eliminates whatever doesn't help it to grow/succeed, only 'eats' what it needs to function optimally, even has an outwards focus on how to attract people to use the services provided and tries to make itself attractive so that customers choose them over other equally attractive options.

So the key question I like to ask businesses is "Why would a customer choose you over another business" - what do your customers really want and how do you provide this value and deliver this to them? It's not about creating customer demand/needs though. It's about meeting existing customer needs.

To really get to the heart of what our customers want I suggest that people use system thinking to look at the whole business and how all the different areas work together for a common purpose. It's no use giving your customers something they don't need or want. Focus on what your customers want and shape the business to
ensure it hits the customer need. Assess common customer needs and make them efficient and fast. Make them the core of what you do and make customers happy. Then because you have happy customers you can work on other important customer needs.

Now this could occur over time (eg the business adapts with the customers changing needs), or it could occur suddenly (eg our customer now wants applications that they can use on their latest gadget). How does the business survive, grow and even adapt to such rapid change?

Today's challenge is to look at what shape the business is currently in, look at the business's current position where they want to position themselves, look at the parts that need to change and then start to make the changes reality. This is hard, lets be honest. To do this however you have to be respectful of all the parts so that they all work together instead of work against each other.

So, there you have it. A challenge to be sure. How would you adapt this within your own business? My organisation will have its challenges to be sure, but I think that looking to the future, it's the businesses that are prepared to innovate and stay fresh that will remain competitive and profitable because they 'get' their customers. This is my world and where I plan to take my team and influence as broadly as I can. You've got to take small steps before you can run. This is going to be interesting....

Technology and Social Media - will 2010 be the year of networking, connections & relationships, and are they real?

I find it interesting that in our daily life we are becoming so much more connected to technology. Kid's have no idea what a cassette tape is, nor know what a tape deck was. They would not know what a photo slide is, nor would they know maths without a calculator and spelling without a spell checker. The kids of today have grown up with the internet and don't know of life before being online.

The benefits of social media technologies are that it encourages sharing, openness and establishing connections eg podcasts, you-tubing and twittering to so many people in every corner of the globe. However others see technology and social media as a limiting force, stopping real world connections with actual people. There are multiple arguments either way.

So is technology and the ability to connect via social media as real as a friendships in reality?

I think that it comes down to a few areas when you connect into social media and other relationship building technologies:

1. start of with people that you TRUST - this gives you a point of truth, because you know the person, and therefore the people they know and like are also likely to be people who you would get along with too
2. CONNECT with people that seem to have the same interested and passions that you do, so that you have something to talk about with equal and shared knowledge/wisdom, but where you can add value and input into conversations you may not know details about.
3. have an separate online IDENTITY for your professional life and personal life - you can never be too careful about what information you release on social technologies or the web, so have a similar avatar or image of yourself that is enough like you that people could meet you in person and see the resemblance. Also depending if you want to be recognised or not, get a name that you like and use it everywhere. This is especially relevant for PERSONAL BRANDING & networking with professionals in your field. Be consistent in this usage, to develop relationships and trust (yes that word again)
4. INTEGRITY - be sincere and respectful of people you meet. If you wouldn't do something to someone you meet in real life then don't do it online because you have technology as a cover to keep the real you hidden
5. Allow yourself to BE YOU - even in the online world with technology providing a sense of distance/personal space and anonymity, people still get a feel for someone and can determine if they like them or not, the same as in reality
6. BE ACTIVE in your online community - share information and items of value with others and in return they will share information with you

When you think about it, this isn't that far from what you do in normal life, it's just allows you to talk to people globally.

I have met some fantastic people around the world, shared in their lives, knowledge, successes and journeys and hopefully returned the favour. I respect the infinite knowledge that is brought to me via the electronic medium and feel enthusiastic to have connections with such fantastic people on the other side of the world who I will most likely never meet.

Technology enables these connections to be made, and whilst there are bad aspects to it all, this mirrors the real world.

What does 2010 hold for Social Media.

I've really embraced the standard set of social media & networking tools in the last 6 months and have really changed my opinion of them. So I have reviewed the 2 most common tools associated with social media and look to see how they will change in 2010.

I find facebook to be a valuable tool to connect with friends overseas and at home, and stay connected to them and maintain my friendship and relationships with them even if distance seperates us. Of course there are many 'apps' that you can add that are very game like, but it's easy enough to keep away from them. As a whole facebook can be like picking up the phone or sending a text message, but you talk when the other person logs in next.

At the other end of the spectrum, I use to see twitter as a waste of time. However I started to follow people I have long respected, which led me to access their 'friends'. From there it snowballs like a pyramid marketing scheme or viral ad. I now use twitter as a fantastic business learning tool, with added benefits of networking with likeminded people and following trends you are interested in. Again establishing connections with people in the form of a "follow" can promote you in your field if what you say is 'retweeted' within the community and seen as valuable, but for those with many followers I could imagine it all gets too much and they will likely limit lists to real personal connections. Of course the problem with twitter is that there is alot of junk that floats past your stream as well, so there is a need to fish the stream to find the juiciest fish.

There are many other tools used to connect with others and share information such as twitter add-ons to share photos, videos, presentations etc, tools to shorten URLs (to save all important characters), tools to share bookmarks with community, virtual meetings that then become real time.

My summary - I see the strengths of these tools being exploited in much greater detail. I think this year will really start to see the tools gain even wider adoption within business areas, but also evolve as more tools are created, especially to take advantage of portability being delivered by the smart phones now becoming more commonplace. The risk is the sheer volume of the information that potentially can be delivered in the stream ie the stream becoming a torrent or a flood of information that can no longer be controlled and the person gets swept away by an information deluge. I hope a combination of smart mining and sorting tools and also a stronger sense of community, knowledge sharing, collaboration, innovation and creativity will flourish in this environment in the comming year as we rebuild businesses in new and exciting ways.

First Impressions of users with systems and websites

First impressions are made when meeting people as well as when a system is used for the first time. Like real first impressions, the first look and use of online and system environments is also as critical for it's ongoing success. People will rate a site very quickly.
When you look at something from the usability perspective of a first impression, consider,

1. usability - is it easy to use the first time, make sense to your users, fits with existing mental models that your users have
2. trust & reputation - your users need to feel confident that information is correct and reputable
3. purpose - your users must feel there is useful information, it could "close a sale", it inspires your users, does it meet user goals/tasks, it iscreditable/reputable/reliable/quality outcome
4. visually appealing - ie fit with the personality/persona of your users, people can pick up alot of subtle non verbal cue from visual presentation
   
5. visually matches the words or task focus eg
   if it's a travel site or system talk about destinations, adventures,
   if it's about style or luxury talk about aspirations, success, do not disclose price, consumerism
   if it's about value for money talk about clean lines, text, price, buy now
6. keep it consistent - if you are part of a chain of companies and people know this then if it is part of your plan re-use functionality, tools, look and feel so that people know what to expect. Otherwise use other well known models that people are already familiar with.
   

So the moral to the story is, first impressions are as important for systems and tools as they are with people, so make it count. If you don't deliver on what is stated then people are not happy and it takes alot to change their mind later.

The art of Wireframes - how not to get tangled in wires

Summary of blog post: u want to design a wireframe so that u can visually represent the site or page to others. I'll be discussing a low-tech version, high-tech version, and a summary of key things to consider when designing websites.

So, u want to design a basic visual representation of your idea.
You know what u want, but u really don't know how to visually represent your ideas.

Well there are two solutions that u can use:
The Low-tech version and the high-tech version of a wireframe. The low-tech wireframe involves paper, the high tech a computer.

So lets start of with the first option. The low-tech wireframe.
1 - grab a sheet of A3 paper (yes the big one) and ensure the long end is nearest to u. This represents all the space that you have available on your website
2- grab some different shaped post-it notes
3 - grab a large thick texta/marker/sharpie pen

Lets look at what we call the globals ie the parts of the website that will not change.
* logo in top left of site that hyperlinks back to your home page - write down on a small post it note "logo/home" and place it in the very top left corner of the paper. This will not change across the site.
* header and footer - this will have repeating information at the very top (header) and bottom (footer) of the page/site. For example the header may have a menu, and it may have a banner image and it could have text. The footer will tend to have copyright information and dates , a link to privacy statement , information about the company etc. Again write "header" and "footer" on the long rectangle pieces with key things you want to display
* there could be a left and/or right hand menu column that runs down the entire page for navigation, or the more familiar right hand side blog information eg about me, archive posts, image gallery, links etc. Again label this "left menu" and/or "right menu" with a few notes on large horizontal post it note
* unique page title - to ensure that search engine results can be displayed with accurate content to facilitate better searchability and findability (with the exception of framed pages etc)

You then have content specific to a page layout. Here I suggest that u consider the idea of templates and re-using content. But that's a topic all in itself that we can look at later. Lets keep going with wireframes.

Again, write on post-it notes that roughly represent your ideas for dimensions for the layout and content, and then keep placing notes on the A3 sheet of paper. When you have moved the notes around, re-labelled the post-it notes, and are happy with how it looks, use clear sticky tape to stick everything down and maybe even take a photo that you can send to others, or yourself (just in case the paper is lost and you were not lucky to have someone taking or typing notes).

At this point I would show it to a few people currently involved with the project, so they can look visually at what you've done and comment. Now pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Congratulations.

So now we look at the high-tech wireframe.
You could start off in much the same was as the low-tech version, but use a computer program like powerpoint. Use the landscape orientation as it provides a rough screen image that maps/is a visual representation of the computer screen. In powerpoint u have a multitude of shapes and dimensions that u can use to create your page. Also remember that with powerpoint and other packages, u may be able to copy images that u own or currently use on your website into the powerpoint slide. Use whatever is available to u, and that u have permission/copyright to access eg company logos or brand images, an images folder that u can use to to pull images into your slide, or marketing material. Just ensure that the images are web ie compressed and in a format that u can use eg gif, jpg or png. Images are great because they can provide a richer user experience to people instead of a few coloured boxes. However DO NOT get caught up in the image too much. People can and do get very distracted by images - as they see the image in their mind and then cannot change their mind once they have seen something. U have to manager your client's expectations. At least by keeping it basic, it allows u to assess the content and framework without a visual distraction.

If you want to get more fancy then there are programs out there that the pro's use, but unless u want to do this professionally, u may find that you can get good results via low-tech or high-tech solutions mentioned above.

So, in summary:
~ understand what u want the website to look like
~ get a feel for what other sites do and what u want your website to be able to do, or behave
~ why are u creating this website - who will view the site and why will they visit your site more than once
~ what is your market and what information do they want to see. Is there a particular format that everyone
~ seems to use that you can adapt to your own purposes ?
~ what are the key messages that u want to get across on the site
~ what content do you want and how will u get it - is it in a database or just typed in
~ you must use a unique page title - for searchability and findability
~ most important content goes at the top of the page unless you have deep links direct to content - avoid going "below the fold" in you can help it
~ ensure standard based coding is used to ensure the website looks and functions well in all browsers