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 !

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.

making it easier ?? can we believe the benefits that mobiles are bringing to our lives

so as more and more people get 'smart' mobile phones that are capable of doing so much more than their initial task which was to make and receive calls, the web starts to move into the mobile world as well.
Consider how quickly this change has occurred!
In my view it is not so much aligned with social networking as a whole, but it is aligned with web 2.0 and putting the 'i' in the picture (which isn't quite the same as putting the 'i' in a social networking context). You can read email, facebook, twitter, listen to music, add photos to your online store, use online apps to work in the 'cloud' (eg Google apps that you don't need to store software for you just use) and in general you never have to sit at a pc/mac once. Data can be stored securily online, people can access many things securily via mobile, and in general the processing power of technology just keeps getting more powerful in a smaller package.
Not Bad you might say.....

But how does this translate to the generation and technology divide ?

Does this mobility start to impact greatly on the more senior population, because they are not as conversant with technology, use the mobile to keep connected but not download their lives for instant updates, are not so connected to the web and their social networks ?

It seems like years ago that call waiting and call conference were big telco items. LOL.

How do we look at and really analyse the benefits of being connected 24/7 via mobiles and pcs, when do we really start to see better use of the 'cloud' and online storage and connection models so that it's not gimmick but real value add to people's lives, in a way that everyone can use it.

And are the new range of mobile phone apps really helping people live their lives more richly, and enable people to develop deeper and richer connections, or is it just another way to waste time, get information overload, and really achieve very little ?

Now that's what I want to see questioned in more details and where I want to focus on.....

I'll discuss more about this in my next post, which will be able to be updated much more frequently I hope ;->

how do people really use the web?

so recently I had a discussion about how people use the web and exactly what they like to see verses some cool exciting innovative designs.
My dilemma, looking at what is a good nice clean and what I consider very functional and useful v's what users really want.
At the end of the day, for people with no special needs, nor tech savvy, keep it basic and ensure it follows existing design conventions such as link to home from top left hand image/icon/logo, use tabs for different pages, keep it standards compliant so that it looks and works the same in any browser, ensure a balanced use of javascript, in case javascript is turned off, and ensure that the page can 'degrade' gracefully ie don't just design it so that people must have the latest and greatest updates to browsers or web applications. People don't do what you expect - this is the only constant you can rely on in the UI, UX design area.