A Distinctly Average Day, And All The Better For It

It’s days like today that you forget when it’s suddenly January 16^th and icy cold. It’s days like today that seem so distant when you’re walking toward the station at 19:30 and you’ve got to go to the supermarket when you get home. It’s days like today that at the age of 49 wincing as you climb the stairs at work to sit in the same desk you’ve sat in for 15 years are a world away.

Today wasn’t remarkable at all. A hot sunny day in Ipswich, a lazy morning in the park and an afternoon of geeky surfing on a shady balcony trying to avoid some left-over work for tomorrow. Top Gear on the TV, some pasta and a bottle of Grolsch as I listen to a bit of Madeline Peyroux and set about my blog. A day where everything thing in the world was just so. Where I was entirely myself and my fiancée and I were entirely content. A day when I didn’t feel unfit, old, aching, tired too hot or too cold, a day when nothing would trouble me. In a lifetime I wonder how many days like this we have.

Either way, today was one of them. So I thought I’d record it for permanent posterity.

BBC Governors Meeting, Norwich. What Happened?

It’s taken longer than anticipated to get round to summarising the events of last night’s meeting in Norwich. Whilst I was there I was suddenly stuck by an overwhelming responsibility to do it right, based mainly on the fact that I was convinced (and will remain so until Technorati tells me otherwise) that I was the only blogger present. So, there I was stood in the mezzanine floor of the Forum watching a preview of the BBC’s HD output (via a Sky box and 50” plasma) when I thought I’d take a panoramic of the stage set-up [left]. This sparked off an intention to take loads of pictures and add them to Flickr, but I got side-tracked by the debate.

The Governors present were, obviously Michael Grade plus Ranjit Sondhi, Anthony Salz, Deborah Bull and Jeremy Peat. But the big surprise for me was to find (Director General) Mark Thompson sat in the front row along with a substantial number of the BBC Exec'. Previously in my mind the subject of Emily Bell’s ire on the Guardian Unlimited podcast, it was nice to finally put a real-life person to the distant victim. I had hoped, with Mark present, that the debate and discussion would centre around the BBC’s well-documented digital future but I hadn't counted on the people of East Anglia.

Silly me, the demographic was entirely skewed in the direction of the retired complainant. In the same way that I’d watched the outlying villages spill into Norwich to celebrate the Championship promotion in 2004 complete with wooden rattles and knitted scarves, so here tonight were the villages of the East. In place of the lithe and hungry farmhands cheering on the Canaries were the walking-stick wielding OAPs - all of whom seemed to have an unwavering belief that the BBC is “not what it used to be”.

Here we were, with News Presenter Jane Hill batting questions from the floor toward the panel ranging from the reception problems in Kings Lynn to the reception problems in Sheringham; and from the over-paid Jonathan Ross (roundly hated with some vitriol) to the under-payment of Test Match Cricket. I thought I was going to cry. Where was the praise for the World’s finest website? Where were the celebrations of exceptional programmes like Planet Earth, Extras, The Office, Bleak House. Where was the acknowledgement of the consistently high standards shown on Radio 4 and the ever-increasing efforts made to broaden digital coverage?

Instead we dwelt on the horrors of celebrity television (not so prevalent on the BBC) the nightmares of no isobars on the weather map (beautifully riposted by Michael Grade) and the apparent “racism” of using “95%” of the evening schedule to show “Americanised” TV. Now I should, at this point, acknowledge that some of these points were rather valid: Jonathan Ross, Moyles and Wogan are over-paid, cricket should be on the BBC (but that’s for Tessa Jowell to sort, not the license payer or the BBC Governors) and Only Fools On Horses was a mistake – regardless of the charity motive. It’s just that the views we heard were not truly representative. The sinlge element of conversation that really struck a chord with me (and not because it was delivered by the chap sitting beside me) was an attempt to raise the awareness that choice is not as universal as the BBC might have us think.

I have naively assumed that the breadth of choice the BBC promote is a positive thing for everyone. An ever-increasing number of channels are emerging both in linear television, analogue, digital and online. But this seems rather worthless when you think of invalid viewers, “trapped” in care homes with no choice but to watch what’s on, when it’s on. They may represent a minority in percentage terms of the viewing figures but given that they don’t have the same ability to choose, their voice needs to be heard incredibly loudly.

As we advance to a state where linear, analogue-broadcasting is marginalised we must ensure that provision is made to safeguard the rights of those without choice to receive quality news, information and entertainment. It’s keeping one eye on the rear view mirror as we hurtle into BBC 2.0.

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Mark at the end of the session in between a glass of orange juice and a wild mushroom canapé, and I challenged him on the intentions to add advertsing to international versions of BBC sites. It was, I emplored, crucial that this was done as sensitively as possible and did not, under any circumstances, leak onto the British versions of the site. I stated I was proud of the BBC’s digital offerings, having downloaded clips of The Apprentice onto my phone and subscribed to BBC podcasts, RSS feeds and am a player of celebdaq. I have even linked to the BBC Accessibility site as part of my work. I stressed how important it is that the license payer funds this as efficiently as possible, if the BBC needs to justify it’s global face with some un-obtrusive ads, so be it, but it must not become MySpace and it must not become MSN.co.uk. (Ok, so I admit I didn’t have time to say it all like that but I think I got my point across).

Oh, and one final note, Emily I’m not sure he listens to Podcasts (there was no flicker when I asked him which he listens to) but he certainly reacted when I mentioned your name. I’m not sure I’d call it a smile, perhaps more of a wry grin.

UPDATED (21:15, 15th July) : Report on BBC News, "Grade Defends BBC's Independence"
UPDATED (18:42, 23rd July) : Finally corrected the typos in this post. Links here to my follow-up post and the news that this blog was featured on BBC News "The Editors". Finally, the comments on this article mention that the Webcast is now live (RealPlayer required).

Technorati: BBC, Web2.0, Norwich

BBC Governors Meeting, Norwich.

Tonight I'm heading off to the BBC Governors meeting to find out what the mandarins at Auntie plan on doing online and how they anticipate funding their expansion in the light of all this Web 2.0 stuff that Mark Thompson keeps banging on about. It's being webcast live too.

Loads of BBC 2.0 Links (all 2006):

:: The Economist, 27th April, "Auntie on tap"

:: The Royal Television Society Lecture, 22nd March, "BBC 2.0 Why Demand Changes Everything"

:: The Guardian, 29th March "BBC Wants To Make Money From The Web"

:: Alex Barnett Blog, 1st July "Ads on BBC.com Good / Bad?"

A few thoughts tomorrow or tonight via the train journey home....

Technorati Tags: BBC .. web 2.0 .. online advertising

"Internet" As Viewed From a 1993 Perspective

Every so often a link surfaces which makes you want to pass it on to everyone you know who's online. Today it's a CBC archived video report on "Internet" in 1993. I found it via Kottke.org but there's a mirror on You Tube if you're interested and the previous link is dead.

Wanted to know more about this Ajax stuff too so have taken the plunge and gone all GMail and Google Desktop. I'm Google-ising my life slowly. We'll see if the experiment comes off.

Sainsbury's Embrace 'Web 2.0' By Encouraging Customer Dialogue

AKQA, Sainsbury's current digital agency, has created a market-leading dialogue area to the supermarket chain's online presence. Put simply, they've opened a 'Your Ideas' forum to "create a community around the brand" according to Andrew McCormick in this week's NMA (29.06.06).

Of course many of us are aware of the predicted explosion in user-generated content and social community sites (as demonstrated by MySpace, Bebo and Playahead) but this is one of the first occurences I've come accross where a major retailer is keen to get their customer base to contribute to content.

Thus far it's pretty basic stuff (and not exactly Web 2.0 since much of the technology has existed since the early days of the web) in that customers are posting recipes and discussing "food related topics". Presumably this means bored people ranting about the Cadbury scandal and showing off their homemade Spotted Dick. The key with this move is that it promotes the chain as being technology aware (especially given their late arrival on the home shopping scene) and a brand that's trusted and talked about by its consumers. The most revolutionary element is of course the opportunity for customers to discuss the relative (de)merits of Sainsbury's. Thier brand manager, Kirstey Elston is quoted as saying: "We're happy for customers to share openly what they think about Sainsbury's".

All this is very laudible but do Sainsbury's need to run these sites themselves? I am a great believer of leaving this type of content on independant sites, amongst the true user-community. then use technology to trawl the web looking for reviews, forums and blogs. That way people will comment in the positive, negative and laissez faire without the natural sense of moderation that using an 'official' forum would give. By using Web Data Mining all this information can be quantified and extracted by insight teams. Of course, doing it all in-house is faster and possibly cheaper but do the views expressed on such official user-communities really reflect the widest range of customer opinion? I'm not convinced.

I like Sainsbury's (although the Waitrose in Sudbury is great, 45 mins away though...) but their online shopping requires a minimum order of £25 and a delivery charge of £6. Often I just want a few bits, ordered mid-week and Tesco can do that. So we use them, until Sainsbury's sort out their pricing for this and until Ocado deliver to my area I'll continue touse Tesco. And that is in spite of the fact that Tesco have let me down with late deliveries and peculiar substitutions on several occassions. (A comparison review of the Customer Experience with online grocers is available here.)

Fitts' Law, Menu Bars & Web Usability

Unearthed an interesting bit of information this week that the menu bar implementation on Mac operating systems is measurably more usable.

This comes about by applying Fitts' Law (1954), a model of psychomotor movement which predicts that the time required to move to a given object is a function of the target's distance and size. It is particularly useful in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) applications and in the case of the Mac menu bar it identifies that the positioning of the bar on the finite edge (top) of the screen means rapid movement 'North' with the mouse will always mean the user is successful in finding it. By contrast, the windows user bar is only useful in the active window which can be anywhere on the floating screen space, and by implication can be missed unless greater levels of motor accuracy are applied. (Aside: Have Apple forgotten this law in iTunes? a great article by Coda Hale investigates).

I've been trying to think of examples on the web where Fitts' Law could make life easier. It seems to me that applying Pie Menu systems (see also Pie Menu Central) or nodal navigation could be effective in the place of Linear Menus, however whether this would be offset by the effect of implementing an unfamiliar user interface and the difficulty in having multiple item menus remains to be seen. There is a rumour, by the way, that Windows Vienna will feature a Pie Menu. Evidently, the most obvious application for a web menu is the use of the screen limits - ie. navigation should be either at the extreme left (c.f. Kalbach & Bosenick, 2003) or top of a page to ensure it is more likely to be on a screen-edge limit. However, more subtle applications might be to keep contextual linking prevalent on the site (keep the links close to the content) and ensure target buttons are obvious and large. Common sense, basic stuff maybe but sometimes it's nice to see a bit of tangible scientific research backing it up.

:: Paul M. Fitts (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, volume 47, number 6, June 1954, pp. 381-391. (Reprinted in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121(3):262--269, 1992).

Technorati Tag: Web usability and fitts law

It's over. England Exit FIFA World Cup 2006 on penalties

Put simply it never really worked under Sven. He picked a team of Galacticos but never blended them well enough. We didn't win the early games by playing badly, we won them in the sparse moments of playing well. Let's not forget that although the momentum had built up before the Portugal game that ignores the fact that we were held by a poor Swedish side, that we nearly conceded against Trinidad & Tobago and Ecuador, (scoring in the Trinidad game only because Crouch got a handful) and that Paraguay was a forgettable match ... And, but for the game against Jamaica, we'd had some shocking non-competitive games too (Uruguay, Hungary, Belarus). In the last 5 years can anyone say exactly what Sven had made the England team into? How do they play, what's the most effective formation? what defines their style? For four years we've been drunk on the 5-1 in Munich and assumed that that indicated Sven's mastery, not so, one anomalous result in a managerial tenancy of mediocrity and but for the heroics of Hargreaves, Lennon and the back four you could almost say that, in terms of England's historic tenacity, the pilot light has all but gone out.

Using Feng Shui In Web Design

Fortunately Metro treated it with a whimsical air but a piece on page three of today’s paper irked me nevertheless.

The main thrust of the article by Sarah Getty was that web developers are turning to the ‘ancient philosophies of vaastu shastra and feng shui’ to apply ‘balance’ to their sites. This practise it would have us believe is being utilised to harmonise the online experience with consideration to the elements of fire, water, earth, air, space (!), man and objects. So everything I suppose.

It goes on to quote Dr. Smita Narang who I’m sure believes wholeheartedly in this nonsense (despite sho-horning interior design principles into Human Computer Interaction), sincerely asserting that these elements relate to web properties (colour, HTML, graphical elements, typeface, domain etc.) and they need to be deployed with balance and harmony. “Fair enough” I thought, makes sense: Choose harmonised colours, think about a delicate layout balance, delineation, page ordering, simple clear domain etc., is this not user-centred design under a different name?

It’s not that simple though. Helpfully Metro boldy illustrated the piece with their own homepage, pointing out where they score on this Web Feng Shui. Luck (for example) is mentioned and apparently images of unicorns, fruit and dragons help here. And this is where the whole thing starts to unravel. On a more real-world note, they advise that header logos should be placed high and right or centrally, so definitely not in the established normal location of top-left then? Ignore the fact that that’s where people expect it to be and expect it to be a link back to the homepage…

Perhaps this mixed message of design clarity (particularly around the use of colour and simple shapes and nonsense about using coin cursors (wealth) and imaes of unicorns explains the mixed results seen by Brijesh Agarwal of Indiamart (itself hardly compliant with the philosophies) who concedes that whilst 3 of the sites he’s developed with this method have returned 60% increases in traffic, 2 haven’t.

By this point I was ready to give up and return to doing real customer-centric work when Rupert Goodwins of ZDNet (10m hits per month) cropped up in a well-sourced quote: “I’ve never heard of businesses using this and I think it’s complete nonsense”. I leave it there except to say that I hope Dr. Narang sells 0 books on this subject.

:: Additional informed cynicism about Web Vastu

Technorati Tag: Web Vastu

What is it that you do for a living again?

Spent a large part of yesterday producing data for my colleagues in marketing regarding traffic, conversion and drop-off throughout specific areas of our site. This got me thinking about what service I, as a usability and analytics manager, provide to the rest of the company. I often use an illness analogy when describing this paradigm to people. By providing data I am presenting the symptoms of a problem, the current and historic state of health. With analysis on this data I begin to diagnose what the problem is and its etymology. However, and this is quite an important distinction, I am not in the position to provide the cure. The cure has to come from collaborative discussions between myself (with the knowledge of what customers do/want to do online), the marketing team (with the intention of what they want customers to do online) and the financiers and technical teams (to understand what we can afford and technically implement online).

When you put yourself (and are part of a team that puts itself out) within The Company as experts in Web Customer Experience it’s incredibly easy for people to turn to you with expectations that you’re the panacea for their perceived problems online … What’s even harder to demonstrate is quite what makes someone expert in this field. It’s a problem I had academically with Psychology. Often what psychology experiments prove is what people call ‘common sense’. I wish I had a pound for the number of times someone’s said to me “that’s obvious” in referring to the result of an experiment or some insight that’s been provided but then it was obvious centuries ago that the world was flat and the sun revolved around us. The best way to demonstrate expertise is by showing an ROI for the work you do. I’m building up, as usual, to another promise to write that piece: “how to convince your stakeholders that user-centred design is required from day 0 of the project“. It’s coming …

Flickor

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Wives and Girlfriends (WAGs) at FIFA World Cup 2006

There's me posting a simple piece on Abigail Clancy and a quick Technorati search brings up this guy's blog with these posts (one, two and three) regarding footballers' wives. Interesting from a 'how to drive traffic to your site' point of view. But not very relevant to this blog's customer experience focus...

For more considered readers, there are Telegraph articles about the WAGs or for up-to-date snaps of the WAGS in the stadiums, try a GettyImages search...

Technorati Tag: Abigail Clancy

Abigail Clancy

"So, Abi, what attracted you to millionaire footballer Peter Crouch?" *

I don't think I'm alone in feeling a little cynical about this relationship ... what's odd too (and thanks to the Baddiel & Skinner Podcast for this) is that in Brazil the players are such superstars thay don't have to worry about their appearance and therefore despite being truly minted, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo have some of the worst dental frontages seen in modern times...

* - with acknowledgment to Caroline Aherne.

Stag Weekend in Milan

It seems like ages since I wrote a blog entry. I went away for another recharging week to the Isles of Scilly (intended to write a new piece about that), then had a hectic week in the office, then had a less hectic week followed by a stag weekend in Milan.

Milan was cool. I’d taken the advice of a friend and, as best man, spent a great deal of time pre-planning bars, clubs and arrangements for the weekend. Unfortunately, none of the major stag companies cover Milan due to an apparent lack of daytime activities so I had to work out flights, accommodation and excursions for ten people. In the end we were booked up under the assumption of being a conference party at the Hotel Mediolanum, a contemporary styled budget hotel in the Piazza Della Repubblica area. The receptionists there could not have been more helpful, they were very good indeed and our conference ‘deception’ meant we were treated with suitably business-like respect. The hotel bar was decorated with buffet food every evening which provided a welcome bit of free sustenance.

On Friday night we took in a few bars along a pretty, totty-adornded street call Via Brera. None of these were exceptional but those of us who were more adventurous found some better places later that night. We elected not to do much at all during the day itself on Saturday to keep the budget manageable and hangovers in check so ended up visiting the Duomo for a cultural fix and a wander round the stunning shopping districts gawping at the designer displays (both on the mannequins and the streetwalking models). In the Piazza around the Duomo they had set up a giant screen to show the football on. On Saturday night we headed out to Corso Como and Corso Garibaldi where a few of us had been the night before. We started at a bar called dotcom I think before heading to Pixel where we were well looked after by the hostess and then (for a few of the group) to Loolapaloosa. The rest of us took in a few other drinking spots before moving on when 3am singled an unexpected closing time. Earlier we’d started off watching the football (Italy-USA) in a restaurant called dot com (I think) which was wholly intentional to soak up the enthusiastic local atmosphere.

On Sunday we took a wander up to the park and then into the Duomo area again for a last dose of totty-spotting.

I used my HG2 guide to pick out the hotel and despite finding some awesome restaurants in there we decided that it wouldn’t be possible to be a complete ‘Hedonist’ on the budget we were on so ate elsewhere. Despite this book being an excellent indicator of the types of things possible we didn’t end up taking in any of the more classy joints – even 10 Corso Como got ‘forgotten’ in the descending alcoholic mist of Saturday night. I would thoroughly recommend this book and have already got it in mind to pick up the other guides in this series for future events.

If you’re planning a stag weekend in Milan, drop me a line and I’ll point out the places we should have gone to. Although, to be fair, the ones we did attend were well worth it.

A few pointers though: Take insect repellent as the city is full of mosquitoes. Take decent clothes and shoes as everyone is impeccably dressed – or at least makes a very Italian attempt to be so – and you will stand out like a sore thumb if you’re pale, overweight and clothed for an afternoon in Norwich (which I’m not and I wasn’t). As a rough guide, rounds for 10 of cocktails cost €100 (£69) and, like the rest of Italy, you can eat very well if you chose a good restaurant, for under €40 (£28). We flew into Linate on easyjet which was delayed both at Gatwick and on the return leg. The total cost of flights and accommodation for one person was £236.61. Finally, take a positive attitude, everyone in Milan was up for a good time and stunningly beautiful women are willing to talk to you, despite your evident lack of Italian, simply because you’re likely to have a wallet full of notes and an intention to spend them.

Fare Evasion on One Railway. Conductors Apparently Don't Care

Regular readers will know of my on-going correspondence with One. Archives of which are available. The latest installment...

---

To: customer.services@onerailway.com
Subject: Revenue Protection

Sirs, It has been a long time since I have felt compelled to write. There used to be a time when I was quite a regular depositor of (justifiable) rants in your postbag and you will be delighted to know I have shared your insipid responses with friends, colleagues and strangers via the medium of the internet.

My written absence from your desk these past few months has not, I’m afraid to say, indicated that the service from one has improved, rather that I have become more busy and at the same time apathetic to the complete ineptitude and disregard for fare-paying passengers which you clearly display. I write to you today to express concerns about your ability to implement your own policy as I have been prompted into action by a couple of recent encounters on my infuriating (c.f. relaxing) morning commute.


A short while ago you (as one) began to post notices around the stations informing passengers of the imminent roll-out of penalty fare charges for anyone found travelling without a ticket. Previously your correspondence to me had detailed that you only charged this penalty on given routes but you did (eventually) acknowledge that there were a number of people travelling ticketless between rural stations. I believed that these notices indicated you were finally about to get serious about protecting your revenue and ensuring full-fare paying passengers like myself were not subsidising fare evaders.


It appears this revenue protection message has not got through. On repeated occasions I have seen your on-train staff ask for tickets only to be offered money for the fare by travellers without them. A standard fare is purchased and the conductor moves on. Why are people not being charged the penalty?


If no-one is ever charged this penalty then there is no deterrent and people will continue to take the risk to avoid paying. The only occasion I can see this charge being applied is when there is an ad-hoc check on the platform and the revenue-protection staff are backed-up by British Transport Police. Is it the case then that your on-train staff are trained (in your posh new customer service academy) to avoid conflict with passengers and so do not challenge fare evaders?


Do you have any statistics as to how often the penalty fare is being charged by staff on trains?


If you do not charge this penalty fare in all circumstances, remove the notices from stations as these are misleading.


In addition (sorry to go on, but it has been a while and you know how these things build up) the punctuality once again has failed to improve. The last four days this week (22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th May) the 08.09 from Ipswich has been delayed. Not by enough to make a Delay Repay claim but by enough to inconvenience me, can you explain these delays to me and what it is you’re doing about it as on your website1 it looks like everything is rosey in Dominic’s garden.


I had hoped that when Tim Clarke resigned and Dominic Booth took over you’d all start thinking things really had to improve. They haven’t and you haven’t, it simply isn’t good enough. Why not get your senior customer experience managers to travel the routes and talk to commuters, the people that do this every day. Don’t rely on those daft NX surveys that get handed out at stations every quarter, most commuters I know bin them, talk to us directly.


Alternatively, have a look around on the web in forums, blogs and review sites, see what people are saying about your service, it’s atrocious and it’s not getting better. Everywhere I look there’s incompetence in one railway. Look, for example, at the handling of the Norwich Station improvements. It has taken over six months to simply repaint and re-board the platform roofs and lay tarmac and that’s not even complete yet. It took well over a year to replace the digital departure board at Ipswich … last night (24th May) the 18.30 from Norwich was not cleaned at all before departure and I sat amongst newspapers, cups and filth for my journey home…


Maybe I’m labouring the point but I think you get the picture. At the very least, please respond to my points regarding the penalty fares and, if you feel so-inclined, I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts about the other disappointments I’ve outlined above.


Many thanks for wading through that, I’m genuinely looking forward to your reply. Alternatively why not get someone to actually call and speak to me [number].

smorgasbord-design : usability: TSA Agree, Peter Stephenson is being exploited.

smorgasbord-design : usability: TSA Agree, Peter Stephenson is being exploited. More on this story at MarmiteBoy

TSA Agree, Peter Stephenson is being exploited.

Following my post earlier this week in relation to Peter Stephenson, a Tourette Syndrome sufferer, being exploited in BB7, the BBC report that the Tourette Syndrome Associate (TSA) have concerns over his inclusion.

Roy Hillard (TSA spokesman) seemingly supports my argument adding that the length of exposure and apparent lack of medication will exacerbate the disorder.

Predictably Channel 4 maintain he was picked on his other merits and that his positive approach to his condition made his inclusion even more worthwhile, i'd like to think this was the case but I simply don't buy it and neither, it seems, do the TSA. Channel 4 have, in a vain attempt to deflect some criticism, added a link to the TSA via Peter's profile page.

Demonstrating a Return on Investment (ROI) for Usability

One of the hardest things we usability practioners have to do (besides getting customers/users into a sinister looking testing lab...) is demonstrate to senior managers that usability has a solid cost-benefit case. Since the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 those holding the purse strings have had little time for the sort of gay abandon with which money was thrown at web-related development in the past.

Today almost everything I do has to stack up with figures. Aside from becoming proficient in producing highly-understandable Excel sheets I have had to improve my ability to demonstrate a confident link between changes, improvements and development we make and the bottom-line.

It's all too easy for usability to turn into a subjective argument. My perceptions of a site or application journey are skewed by my experiences and my specialism within the industry. My Mum's perceptions of a site would be similarly skewed by her experiences on Amazon, Friends Reunited and her online banking etc. etc. Both of us have valid comments about the user-experience but making these objective require a specific approach.

The key is to divide the experience into discrete, mutually-dependent fundamentals: the brand, the content, the usability and the intended function. Under each fundamental element we can score the experience on a polarised scale (1-5). We then have a total user-experience score out 20. Each element needs some parameters of course and that's where I'm going to be discrete, I have my opinions but ultimately my job depends (for these are the tools of the trade to some extent) on keeping this kind of information back.

Of course, once you have a set of quantifiable user metrics you can add your business-related metrics to them: click-through, conversion, keyword density, unique views, session time etc. etc. Plotting the user data against the bottom-line data will indicate if your development is effective.

Of course, this only works if you've got a site/application to work on and if your user-centric design is about evolution rather than creation. If you want to know how to convince your stakeholders that user-centred design is required from day 0 of the project, you'll have to wait for another blog entry later ...

Technorati Tags : web usability and ROI OR cost-benefit analysis

Endemol & Channel 4 Unacceptably Sensationalise Tourette Syndrome

Last year I made a decision not to watch Big Brother. I made that decision because I wanted to enjoy my summer without feeling I had to know every evening what had happened in a house-come-studio in Elstree. I felt good at the end of it all that I’d managed to pick up enough through the press to be able to discuss it at work but I hadn’t wasted my evenings with the modern-day equivalent of the 19^th Century circus freak-show.

Last night the 2006 housemates entered the fray and frankly I was appalled. Channel 4 have felt it acceptable to put a tourette-suffering young lad, Peter Stephenson, in there apparently (due to Davina’s evident guffawing) to make him a national point of mirth: effectively, ‘look at the funny man with the tic who swears’. Ultimately Tourette Syndrome is a psychiatric disorder and I really thought we’d gone past the days of finding these inherently funny.

Last year the Tourette Syndrome Association (TSA) in the US released a press announcement “It Ain’t Funny & It Ain’t True; Exploiting Tourette Syndrome for Laughs”. There is no doubt in my mind that Big Brother is attempting to sensationalise this condition and is being aided and abetted by The Sun. They also quote a spokeswoman from the TSA in the UK: “Sufferers should be laughed with, not at. We hope Big Brother will help viewers understand TS and be supportive.” Detailing some of Peter’s other behaviours (his apparent lack of sexual inhibition and cross-dressing) the Sun builds a picture of someone with co-occurring conditions. Often Tourette Syndrome sufferers exhibit Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) which in adults manifests itself in excessive talking, interrupting others, blurting out answers before questions are finished and saying what's on your mind without regard to the ramifications. I’m not an expert but a degree in Psychology does at least qualify me to say these do correlate with the behaviours Pete apparently displays.

Pete’s presence at the house in Elstree is designed solely to grab audience attention – it’s certainly not for any other reason – and whether he’s fully aware of what this means in a social context for his disorder, it remains that this encourages a climate of discrimination. A counter argument may run that this is actually better than hiding Pete away as a form of social censorship but that is not what I am advocating either, merely that this programme demonstrates an artificially skewed sense of social order and what suffers like Pete need is inclusion and acceptance. BB7 is not educating the Great British Public about psychiatric disorders, it is (in my opinion) unacceptably sensationalising it.

Also: Brand Republic: "Channel Four reveals Big Brother's freaky 14"

Technorati Tags : Peter Stephenson , Big Brother and Tourette syndrome

Viral Marketing Measures of Success: Reach vs. Conversion

I was sent the viral Fan Van game this afternoon which (as chaps might be able to see) is quite an entertaining and visually appealing distraction. It has been sent on already and has therefore fulfilled the viral element of the strategy. What I'm not so clear on is how effective it will be at getting people to generate revenue for the company involved. That company is P&O and the strategy for this viral must be for (men) to enter the competition to win a van and therefore supply them with significant volumes of client data or book their trip (and I guess the supposition is that this will be a trip to Germany 2006 via the P&O ferry route) through them. I'm not convinced a high percentage of viewers of this viral will actually do that.

By chance today Justin Kirby of Digital Media Communications writes in NMA (New Media Age) about how "Marketers must get creative for viral campaigns to succeed". He asserts a similar position: "...sadly success still seems to be judged simply in terms of reach rather than tangible business benefits, such as shifting product or increasing brand advocacy." I'd like to see the figures from this P&O viral, what was their reach, what was the uptake in sales and what was the increase in brand awareness. There's no question that the P&O viral is creative, but does it have longevity? I might forward this on but I'll have forgotten about it tomorrow and it'll have been deleted from my mail box. It's not something I'm going to revisit and, if it wasn't for the fact I'm writing this, I'm pretty sure I'd have forgotten who it was for. In fact, I'd heard about it from a friend before I got the email ... he described it as "the fan in a van thing" ... I searched in Google for "fan in a van" and it didn't appear. I typed "faninavan".com and .co.uk, it didn't appear. If I had wanted to look for this after i'd deleted the email I wouldn't have found it again.

In addition, is this sort of viral just a little too indiscriminate. Some will inevitably fall on stoney ground. Ok, so it will reach a core target audience of 17-35 year old men but will all of these have the sort of disposable income where they will be booking P&O trips? Will they be the sort of chaps that will want a van? This seems a bit of a broad-brush approach. But then, does this wastage matter on the web. At the end of the day, you don't HAVE to click and a video of nubile girls is unlikely to annoy many unwitting recipients in this demographic. I'd have much more confidence in the product/service shifting results of this viral if it had been effectively targetted and profiled.

Some additional Blog comment via Gordon's Republic.

Technorati Tags: viral marketing and FanVan2006

Prioritizing Dancing Mangos

It's been some time since I've posted about the dreadful service I have experienced on one railway. That's not to say it's improved, well not much, it's just that I seem to have bigger fish to fry.

However, I was delighted today to be pointed in the direction of Dancing Mango. I'm particularly interested in the Customer Experience section, I love reading about companies that are getting it right and those that are getting it wrong, it brings clarity to much of the internal hypothesising I find myself doing as part of my job. To that end it's been a real eye opener to pick up Jakob's new book, "Prioritizing Web Usability". Unlike some of his previous books this one (and it might be Hoa Loranger's input) contains a fair swathe of analytical, thought-provoking copy. But, and this is what give it credibility in my eyes, is that it's not afraid to say "we were wrong" or at least "we're no longer right" about certain topics. For example link colours. Previously Jakob said, blue is essential, now it's ok to use other colours for links as long as they're consistent and contrasting. Common sense prevails. It simply has less of a prescriptive tone and more of a common sense advice, and in that sense it picks up on the great successes of Steve Krug's work.

Technorati Tag : web usability

Darling Buds of May (13th)

As mentioned previously I'm growing chilli plants this year. I thought I'd post a picture of my homegrown cayennes as they're pretty close to opening their first flowers. The macro shot to the left shows the buds are pretty abundant. My Habaneros on the other hand are a bit lacking ... more important chilli news later ...

R & W Paul (Albion) Maltings, Ipswich: Time-Lapse Demolition Film

The Evening Star have provided a time-lapse film of the last grain silo at the Paul's Albion maltings being demolished. This comes after they placed a webcam in the direction of the latest deconstruction work taking place.

There have been swarms of people taking photos of this work taking place for the last few weeks, if anyone wants to send these to me I'll post a few. Here are my contact details.

There are a smattering of old shots of Ipswich available at the Unseen Archive for anyone interested.

There was talk in the press about trams making a come-back in Ipswich by utilising the remaining rails along the waterfront. Nice idea, shame about the cost/practicalities. Unfortunately a large amount of the rails have been removed already, and the whole scheme would cost millions.

However, the thought of catching a tram at Cliff Quay or at the new University Campus at Orwell Quay and riding this through the waterfront along to the sidings at the Princes Street Bridge where I could wander to the station sounds fantastic. The route is 'clear' and a crossing is already in place... if only councils were more brave.

Other old views of Ipswich Waterfront
:: R & W Paul Albion Maltings: Part demolished by 777 Demolition for development by Knight Frank. (Old and new photos)
:: Cranfields Flour Mill: Part demolished by CDC Demolition for development by Wharfside Regeneration.
:: Burtons: Now under development for Cardinal Lofts.
:: John Good & Sons building: Now the Salthouse Harbour Hotel (old and new pictures)

Technorati Tag : ipswich waterfront

Back to usability stuff now...

innocent smoothies. Make your own ...

It's summer. Well it cetainly felt like it yesterday when I went out for a run. Stopped in at Sainsbury's on the way home to do the weekly shop and my fiancee picked up the innocent book (below) as we're both fans of their pre-packed products. Got it home and assumed we'd be alright with our Kenwood blender (also below) but turns out we need a juice too so we've ordered the Moulinex one.

I love the tone of voice that innocent use. I'm not a huge fan of their website though in the same way that I don't really see the point of many product sites like this (Fruit Pastilles website anyone? Website for Mr. Muscle?) but at least the writing's good enough to capture the imagination for a while. I guess if they put half the content of the book on there it would be a good move. Anyway, buy some of this stuff and make yourself feel healthier.

Free Web Page Greeking Tool

More interesting stuff from blog-favourite William Hudson this morning. He's promoting a free 'Greeking' tool to allow usability experts to view a page with the text replaced with gibberish. The value of this is explained by Jakob in an article 'Testing Whether Web Page Templates are Helpful'.

The premise is simple, is it the page structure and layout that informs the interaction, or the content?

There are some limitations to William's site/tool, it only understands HTML (so no scripting) and all the links lead back to, predictably, www.greekthis.com.

If you find this tool useful, let him know and leave a comment below.

Ipswich Waterfront: Live Demolition Webcam

Following my post yesterday about the progress of demolition on the waterfront in Ipswich I have come across a live webcam showing the work taking place. This webcam is supported by the Suffolk Development Agency and local paper, The Evening Star.

Having been shown some great timelapse webcam images from a New York blizzard, the Ipswich webcam's timelapse shots seem a little lame. I guess it needs more frames. There are two at the moment: A twenty-four hours version and a seven-day version.

Technorati Tag : ipswich waterfront

Sweat Resistant Sporty Headphones from Sennheiser

Shiny Shiny (tech/gadget site aimed at girls) reports a new range of sports-specific headphones released by Sennheiser. Given that my much loved PX 100 pair are suffered from over-use at the gym I'd be tempted to invest. There's nothing like a quality pair of 'phones to compliment your iPod and when they're as practical as they are audiologically impressive then it seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me.

HUH Corp: Change Consultancy Is Nonsense

A mildly amusing parody of change consultancy is viewable at HUH Corp.

Ipswich Waterfront Demolition Nearing Completion

They started work on pulling down one of the last giant grain silos on the waterfront yesterday. The scaffold's been up for some time to protect the Customs House and the wet dock itself but it was yesterday that the concrete jaws of the 777 demolition machines weighed in.

Last night there was masses of concrete dust swirling around (hope all the asbestos has gone) despite their best attempts with hoses. Not much time left now for these 1950's industrial relics. Still, only a short time to enjoy the expanded view as well. The Evening Star reports that the replacement will be an equally high residential tower.

Further along the quay the work seems pretty much complete (on schedule) for Whafside
Regeneration's Mill project. The website 'Live At The Mill' is still just a duff coverpage so I wouldn't bother checking in. This seems a bit odd given that London design agency ico design plastered 3.5m pink letters for the URL on the side of the building.

I took the picture above on 22nd March nicely capturing a spring sunset on my walk home.

Technorati Tag : ipswich waterfront

I’m growing chillies this year.

Have been furiously growing chillies this year much like other bloggers. It all started when I got involved in a competition at work last year and managed to get a few Jalapenos out of it. This year I roped in a few colleagues and our office is now adorned with a fine display of foliage in various stages of maturity. If I remember (sets himself up) I might post a few pics as the season progresses.

Honda’s Online Customer Experience: Does It Match Their Appealing Adverts?

Recently William Hudson of Syntagm set at challenge to find out the CO2 figure for the Honda Civic Hybrid:

DIY USABILITY TEST:
· Go to http://www.honda.co.uk
· Note the time
· Find the CO2 emission figure (important for UK tax purposes) for the Hybrid version of the Honda Civic (correct answer is 109)
· Jot down the time it took you and your satisfaction with the experience of finding this (0 = not at all, 5 = very)
· Send them …

This isn’t a pointless task, the CO2 figure for this car is important as it relates to UK tax breaks and is the reason as to why the car is exempt from the London congestion charge.

The results of this brief ‘study’ were worrying: “The average amount of time spent on the task was 7.2 minutes (ranging from 2.5 to 20). Only half of respondents found the information at all. Many respondents who failed did not specify a satisfaction with the experience, but this was taken as 0 (not at all satisfied). Mean satisfaction was 0.7 (median 0 = not at all satisfied).”

I’d concur with William’s suppositon that most customers probably get hold of a brochure – either by visiting a showroom or downloading it. What’s worrying is that a Google search for it works – but doesn’t pick up the Honda site.

The correct way of finding this information is:
· Click on "cars" at the top of the home page (http://www.honda.co.uk).
· Wait for the intro to finish (the one with the cards driving around) or press "Skip" when it eventually appears.
· Click on the image of the Civic.
· Click on the Civic again (or wait until the new animation finishes).
· A button appears on the right of the screen labelled "Build your Civic".
· Click on that and wait for the screen to load.
· Click on the specification tab.
· Scroll down the left panel to Fuel Economy. CO2 is the last figure shown.

Miss Reef 2006

Seems a long time ago since Cornish girl Claire Newby won the Miss Reef competition on Fistral Beach in 2004. She wasn't a bad looking girl (though runners up Claire Platt and Donna Bevan would have got my vote).

It's been a long cold winter here in the UK but fortunately the interweb can now reveal who won the Miss Reef competition 2006. I'm not sure frankly who did but I did enjoy making my own judgement on the proceedings.

:: The Flickr group of pictures for Miss Reef 2006
:: The awesome PBase gallery of proceedings in Chile.
:: The photo report on Surfers Village.
:: A piece on Heavy Promotion with some more galleries.

Gerry McGovern on Web Navigation: Show people their route to goal, not their route to everywhere.

I’m not always a fan of Gerry’s weekly mailouts. Occasionally they over simplify concepts and in so-doing contribute little more to the gentle evangelism of usability than a few extra Kb in your inbox. However, in his mailout on 2nd April he touched on the subject of navigation, something I like to immerse myself in every so often. Back in 2002 I commented (rather naively) on the next big things in data visualisation, specifically the decision tree/organic nodal navigation model. We’ve not really got there yet and Gerry’s comment raises interesting questions about what we should be showing the customer during their route through our site.

The basic premise is that we should support movement forwards – goal-orientated – rather than supporting every possible route. To use an analogy that Gerry proposed, when driving from London to Maidstone would you want to know at every junction where you could visit and that if you wanted you could still u-turn back to London? No, not really – you just want to know how to get to Maidstone. On the web we can actually change the signposts on the way. We can suppress the superfluous navigation having made some informed decisions about where you want to go. So, for example, if you visit a bank site from an aggregator where you were looking at the best deal on loans, why would you want to see links on that bank’s site about insurance or savings accounts? Keep these to a minimum (ie. A simple ‘home’ link) and support the loan application process first an foremost.

“Good web navigation design is not about giving people lots and lots of choices.” – Gerry McGovern.

There’s a corollary to this too (which Gerry doesn’t mention, so kudos to me!) which is that our short-term memory is considered to be around 7 (±2) [Miller, 1952] so having long choice-ridden menus is actually a hindrance to those people using screen readers and a cognitive burden to those of us that don’t who have to re-read long lists to mitigate the effects of recency [Davelaar et al., 2005]. Of course, there is a danger that changing the navigational structure during the user-journey could leave the participant open to change blindness [see a retrospective by William Hudson] which could lead to frustration and disorientation if users are expecting a consistency in their navigation options. And herein lies the problem. What model do the majority of users follow, do they (we) expect some level of global navigation to remain constant but would nevertheless appreciate a context-specific layer too? I think Gerry (and to that end Jakob too) may have too much faith in the power of the back button!

Another thing that Gerry’s short piece does state which to my mind is unequivocable is that clutter is destructive and that adding links simply adds (eventually bewildering) choice. Impacting the power of every other link on that page, on the web after a point, adding becomes the equivalent to subtracting from the user experience. Understaning where that point is becomes a worthwhile challenge for interaction designers.

[As a consequence, I’ll reduce my contextual linking in these blog items – don’t want you to have too much choice as to where to go next!]

[Another aside, a piece on the Usability of IVR systems which mentions some tips for improving the short-term memory retention, presumably by deeper processing and thence transferring this to the long-term store.]

What Will The Web Look Like In The Future?

I’m naturally a bit cynical and reticent to try and get too strategic with my pensive ramblings. I’m happy, more than happy in fact, to sit back and think of things that might or might not happen in the future but to get into predictions, well that’s another thing.

A few weeks ago now I attended a moderated session where a group of like-minded individuals thrashed out what customers might want in the future. The temptation was to get bogged down in technology, second guessing the next big thing but the reality for me is that we’ll start to notice technology less. It’s about feeling like things are less effort and that technology is an integrated part of our lives.

Today I no longer think about it when I check my email on my phone. I don’t give it a thought when I move my laptop around the flat and surf the web, it seems obvious that you can use sat-nav to find a street in an unfamiliar town and that tomorrow morning my iPod will have the latest news on it. Technology makes tasks easier, well it should make tasks easier.

But what about when life is harder because of technology? I’ve moved all my music on to my hard-drive and I worry every week that I’ve not got a backup strategy because if one thing breaks in my hard drive I’ve lost everything. In addition I lost email access a fortnight ago and missed the fact that I’d had an order through my Amazon shop. As a consequence I had to invoke all my customer-service skills to maintain a good relationship with the customer and get the item to him as quickly as possible.

To some extent this penetration of technology means we’re more and more at risk of failures becoming critical. If I lost my laptop – even for a few days – my entire personal admin would collapse, I’d be unable to bank, sort wedding things, and generally manage my domestic arrangements.

Technology is removing some of the sense of progression too. Because we – in the main - focus all of our attention at work through a single interface (normally a desktop PC) we find that we flick between tasks. Answering email, writing documents, producing stats and reports, reviewing web pages, booking diary time and so on. We don’t tend to start one task and take it wholly uninterrupted to its conclusion. Take this blog entry for example. I’ve stopped several times to answer emails and to find pertinent articles on the web. I’ll probably upload it some time after completing it and then edit the hyperlinks later still. Ergonomically this isn’t a lean task-orientated way of working and it’s not just the consequence of my erratic working style either.

Away from the screen I’ll work from start to finish on one task at a time. I blame the technology, and especially ALT-TAB. A recent report suggested we spend an extra 6.5 hours per week on computers at work when compared against a decade ago. I want technology to begin to deliver on its promises of simplifying the mundane in our lives without penalty.

Two examples:
§ I recently switched my electricity bill to direct debit – but I will pay more each month because they can’t accurately predict my usage.
§ My gym (Fitness First, Ipswich) has just switched to keyless lockers. But I will now have to pay a £10 deposit to get a new card which is refunded when I cancel my membership. So, if I’m loyal and stay with them for a few more years my loyalty is penalised. Why not gift these cards to members and raise the money for them through efficiency savings? I don’t believe for a second that these cards cost £10 each.

Technology needs to become so embedded in company psyche that they begin to use it without consideration for what is currently do-able. This is where we return to the future planning I mentioned above and some of the ‘experience’ development I’ve blogged about in the past.

Companies need to be bold in their suggestions and predictions:
§ A bank that stores your personal data and thus protects you from identity theft.
§ A car manufacturer or motoring provider that manages your tax, insurance, daily directions, servicing and your entire motor-related life.
§ A life-essentials provider that manages your internet, phone, electricity and water supplies as well as food ordering.

Some companies are getting close already. Tesco for example are covering ground by offering a significant range of products and services – but I’m unclear whether they’re muddying the waters or make life more simple. What is undoubtedly proving elusive is the link between public and private sector. Bundling tax admin with other services , car tax with car insurance, council tax with domestic services and health insurance with advance prescription payments would all seem like a good ideas but seem hamstrung by the restrictive bureaucracy which surrounds government-managed departments.

Some key predictions for the future:
§ Customer dialogue will be crucial. We will shift from a transactional web to a conversational one, building trust through transparency.
§ Companies will provide solutions ahead of products. Commoditisation will be anathema to customer-orientated organisations.
§ Personalisation will become smarter. (No more hidden menus in Word!)
§ Environmental, ethical and community-social consideration will increasingly drive consumer demand.
§ A technological underclass will develop both willingly (conscientious objectors) and unwillingly (social poverty).

Comments and questions encouraged. Click the envelope below right.

Autistic Savant, 'J-Mac', Shows Basketball Prowess

I'm not wholly convinced by the autistic-spectrum (AS) relevance of this item but the kid's prowess on the basketball court is worth celebrating anyway. I'm going to dig around a bit more to find out the background (such as it is) but in the meantime, go view the video highlights of the game and read up some more about my thoughts on AS disorders.

Some more info available from Scott Pitoniak at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle site

Technorati Tags: j-mac and Jason McElwain