Event #1: July/August Issue of Interactions Magazine Arrives

 The cover story by Professor Liam Bannon is Reimagining HCI: toward a more human-centered perspective. I was immediately smitten by the title because this has been a theme I have been preaching to my team and anyone else patient enough to indulge me over the last 5 years. It’s not enough to involve “users” in the design and development of interfaces to technological tools. There is no such being as a “user.”  We are people who use technology. We use technology in the context of trying to accomplish something. In order to design effective interactions (not merely usable interfaces to devices), designers must design with an understanding of the broader context of use and of the person using the tool.

Bannon’s article gives this seemingly self-evident yet often ignored perspective much needed context of its own. He outlines the history of the discipline of designing human-computer interactions. (The article is a must read for anyone interested in developments in the field of HCI over the last 30+ years.) When Professor Bannon gets to the present he observes, “This perspective of ‘human-centered design’ as a paradigm shift takes the term ‘human-centered’ to mean more than simply ‘considering the user’ in technology development. Rather it places our understanding of people, their concerns and their activities at the forefront in the design of new technology.”

He goes on to point out that understanding people reaches far beyond our use of any particular technological device to include matters of ethics and shared values. Today, he argues, human-centered design means understanding what it means to be human. Great stuff.

Event #2: The Resignation of Steve Jobs

He had been on medical leave since January, yet when he formally announced his resignation as CEO, Apple stock fell over 5%. This despite the fact that he will remain the company’s chairman. Regardless of what you think of Steve Jobs – and opinions range widely – there is no denying that Apple was reborn on his watch, climbing from #287 on the S&P 500 10 years ago to battling Exxon for the #1 spot as the world’s most valuable company. Listening to one of several retrospectives I was struck by a comment made by a Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal that for me summed up Jobs’ transformative impact on the world of personal computing. Mossberg noted, “He makes products for the actual users of the products.”

In a SF Chronicle article about Apple alums who have started companies of their own, Matt MacInnis, the founder of the digital textbook platform Inkling noted, “We all tend to come at things from a software- or hardware-for-a-person worldview, because that’s how Apple operates so intensely at all levels.” By “we all” he’s referring to people who founded companies with names like Electronic Arts, Salesforce.com, Android, LinkedIn…enough said.

Event #3: A Project about Employees’ Attitudes and Behaviors gets C-Level Attention

Finally, this last Friday account director Lisa Woodley wrote an email congratulating her project team for the results of their work to help transform the attitudes and behaviors of the employees of one of our marquee clients. Our experience design challenge in this case had nothing to do with the technological tools these employees have been provided. There was no reconciliation of business requirements with functional specifications to perform, no usability issue to address. The problem was that people had lost touch with the intrinsic value of their jobs, and the resulting attitudes and behaviors were affecting individual and company performance. Our team’s challenge was to help them rediscover the thread between the tasks they perform every day and the very genuine corporate mission to make the world a better place. She quoted our client sponsor as saying, “Everything is really resonating, and people are passionate about what they are saying. The work completed so far is having an impact that exceeds my expectations, and my expectations were pretty high.”

Always great to have a happy client. But what really struck me was what came next: “The outcomes of our success,” Lisa wrote, “include being invited to present our work at a meeting in October for all the CIOs of all the businesses under the [company] umbrella.” Our work focusing on employee engagement and how it enables better collaboration is going to be a topic of discussion at a meeting of senior technologists whose typical charter is to “leverage” technology in order to reduce costs (read: cut jobs) and increase efficiency (read: do more with less). And this CIO presentation will happen just a few weeks after Lisa co-leads an in-conference workshop on the importance of preparing employees for tool and platform changes at CBI’s Life Sciences Commercial IT Summit on Mobile and Cloud Initiatives; a 3.5 hour workshop about people at a conference for IT professionals.

Taken together these three events represent a powerful theme. Bannon, a professor and the director of a design center at a university, champions a more human-centric design approach largely to an audience of people who are academics, theoreticians and design practitioners. Steve Jobs is a champion of people as users of consumer electronics, commonly called customers. Lisa’s team championed the cause of people as employees. Practitioners, customers and employees – a trifecta of human-centricity. These are just three examples of what I see as a growing and welcome trend in the world of experience design as it applies to the design of technological solutions: the rise of the humanists. There’s hope for the planet after all.

In 2004, in a Scientific American article titled The Tyranny of Choice,  Barry Shwartz  posited a counterintuitive argument about the effects of having too many choices (e.g. do we need 38 different kinds of milk?).  He questioned why “people are increasingly unhappy even as they experience greater material abundance and freedom of choice? Recent psychological research suggests that increased choice may itself be part of the problem.”

I count myself among those who struggle with choice.  I am virtually paralyzed when handed the phone book sized menu at The Cheesecake Factory.  The only place I find an easy time eating out is at a wedding (i.e. Meat, Chicken or Fish works great). 

This idea of the tyranny of choice got me thinking about a similar phenomenon that occurs with rapid innovation and change.  The speed at which new products, interfaces and services are introduced is generally something to admire and celebrate as “Good”.  But it is as daunting as it is impressive, and there’s not always a positive experience for the customers or employees faced with all this change.

True Story: A company wanted to extend their website service into the mobility space with a new app.  Without betraying too much detail, the application was to be accessed only when a four-legged loved one gets lost.  As I read the RFP, the human impact questions of such an app started flowing: e.g. What do people do differently when they are in a state of panic?  What could be unique to a design that might help them remain calm/focused and successful in their search?  At the very least, how can we make sure that we don’t make an already difficult situation worse? Small as this project was, I really wanted to win it, as it was a great opportunity to research a rare, context-specific behavior, and one of those ‘feel good’ projects that could really help people in difficult times.   

Of course, the senior execs at this company wanted it on their iPhones yesterday and as cheaply as they could get it, so typical deadline and cost pressures were at play as well.  The good news was that my primary client knows and values the need for experience design research.  The bad news was that the competition (the incumbent agency) offered to build and fully deploy production versions of this mobile application on both Blackberry and iPhone for half the price of just our research alone.  How does one make a case for research when it’s twice the price of the actual product? 

Things are changing.  Super fast.  Rapid innovative leaps in mobile technology, ever-easier tools for building applications, cloud-based applications that consolidate and streamline development… all of these advances pose interesting challenges for the Experience Design community.  When it’s cheaper to build an application, launch it and ‘fail forward’ in a live environment than it is to do the upfront research to validate the wants and needs of your audience, your competition is developers, not agencies or large systems implementation shops.  It’s two 20-something college guys who work remotely, making money hand over fist pumping out $20K applications while we can run up that tab with a modest Discovery session.

Welcome to the New World

How do those of us who believe that design is a human-centric undertaking that benefits profoundly from research compete when innovation is in hyper-drive and the cost of failing quickly is perceived to be so much lower than the risk of moving too slowly?  The answer is we can’t compete with a “just build it” mentality. But we can change our perspective to fit the times. Here are three ideas for ‘guerilla’ tactics that can help ensure that the target audience gets a say in the experience/tools they will inherit. Note that the efficacy of each one is highly dependent upon your particular situation.  

1 – Beta research populations – Providing a new application or service to a broad audience increasingly seems to have become a contest to see who can deploy the fastest.  Well, one way to address the need for speed is to suggest a pilot program.  As opposed to putting out to everyone live, see if it’s possible to reach out to a small but diverse subset of your audience.  This is a great way to really see what people are doing with a live application, which can often satisfy the speed-to-market forces at play.   You MAY be able to do this.

2 – Managing the change – Just because you can’t have input into a design doesn’t mean you can’t help improve the impact that design has on people.  With cloud-based apps, ERPs and mobile apps, it’s likely you simply won’t have the chance to change an interface.   When the interface can’t change, focus on the people who must.  Sure, the preference is not to have people forced to ‘fit’ the technology. Nevertheless, sometimes that’s just the way it is. We have many examples of how we – experience designers working beyond the interface – helped bridge the gaps that can frustrate people and affect adoption.  You SHOULD be able to do this.

3 – Know your history – Always know what research has been done and leverage it. Don’t assume you are a pioneer in any research effort.  Certain clients, even entire industries have done their own version of research similar to what you might propose.  And there’s often general behavioral/psychological/sociological research related to the specific channel/ system/ device you’re charged with optimizing.  A little detective work can often uncover patterns and models that can help inform design.  You can ALWAYS do this.

Human evolution is increasingly outpaced by technological evolution.  Though our ability to adapt to new interactive paradigms  is impressive (e.g. even Grandma can pinch and swipe now), the pace of change has implications beyond the interface itself. As experience designers our job is to think beyond the interface to the larger context of the interaction; beyond the pinch or swipe to the human emotions and behaviors the interface is designed to serve. We can only do so if we insist on finding ways to engage humans in our design processes.

POSTSCRIPT:  It is worth noting the winning vendor for the lost pet mobile application did not successfully deploy the application, and costs were much higher than originally scoped.

I volunteered not just because I love shoes and social media, but because I figured I’d learn a thing or two about the burgeoning world of influenced viral marketing. And boy did I learn some things. I decided to write a brief white paper on my experience, Turning the Tables on SM Viral Marketing.  Below I’ve summarized the lessons I learned during my brief time as a product influencer about the do’s and don’ts of running a viral marketing strategy. 

1) Equip your influencers with an understanding of your goals and some tips for how they can help you achieve them. 

While my contact at this High-End Department Store did a great job of getting me excited about my free pair of shoes, she didn’t do too much when it came to making sure I understood her goals for this activity and what I could do to help her.  For some key things she could have done to help my posts be as “influencial” as possible, see the white paper.

2) Make sure your influencers have enough to say about your product and are prepared tweet about it multiple times a day.

Now, I love shoes and have a gift to gab… but even I ran out of steam after a few days. Having some daily suggestions from my contact would have helped me keep the tweets fresh and interesting. It would have also kept me a lot more engaged in the program.  These suggestions could have come in the form of scenarios to work through with the shoes as well as topics I should cover.  And for “filler” tweets, she might have provided links to some good third party reviews of the shoes or other interesting shoe-relevant websites.  There’s more detail on this tip in the white paper.

3) If you enlist your customers to blog for you, be prepared to be just as involved in this activity as they are… and be sure to live up to any commitments you make to them.

In my case, the High-End Department Store contact went dark once the recruitment process was complete.  As a result, when challenges arose – such as shoes not arriving, “hot spots”  not knowing who we were, and general confusion about what we were doing – we had no choice but to tweet and blog about it in hopes that maybe our contact was listening. (As I note in point 4 below, we  later found out she was not.) So what would I have done differently?  My ideas are outlined in the white paper.

 4) Listen to what your influencers are saying (and show your support)… letting them see your level of engagement will only raise up theirs.

This is, of course, a tough one.  There is a fine line between supporting and influencing your influencers – one you don’t want to cross.  That said, no one likes to hear crickets when they are putting themselves out there…especially if it is in front of those who know them in their non-influencer life.  Find creative ways to reward good posts and address issues and challenges they may be expressing in their posts. See my whitepaper for more information on the opportunity lost by my support person’s lack of engagement.

 5) Have a plan.  Social Media may seem all fun and games… but it isn’t. 

It may feel like a casual and spur of the moment channel, but it is ANYTHING but if you are a marketer looking to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and the host of other consumer-focused social media channels to reach your customers.  It is just as calculated, structured, and thought-through as the commercials you shoot, the ads you design, and the marketing events you plan.  After all, if I read about a cute pair of Sam Edelman ballet flats and a Girl’s Night Out Shoe Event on my friend’s blog and I go to the store and NOONE knows about the party, the shoes, or anything else… there is a huge break in your marketing strategy.  For an outline of key plan components, see my white paper.

Your objectives will ultimately drive the types of research you choose to conduct – interviews, focus groups, natural observation, journals, card sorting and so on. But when the budget is tight and every piece of a project is under the financial microscope, you can use some of the following guerilla research tactics to gain an actionable level of audience understanding.

1.     Research Before Your Research

Arm Yourself with Knowledge and Hypotheses Prior to Research

Take the time before a study to learn as much as you can about work done on related topics and audiences.  Study relevant prior research done by your compay or others, review data you are already collecting from touch points such as your website, read industry white papers, and examine your main competitors. Use your research to form some solid hypotheses. By testing pre-determined hypotheses, you can learn more about the topic of interest with a smaller number of people.

Good For: Testing with small numbers of people; studies with a highly targeted focus

Not Good For: More exploratory, comprehensive insight-gathering studies; projects with minimal lead time before research

2.     Friends & Family Recruiting

Talking to Anyone is Better than Talking to No One

If the budget can’t afford a recruiting agency, if the client doesn’t have the bandwidth to recruit internally, or if there isn’t enough time in scope for you to undertake formal recruiting, you can always reach out to friends and family. While it may seem very informal, remember that your friends and family are people who use products and services just like anyone else. Friends and family often feel special that they are invited to help on one of your projects, and it gives them a chance to see what you’re working on. 

Good For: Studies related to products/services with general audiences; projects and budgets that do not allow for professional recruiting services

Not Good For: Studies related to products/services with a very narrow audience group; studies involving privacy-sensitive information (ex. needing participants with a certain medical condition); projects where participant “bail-outs” would compromise the entire initiative

3.      Social Media for Broad Audience Outreach

Gaining Baseline Understandings through Your Social Networks

When you don’t have the time or budget for up-front, broad baseline research, social media can be a great tool. Both the researchers and client representatives can pose a question to people in their social networks. People are surprisingly willing to answer quick poll questions and the answers to these questions can help inform decisions in the design process.

For a recent non-profit client, MISI Company was tasked with redesigning their website based on best practices and then validating the design afterwards. In order to make sure that we were on the right path, our research team tapped into their social networks and asked a very simple question that ended up informing several key design decisions – “What three things do you need to know before donating money or time to a non-profit organization?”

Good For: Projects that only have time/budget for testing before or after design – not both; gaining audience insights in preparation for stakeholder discussions or in addition to more formal research

Not Good For: Research studies that are investigating more behavioral aspects of audiences; questions that require long answers or a back-and-forth discourse; studies that aim to understand motivations and thought-processes more so than final actions

4.     Research from a Remote Location

Reaching Global or Long-Distance Audiences from Your Home Office

In many situations, remote testing could be a significant cost-saver. Depending on the type of research study that is being performed, there are a variety of technologies today that allow researchers to hold a valuable conversation with audiences all over the world. For instance, many studies could be performed using a survey tool, a conference line, an online screen-sharing service or a combination of all of the above.

In a recent employee-based global research initiative, MISI Company reached over 150 employees in 8 countries, all from local offices. Through the use of various online tools (such as an audio conferencing/recording service and an online survey tool), our research team was able to gather accurate insights, conduct a confident analysis of a large diverse population, and create actionable goals based on the insights of that analysis. Depending on the goals of the study and how it is being conducted, your international or geographically widespread research still could be highly effective without the costs and time involved in travel and lodging for your research team.

Good For: Studies with participants in multiple, distant locations; projects with very short research timelines and/or budgets that do not allow for travel and lodging

Not Good For: Research that involves complicated tasks; studies with audiences who are not tech-savvy; studies in which body language can be an important observation

5.     Slimmed Data Analysis

The Debate Between Accurate vs. Precise

When analyzing the outputs of a study, researchers can spend months slicing data one million ways, finding and explaining the random outliers, or running numbers to create a pile of statistics in order to provide clients with the most precise data analysis possible. A quicker alternative is to deliver accurate findings that achieve the goals of the research but are not as precise and detailed. For instance, after being active in all aspects of the study, a researcher can often make a statement such as “Most people liked the size of the product, while very few liked the color.” Along with this statement, researchers may look for specific supporting data; however this approach of presenting accurate but more generalized findings as opposed to highly detailed, precise findings could save significant time in the post-research phase and still achieve all of the goals of your study.

Good For: Stakeholders who are interested solely in accurate actionable insights and recommendations

Not Good For: Stakeholders who expect participant statistics and precise findings; findings that will act as baselines for future studies

It is important that when you are planning your research initiative, you consider the impact of any cost-saving measure and ensure that it does not interfere with the effectiveness or accuracy of your research. For instance, some of these guerilla research tactics may not be ideal for large, mission-critical initiatives that will have significant bottom line impact. But when you are working on a more modest project and know that you need evidence to support your decisions, ask your experience design partner about the applicability of these approaches. They have the experience to help you decide which guerilla research tactics will work best for your project so that you don’t have to break the bank.

The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ

MISI Company is very excited to launch this blog series covering our work with the Morris Museum & Bickford Theater located in Morristown, New Jersey.  The project  is focused on delivering an end-to-end Strategic Experience Alignment (SEA) engagement in hopes of helping them resolve some challenges they are facing around brand, marketing, and communications as they seek to engage a new generation of museum and theater supporters.  And we would like to enlist you to join our project team.

Over the course of the next few months you will be privy to a behind the scenes look at what a SEA project looks like – who is part of the project team, what types of activities are involved, and ultimately – the types of deliverables and results that can be expected.

Throughout this series, we will be asking for your input on concepts/ideas we are hatching as well as your objective thoughts on how we are doing.  To kick this part off, please click this link to a 5 minute survey (and I really mean 5 minutes) about why you support cultural destinations near you.  Your input is going to be folded into our first primary research activity focused on identifying the key value propositions for different audiences when it comes to participating in museum and theater events.

For those of you who need a little more convincing before jumping in, here’s a little background on what we’re doing. In Phase 1, you will hear about the experience audit we are conducting which will include activities such as branding workshops, primary research with MM supporters and members of the surrounding community, a touch point analysis and competitive survey, and ultimately – identification of key brand promises and value propositions for their audiences, as well as what it all means to the staff members, who are tasked with getting the word out and engaging their supporters and community members at large.  In other words, we will begin to answer our key SEA questions:

• Who is your audience?
• What are they trying to do?
• How can we help them do it?

In Phase 2, we will start pulling through and implementing the strategy defined in phase 1 to usable assets and processes:  branding and design standards, conceptual and finalized marketing assets, a new website and social media strategy, and a supporting foundation of change management and governance strategies needed to ensure that we design and ultimately implement is sustainable over the long term.  

Finally, in Phase 3, you will learn about the fruits of our labor.  The new website will be launched, the new communication strategy implemented, and most importantly – the updated branding and end to end experience of how supporters engage with the museum and theater live and in steady state.  We will have a baseline of metrics in place that we can begin testing progress against to see where and how our path needs to be adjusted to ensure we meeting and exceeding the expectations of all of our audiences.

Phew – hopefully that is a good representation of the lofty project ahead.  I cannot overstate how excited we are to be embarking on this journey and we hope you will share in our excitment as you follow – and contribute to – our progress.  

Thanks and looking forward to our next touchpoint with you!
The MISI MM & Bickford Theater Team

Please click here to take our 5-minute survey.

Please click here to follow our progress…

No doubt you are aware of programs that were elegant, motivating experiences for their target audiences and returned compelling business results. The question is how can you ensure that the work your agencies are doing for you will result in such experiences? Do you know what good looks like when you’re watching it develop? 

If you’re not even thinking to ask that question, then here’s

Tip #1: Ask it

After all, something about this headline intrigued you, right? Whatever industry you work in, you have the responsibility to question what it is your agencies are creating and why. And not just questions like, “Are you using the right treatment of the logo?” Rather bottom line questions like, “Will I ever see a quantifiable or qualifiable benefit of that $80,000 Flash video you suggested we put on our site?” or “That 55-e-mail communication stream…how will we know it is working for us?”

Some agencies are questioning themselves. Take David Berkowitz and his Inside the Marketer’s Studio blog where he recently ‘atoned’ for sins on behalf of marketers and agencies. Included among his confessions was, “We have killed ideas that were spot on in favor of pet projects that we wanted for our portfolios.” If you’re not lucky enough to be working with an agency that has developed this level of self-awareness and self-evaluation, I’ve provided some tried and true tips for ensuring your agency is gives you good design.

Tip #2: Own the Cross-channel Experience

The ultimate experience of your product or service is only as successful as it is seamlessly integrated across all touchpoints your audience might encounter. You may have a digital agency doing your website, a print agency doing your print materials, an IVR firm doing your call center…the people you’re interacting with don’t care about that. Whether they’re interacting with a mobile device, learning about a prescription medication, paying a bill or booking a flight, they are simply trying to use your product or service to accomplish a goal. And all of their individual interactions with your people and systems across all channels add up to the complete experience of your brand or business. That experience can break down in any single channel/touchpoint and spoil the whole experience. So regardless of any organizational drama over channel conflict, or behind the scenes in-fighting as you manage multiple vendors, someone (why not you?) needs to ensure that the overall experience is seamless and successful from your target audience’s perspective. 

Tip #3: Understand Your Audience….REALLY Understand Them

It will be difficult to do Tip #2 without doing this. No single research or insight gathering approach will give you a full picture of what you need to know about your audience. You may have a 100-page segmentation study that you paid $200K for and are wondering, “So how do I translate this into something actionable for my business?” The answer is to take that broad study and combine it with more targeted research and testing of specific hypothesis that hold promise of getting you to “good.” As David Berkowitz concedes, “[Agencies] have guessed at our target audience’s interests…rather than conducting research that could have provided real answers.” That research he’s talking about does not need to be terribly time-consuming nor expensive, yet it can significantly increase adoption rates, reduce rework and help prevent expensive missteps as you develop an engaging experience for your audience. 

Tip #4:  Make Sure the Customer has a Voice

Similar to Tip #3, someone from the agency’s Customer/User Experience group (research/usability analyst, information/interaction/experience architect, etc.) should be at any meeting involving discussion of the agency’s creative concepts or the desired experience of the design you are working on. If they’re not, explain that you want someone in the room who can be the objective voice of the customer (VOC). If only Creative is represented, you may fall victim to self-deceit or, as Berkowitz describes it, “Falling in love with ideas without considering what would provide value for our target audience.” While it is true that you can’t always rely on people to know what they will want or do at some future date under varying circumstances (how many people asked for an iPod before it existed?), you can construct tests that allow them to give you frank and actionable reactions to what you think they will want or do. And asking them can pay valuable dividends in loyalty and advocacy.

Tip #5: Get Educated

With new technologies and trends evolving every day, it can be difficult to filter through the collection of buzz words to understand where a smart investment lies (“Social Media?” “Web 2.0?” “You-Tube?” “Twitter?” “Web 3.0????”… WT$%^&!!!).  As Mr. Berkowitz confesses, “Agencies have hurried into the newest, most-buzzed-about social spaces without developing a strategy….we have imitated when we could have innovated.” The more educated you are on whatever it is you’re asking your agency to explore, the better you’ll be able to speak the same language, ask relevant questions, challenge assumptions, ensure your best interests are being considered, and, ultimately ensure that you’re getting value for your investment. If you spend just 1-2 hours a week scanning articles and becoming more knowledgeable, you’ll find almost immediate relevance to your business…you’ll also grow more relevant and personally competitive in your chosen profession.

Tip #6: Take Control of Measurement & Evaluation

Chances are agencies pitched you a fantastic program that was going to deliver amazing results based on how you’ve defined “good.” The program likely included some form of ongoing measurement to be conducted and analyzed by the agency. The problem is there’s an inherent bias when an agency measures the effectiveness of a program they create.  Similar to Tip #5, the more you and your business can dictate benchmarks for success to your agency and ensure they are tracking progress transparently to you, the more you can be assured that your program is genuinely fulfilling the value promised in the original pitch. You should insist on participation in the development of an objective measurement strategy that is relevant to the bottom line goals of your business. Ideally, the implementation of the strategy will include both data analysis and access to the raw data so you and/or a trusted consultative partner can dig more deeply into suggested conclusions as necessary. The key is not to measure for measurement’s sake, but to measure with the intent of taking purposeful action to drive the results by which “good” is being measured.

Tip #7: Exhibit Self-Awareness (and Appropriate Self-Lessness)

Unless you’re Apple or one of a few other culturally iconic brands, your product or service probably isn’t all that to your target audience. As much as you might desire it to be a central focus of their day, or as much as your agencies might want to feed your ego (and theirs) with promises that they can make it so, it is much more likely that your audience has more important things at the center of their lives than that new launch you’re working on. Perhaps the most important trait of an effective experience designer (and, I would argue, business or brand manager) is empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. Take the time to figure out how they uniquely benefit from interacting with your brand, product or service. Only then can you create compelling experiences that provide value to them, and as a result, to you, and your business.

I’m sure these tips are easier communicated than accomplished, but I can assure you they work. If you’re serious about getting “good” from the work you and your agencies do every day, give these a try. You’ll get better results and save your agencies from having to make more embarrassing confessions.