Normally when I write a customer experience (CX) related blog post it is about something that went very wrong. After all, I’m just like most people. Something goes right I tell my husband and a couple of friends. Something goes wrong, tell the world! This time, I want to talk about the impact even a small great experience can have on brand loyalty – and how it can lead to changing hearts, minds and behaviors.

Believe it or not, despite all the multi-touchpoint experience design I do, I am 100% an in-store shopper… or I used to be.  The ability to see and touch the actual products I am going to spend my money on is very important to me, as is the money I can save on shipping. (Hey, that extra $10 can lead to an even nicer pair of shoes!).  All of that changed, of course, with the arrival of my daughter a few months ago.  What used to be long afternoons of wandering the mall for a great bargain have turned into wondering the halls of the web for…oh, say the cheapest deal on baby formula.  Sigh…

All during my pregnancy people were telling me to get ready for the world of online shopping.  I insisted that while I might break down for formula and diapers, NEVER would I be “one of those moms” who does all of her personal shopping online.  That said, towards the end, hitting the mall was not so much of an option. Resignedly, I opened up the Mac and went online.  And I hated it – with one exception… Diapers.com.  

What first got me was, of course, the free shipping… SWEET!  Then, I started to realize that they had a great selection and an easy to use website with a very quick and logical shopping cart flow (imagine that – they even got the shopping cart right)…  

But I digress.  Where I am headed with this story is that over these last few months I’ve come to realize that Diapers.com isn’t great just because of the online experience or even the live service and support experience, but because of the very human experience they provide. Here’s an example.

A recent order was, of course, a case of powdered formula. Unfortunately, one of the tins had the seal lifted, so I was a little nervous about not just using that tin, but the whole case.  I sent a note to Diapers expecting them to give me a return / exchange, but that this would probably take a week or so to process.  Not so – the response email was within 15 minutes and while short in sentences, very personal.  Not just an offer to replace the tin, but “we will get the entire case reshipped, toss the old one…” and all of this wrapped in understanding – “I can only imagine how upsetting that must have been with a new baby at your side”… And this is not an isolated instance.  I have had several very impressive exchanges like this with them. Bravo Diapers.com.

Now admittedly I’m an experience designer, so of course I want to share my big takeaways from my experience. Anecdotal and personal as they are, combined with what I have learned researching and designing others’ experiences, there are some significant “truths” here I’d like to reinforce for all you marketers out there trying to figure out how to turn new customers into loyal ones.

1) Make yours a truly human interaction – Anybody can provide standard, generic, “your business is important to us” service or support. It makes all the difference in the world when a product website or a company employee recognizes that I am a human being and would like to be treated as one, not just another customer.  This distinction – “I can only imagine how upsetting that must have been…” – makes all the difference. It makes an emotional and memorable connection and begins to create the relationship and affinity that ensures I come back for more. Remember that online doesn’t mean inhuman – it is an opportunity to be even more human. Here’s how…

2)  Use what you know and remember me – I share info with you so you can better serve me. So go ahead – show my recent purchases when I login, tie your recommendations to related items I have purchased, and be smart about it. If I just bought a little black dress from you, I might need shoes, but the odds are pretty good that I don’t need another little black dress. For example, what Diapers.com does so well is make it easy to reorder what I would logically reorder – e.g. food and diapers. And it doesn’t waste my time highlighting an order I am not likely to reorder – e.g. a specific toy I just purchased.   

3)  Make it crazy-easy to do business with you – Design your experience not from the perspective of what you can do and support, but from the perspective of what I need to accomplish and how / when / where.  Designing with me in mind leads me to trust you in a variety of contexts, not just the one I am most familiar with. Most important, keep it simple. Think about your favorite brick and mortar stores: more than likely they make it really easy to find what you’re looking for, to get help if you need it, to stumble upon other stuff you like and to check out when you’re ready. Too often shopping online is characterized by too many irrelevant choices, lousy search results, forced associations and no readily available help.

4)  Do not underestimate the impact of the little things on an overall experience – Before the formula incident, I was a fan of Diapers.com, but now I am a true loyalist. The thing that nabbed me wasn’t how fast or cheap their service is, but literally that little line in the email about knowing how upset or frustrated I might be as a new mother. Just that little bit of empathy, that human touch is all it took to win me over. Fix the problem without that touch and I’m thinking you did what was expected. Include it and you alter how I think about you.

What is probably most amazing about this whole experience with Diapers.com is that now instead of comparing online experiences to live ones I do the opposite. I am comparing live experiences to my recent online ones.  My behaviors have changed as well. I only go to stores when I have to. I shop online not because it is cheaper, but because I am finding it can actually be more human. Now that is a statement to ponder!

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.

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.

But I’ve gotten ahead myself.  This has been a long time coming. The last 10 years have certainly heralded our arrival.  Starting in 2000 with a butterfly ballot design that was the cornerstone of a disputed election, “usability” was bandied about in the public lexicon.  The years that followed were nothing short of revolutionary: a smorgasbord of digital media, online commerce, immersive gaming, mobile madness and social networking; all of which contributed to the radical and permanent change in the way most of us live and communicate.

Seismic shifts in our behavior, spread across a diverse global audience, have by natural extension brought the tenets of user-centered Experience Design as a strategic imperative to a growing number of companies ranging from LEGO to Ford to Merck.  Even at C-level, the role of Chief Experience Officer is far less exotic than it was just 5 year ago.  And as a portentous bookend to this first decade of the millennium, US News and World Report declared “User Experience Specialist” as one of the 30 Best Careers of 2009. Defining the evolution of this industry in a paragraph will never do it justice; suffice it to say it’s been a fun, exciting and enlightening ride thus far.

So, what makes me say that 2010 is so special?  We’re just two weeks into January and I’m seeing TV – yes, the 800 pound one-way push media gorilla - speaking to the same interactive XD principles I’ve been talking to clients about all these years.  Things like know your audience and undertand the broader context of the experience you’re designing.

The first example: a Domino’s Pizza commercial where they revealed … get this…customers think their pizza tastes terrible.  Their commercial hits you straight between the eyes, directly referencing customer feedback as the key to driving them to change. Executives hang their heads in shame watching focus group sessions where regular folks make acidic comments about how awful Domino’s had become.  And you can see it all, and the resulting “new” media buzz on the website they created to allow other media outlets’ and the general public’s commentary to continue.  Call it standard market research and a smart cross-channel marketing campaign if you want, but Domino’s didn’t just say “Check out Domino’s new spicier recipe.”  They let their customers do the talking…and they listened.

The second example is way more compelling.  About 10 minutes after seeing the Domino’s commercial, I was watching 60 Minutes.  The first story was Steve Kroft’s look into the multi-billion dollar Mexican border security project for the Department of Homeland Security.  Three years ago, Boeing won a project to implement a high-tech, virtual fence solution.  It involves towers, video imaging technology, field support laptops, and monitoring stations in a monumental three year effort.  The 2000 mile system was to be completed this month, but to date only 28 miles is complete, and that is still considered a prototype.  A typical 60 minutes expose, but what struck me was the punch line: the core reason cited for the failure of this project was squarely put to the lack of border patrol personnel involvement in the design.

To quote Mr. Kroft, “The biggest problem, and you might find this hard to fathom, was that no one at the Department of Homeland Security or the engineers at Boeing bothered to ask the people who would actually be using the surveillance system what they wanted, or how they wanted the system to work.”

I admit I was practically screaming at the screen when the new project director admitted, “We didn’t iterate with them…we didn’t do that and it should have happened.”  Steve Kroft saying, “That’s a pretty big mistake.”  And the director saying, “It’s a huge mistake!”

Later Kroft says, “Isn’t that one of the first things you ask?  What does the customer think?  What does the client want?” And the government auditor answers, “Well, you would think so.”

To illustrate one problem, Kroft shows a ranger in the field with a laptop installed in his SUV.  “If anyone had asked the agents, they would have learned that laptops are hard to operate bounding through the desert, and the dust would prove inhospitable to the equipment, and that the agents would be unable to get a signal over vast stretches of the desolate region.” Amazing -  Check out the story here. If you don’t have time to watch the whole segment, skip to minutes 8 through 10 of the archived show (after you watch the mandatory commercials, of course).

For those of you on large enterprise initiatives where your advocacy for iterative involvement of the people who will be interacting with your systems is still seen as a ‘nice to have’, I suggest you send this link to whoever owns the launch of your product, service or application.  When venerated TV journalists can speak the way we speak, encapsulating the core of what we do, calling out those responsible in such an elegantly public way, you can’t help but feel something good is coming.

NBC had a slogan to describe a solid lineup of shows: Must See TV.  I welcome the coming decade where more and more companies will introduce products, services and applications designed using methods that seek to create the best possible experiences for the people that will use them.  I call it “Must See XD” - Bring it on.

Astra Zeneca presents its Accoladez awards every year to brand teams and partners who produce work that provides the biggest breakthrough in how to communicate about a brand or to address a difficult brand challenge. It recognizes a key finding in market research as well as a unique methodology used to uncover a transformational insight regarding customer behavior.  Accoladez is highly coveted among the Brand teams and the competition is quite fierce.

Our Experience Design group recently won finalist status in the category of Commercial Insight for the Physician Experience Research Study we completed in early 2009.  Our work was recognized because it provided the basis and firsthand validation of what Primary Care and GI Specialists were looking for from the Digital channel, both from a preference and behavioral standpoint.

The study sought to understand how physicians use the digital space in the context of treating their patients. It included detailed 1:1 interviews with over 50 physicians in two cities – the highlight of the research was the “day in the life” diaries we asked physicians to complete to track their digital activities. The goal was to get at what physicians’ digital behaviors REALLY are versus what they claim they are in self-reported surveys or large-scale reports. We wanted to answer the “how” and “why” of physician behavior, not solely the “what.” The insights we gathered helped AZ stakeholders both in digital and traditional channels prioritize communications and tactics.

We think this recognition speaks volumes about the value of having a non-agency with no agenda to push for any particular marketing communications tactics doing this type of research. It frees the partnering vendor to call it as they see it and focus on creating value for the client.

Why did our unorthodox entry resonate with the judges? Because we were the only entrants who, instead of immediately diving into a design solution to answer the question, “What should be done to revitalize the Concourse?” considered the most appropriate approach to be the one we would apply to any experience design challenge – ask the audience.

The results of our research are on display at the museum. You can also see facsimiles of some of the deliverables by going to the case study on our website. What I’d like to share here are some of the things we found important when applying basic experience design research principles to this particular challenge.

1. Define success
Defining success for a public space redesign is a research goal, not a starting point.

The definitions of success for a street are less straightforward than many design challenges we face. Since any public space has hundreds or thousands of stakeholders who also use it, finding the definition of its success is a process, not a known goal. Our subject matter experts and highly invested stakeholders for the Concourse made for a diverse group:

            – Artists
            – Community activists
            – High school students
            – Urban Planner for the Bronx
            – Director of Education Policy for the Bronx
            – CEO of a housing and economic policy organization
            – Author and New York Times reporter
            – Professor and amateur rapper
            – Lifelong Bronx residents
            – Recently moved resident
            – Former resident
            – Non-residents

It is inevitable that a wide variety of stakeholders for any project will generate a wide variety of responses to the question, “How would you define success for this initiative?” This means that the first objective of experience research on a public place, where different types of stakeholders exist, is to develop that definition of success. (See 4: “Understand audience goals”)

2. Identify your audience

Identifying your audience requires identifying the multiple uses of the space.
Residents aren’t the only users of a street like the Grand Concourse – professionals, students, visitors, drivers, sanitation workers, unemployed people, retirees, and people who come to access services (e.g. a hospital) also experience it regularly. Depending on where certain destinations are located, the population may be different: a university area draws people from near and far, a supermarket draws local residents, a hospital draws a mix of visitors and locals. But these destinations are not isolated locations –  the roadway connects them to transportation hubs as well as each other. So, identifying audiences for a public roadway must take into account the multiple uses of the space for each audience profile.

3.  Identify the context of use

Many audience profiles + many uses of space = many contexts for experiences.
The diverse population on a street does not complicate user research as much as it may seem. It simply means that recommendations for improvements of a public space must be based on a variety of contexts of use. Context is determined by the services and destinations near a location, as well as the day, time, and the needs of people accessing them. For example, on a Saturday afternoon, Jocye Kilmer park along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx is a safe place for kids to throw around a baseball or hold little league games. During rush hours, hundreds of commuters walk through the park from their homes along the Grand Concourse to the subway station on the other side. On weekday evenings a local artist gives tours of the Tree Museum that begins there. On Yankee game days fans cut through the park as a shortcut between their parking places and the nearby stadium. And every day, the man whose apartment on the Concourse looks out on the park admires (or laments) its aesthetic value.
 
4. Understand audience goals

Public space is not only for individual experiences.
In outdoor public spaces like parks and roadways, people with different purposes and aspirations affect each other’s experiences. When looking at public space, we have to pay equal attention to people for whom a park is a destination and those for whom it is a way to get elsewhere. The tourists coming to see the Tree Museum may prefer a calm, quiet environment. The rowdy Yankee fans disrupt the quiet of the Tree Museum tour on their way to the game. And the kids at little league practice need a place to play to keep them involved in safe after-school activities. Understanding, appreciating and accommodating the validity of these various uses is the ultimate goal of any final design recommendation.
 
5. Identify Positives and Negatives

Public space users expect usable space for all types.
Despite the contrasting goals that different people bring to an outdoor public space, asking them about their likes, dislikes, and areas for improvement does not necessarily result in irresolvable conflicts. Public space is not meant solely for one individual’s experience. Most people tend to expect and tolerate, if not actively appreciate, the presence of other people around. In fact, the presence of other people is often one of the key benefits of a public space. This means people’s ideas for the improvement of a roadway may include improvements for people with different needs than their own: A single, childless working adult may primarily use the street as a transportation corridor to and from work or the store, yet she appreciates the amount of families she sees on her way. Therefore, her suggestion might be to create more playground space nearby, to encourage that kind of activity. A long-time resident may see new immigrants struggle with a language barrier on public signage, and hope to facilitate their integration into the community by suggesting that signs be bilingual. This kind of feedback is focused on a community, not individuals.

6. Determine how to make improvements

Research-based audience-centered design extends beyond physical space.
We have determined that experience research of outdoor public space involves different people/profiles using a place in different contexts with different goals. They know what would improve their own experience, but that experience often includes other people, so needs are not individually-focused. 

So how does an experience architect pull all of this into recommendations for the improvement of a public space? As I mentioned earlier, understanding the multiple definitions of success for stakeholders and the various people using the space is key. Once we know who uses the place, why, how, and what about the place helps or hinders their experience, we can prioritize their needs and recommend solutions.

Summary

Complex initiatives like this go well beyond physical redesign. Any solution needs to speak to the soul and aspirations of the people who use the space. Coming up with a “cool” visual design concept or an environmentally friendly technological solution is a fun exercise for the architect as artist. But without the audience-centered research process, the designer does not have the advantage of knowing the deeper community-based issues that must be considered for the redesign to be truly successful. In public space experience design, the solution serves a diverse community of stakeholders, so it is not only worthwhile from the designer’s standpoint to look at the place from multiple perspectives, understanding how changes affect the whole community is the responsible, respectful approach to take.

The principles we spoke to during our 14 minute testimony are familiar to anyone in the experience design, interaction design or usability industries. 

1)     Put Your Audience in the Driver’s Seat

2)     Speak Your Audience’s Language

3)     Design to Support the Task, Not Become the Task

4)     Provide a Clear Navigation Structure

5)     Mimic the Real World

6)     Be Consistent and Follow Platform Standards

7)     Keep It Simple

8)     Be Flexible and Efficient

9)     Engage Your Audience

10) Support Your Audience and Give Feedback

These principles ensure that the Audience (the “User”) is kept at the center of design at all times.  We were able to apply these principles to a few concrete examples of how it should look when an FDA-regulated pharmaceutical industry is engaging in social media. 

The Hearing

Throughout the hearing there was a lot of defense of Pharma’s place in the social media dialogue.  This included testimony that factual information provided by pharmaceutical companies can benefit people looking for answers in the Wild West of online information.  One point we made that seems to have resonated with people in the industry was not around whether companies should be able to share product information, but rather, how they can do it without interfering in the dialogue that is inherent to social media.  For example, we noted that product information should be kept separate from the dialogue, perhaps not even on the same page, where it can potentially disrupt the dynamic content that people want and expect when engaging with others in a social forum – Design to Support the Task, Not Become the Task. 

With regards to Important Safety Information (ISI), one of the hearing’s major concerns, we used the design principles to guide options as to how ISI can be displayed when pharmaceutical companies participate on various social media platforms.  First and foremost, being Flexible and Efficient comes into play because different social media have different inherent qualities and limitations.  For example, ISI traditionally appears at the bottom of a standard web page where people have come to expect it (Be Consistent and Follow Platform Standards). However, if this placement isn’t possible, as when posting a comment on a page or board that is not sponsored by the company, ISI should be included via a link.  It’s critical when doing this to be mindful that people will not do something unless motivated; so companies must make sure the audience understands what the link is for and include appropriately descriptive text.

You can check out a PDF of our presentation deck here: MISICompany_FDAHearing_Final

Some Highlights from Others

An interesting twist on the concept of having descriptive links was the consortium of speakers who advocated for an FDA link or insignia that would indicate where to click for ISI and would serve as an indication that the source was legitimate.  This idea inspired many questions from the panel and among people in the audience – what would the FDA’s role be in the use and governance of such an insignia or link?  Would it only be regulated products or could anyone start to use that same insignia? 

One of the best presentations was from the CEO of Heartbeat Digital, Bill Drummy, as he walked the FDA panel through a hypothetical health information search online, capturing all of the places where someone interested in information on rheumatoid arthritis might be bounced around through search engines, ads and social media.  He walked them through what the experience might be like, flaws and all, which worked to provide a perspective on where the influence of pharmaceutical companies can benefit the experience, and where their influence needs to be monitored so as not to interfere.    

The majority of presenters did have a focus on patients and caregivers, but a few also focused on the Health Care Professional (HCP).  There was a shared understanding among many of the presenters that HCPs are looking for unbiased clinical information (not promotional language), and want to ask advice of other physicians, as long as there is transparency regarding any affiliations the physicians providing the information might have with pharma companies, and clear presentation of their credentials. The openness of authorship and audience in social media makes the physician’s choice and use of social media a delicate matter.  

Pfizer gave a great presentation to close out the hearing that walked the FDA panel through their journey of discovery regarding how physicians engage in social media and resist promotion in the space, giving examples from their partnership with Sermo. 

Final Thoughts

Despite general agreement among various presenters in many areas, there were also competing thoughts that the panel will have to filter through and a lot of hard supporting data that the panel will want to analyze. And even more information will be trickling into the open docket, which will close at the end of February 2010. 

Do we think that something will come of these hearings?  Yes.  Will it be slow to come?  Probably— but through no fault of the FDA.  It is a tricky subject!  Most importantly, we think that whatever the FDA panel decides will incorporate some of the consistent themes struck throughout the two days of hearings: pharmaceutical companies needing to clearly identify themselves when participating in social forums, the need for flexibility and clarity when dealing with ISI, and giving heed to the preconceptions that some groups have when dealing with pharmaceutical companies. 

As for how this will affect the people using these evolving interactive tools, we anticipate that many patients and caregivers will welcome having the opportunity to hear pharmaceutical companies’ voices as part of the social dialogue. However, physicians may become even more cautious and selective when it comes to engaging in any online dialogue in a forum where pharmaceutical companies are participants.   

Here is the link to the FDA’s site on the public hearing. You can acces transcripts, the webcast and submit electronic comments through February 28, 2010

A PDF of our presentation deck is here: MISICompany_FDAHearing_Final