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The IMRG Experience

15Jul

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I had a very refreshing experience last week. I was invited to speak at the IMRG Usability Workshop in London. The IMRG is the leading industry body for global e-retailing. I wrongly assumed it would be a line-up of user experience practitioners preaching to the not-yet-converted or just slightly sceptical audience of e-retailers about the benefits of usability and how great their companies are at delivering these types of services. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was a selection of non-usability people talking to an audience of non-usability people about their positive experiences with implementing usability and their return on investment from these activities.

The people speaking weren’t just usability enthusiasts who dabbled in the ‘art’ and wanted to drum up support.  They were marketing and online merchandising managers, heads of e-commerce and commercial development, IT directors, and heads of sales who had implemented usability programs and seen the return on their investment and wanted to tell their peers all about it. These are the people who can make a big difference to the UX community.

Although from a practitioner’s point of view, they don’t always get it completely correct, by relaying their positive experiences of implementing usability they’re acting as our ambassadors. They speak the same language as their peers and have similar objectives and goals and can more easily deliver a convincing message. By showing their support (and funding) for integrated usability, and talking to their peers about their experiences, they are delivering a very powerful message and opening  the doors to more and more clients. How refreshing!

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What’s new in retail?

14Jul

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The last couple of weeks have seen some interesting developments in the retail sector. A few highlights include:

woolies-picknmixWoolworths, the brand that went into administration at the end of November has come back to life online. The launch was quite successful with 20,000 visitors within the first few hours but the local convenience, which was one of Woolies USPs, is now lost with hundreds of competing e-tailers. In terms of the products on offer, the traditional household items have been shelved but their famous pick ‘n’ mix has survived. The pick ‘n’ mix (or click ‘n’ mix as some are calling it) is fun to play with but let’s see how popular it’ll be online.

Also in the past couple of weeks, Primark‘s sales figures were released and they’ve got a lot to shout about – a 20% increase in profits in the middle of a recession is no mean feat. Providing cheap and cheerful fashion, especially to a nation that values fashion highly clearly pays dividends (recent research shows that young Britons are less likely than their American or Australian counterparts to cut spending on fashion even in a recession). So much so that Primark is now expanding to at least 3 European countries. The question in my mind is ‘when will they start selling online?’ because the potential profits are huge.

And finally, across the pond, the ever popular e-tailer Amazon may not stay as competitive with its pricing – some states (and possibly the American Congress) might force it to levy sales tax on products (currently online-only companies are practically exempt from doing this). If this change goes ahead, it’ll eat into Amazon’s margins but result in a fairer playing field for e-tailers who have a bricks & mortar presence in the States. I wonder whether that’ll mean price rises straightaway or if Amazon will absorb some of the increases to start with to keep its competitive edge.

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Local council usability report 2009

13Jul

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For the past 3 years we’ve been publishing an annual report into the usability of the best local council websites. We take the top 20 councils from the Socitm Better Connected annual survey and subject them to our usability criteria to see how they measure up.

The last 3 years has seen a steady incremental improvement in the scores achieved by each crop. In this year’s report the average score (out of 100) went up to 59.9%. This is very good in my view and I see no reason why this trend shouldn’t continue.

However, this year the findings from our report have highlighted that many of the great and the good are still falling short when it comes to bread and butter usability.

For example, high quality form design and processing is a fundamental part of offering transactional capabilities and an area where many local council websites offer a poor user experience. When filling in forms users can become easily frustrated when they make mistakes and can’t get the job done. It’s a real shame because there’s a mind-boggling amount of best practice out there on form design.

The commercial rationale behind getting your local citizens to transact or self-serve online is obvious so I won’t bore you with that. But I do worry that the benefits of online won’t be realised on the balance sheet if end-users are turned off by a negative online experience.

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Google Chrome OS: Challenge to Microsoft Supremacy

9Jul

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google-chrome-logo1Google has announced that it’s making the bold move of creating a PC operating system, Chrome OS, that will be a rival to Microsoft’s Windows Operating System (OS). This is encouraging news for users. Google has a history of rethinking products and services and producing great user experiences.

For example, Google Maps made it easy to move a map by simply dragging it around the screen with a mouse and gave us the ability to see a street from human’s viewpoint with Street View. Their Google Chrome browser removed the clutter of menu options which most other browsers suffered from and added useful features such as showing thumbnails of frequently visited sites when the browser or new tab was opened.

[Users] don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.  (Google Blog)

Google plans to remove some of the problems that currently frustrate PC users, such as dealing with complicated configurations, endless software updates and viruses. It also claims that Chrome OS will be designed for today’s users who spend lots of time browsing the Internet and who are ready for cloud computing.

A newcomer can reinvigorate any industry, just as the iPhone and Google’s Android operating systems have done to the mobile phone industry. Hopefully, Google’s Chrome OS will have a similar effect on PCs and will improve the user experience of all the major PC operating systems. Groundbreaking products aren’t created overnight. Google follows a rigorous User-Centred Design process which is essential for creating products that meet users’ needs.

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Ocado iPhone app and the importance of context

8Jul

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img_4001Those following the most recent releases in Apple’s App Store may have noticed that Ocado has now launched an iPhone & iPod Touch application. (For those reading this outside the UK, Ocado is an online groceries retailer).

From a first look, the application seems to be fairly quick to understand and easy to use, especially for those who’ve shopped with Ocado before. But what’s more interesting is that Ocado didn’t just rush to create a quick, limited functionality app. They took the time to seamlessly integrate the iPhone app and their websites, and offer a continuous experience to customers swapping between those channels.

Why support more than one channel? If you’ve ever tried to do supermarket shopping online, you may have noticed how difficult it is to sit in front of the computer and remember everything you need (unless, of course, your computer is located in your kitchen). But it should be fairly easy to walk around the kitchen with a mobile phone and note down what you need. Then there’s also these moments where you’re away from home and desperately need to add one item to your delivery. But then you’ll probably have your phone in your pocket, and you can modify your order even if you originally created it via the website.

These considerations come from studying and understanding the ‘context of use’ of an application – an essential process that we try to follow whatever we design. It often involves visiting and observing users in their work or home environment, and while this may sound difficult and time consuming, it can yield valuable insights.

In the mobile industry, one of the most famous stories about understanding context of use is that of the creation of the Palm Pilot. According to an article in WIRED magazine:

People thought Jeff Hawkins [founder of Palm] was crazy when they saw him taking notes, checking appointments, and synchronizing a small block of wood with his PC, pretending all the while that the block was a handheld computer

What Hawkins really understood was that the importance of context, and that’s why he tried to carry that fake “handheld computer” with him and try to understand how he’d use it in a variety of everyday contexts.

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