Posts tagged with 'IMRG'

Mobile in the multi-channel experience - IMRG event

By Ismail Ismail on 9 October 2009

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A few of us Webcredible-types headed over to the groovy offices of Yahoo! in London yesterday to participate in the IMRG mobile workshop. IMRG logo

Abid Warsi, a senior consultant at Webcredible and mobile expert, was speaking about mobile user experience and usability best practice. In addition to our slot, there were excellent speakers from Akamai, ComScore, IBM, Yahoo!, Elastic Path & NEOVIA Financial/Handy Group.

It was a very interesting morning session with a great deal of lively debate on some very pertinent issues. I was particularly interested in a discussion of how mobile fits into the broader multi-channel experience of consumers.

Like many, I’ve always felt that mobile (or any other single channel) shouldn’t be treated in isolation when developing the communications and engagement around your commercial proposition. In my experience, if you do, you invariably allow technologically-led factors to drive the consumer user experience. This is not to say that you shouldn’t form a mobile strategy or take advantage of innovative enabling technologies to optimise your proposition. However, I think it’s best to ground your mobile strategy within your consumers’ overall journey and an understanding of their context of use.

In reality mobile is good for some things and poor for others. Carrying out research to learn about your audience’s behaviour, goals and needs will help determine at which point to use mobile activation (whether it’s an iPhone app, optimised mobile website, SMS messaging or whatever) or perhaps a completely different channel during the overall journey to hit the right spot.

By taking this broad view of your service proposition you can be confident that you’re using the most appropriate tool for the job at the right step in the journey depending on whether your consumers are at home, on the move, abroad or literally just around the corner from the flagship bricks and mortar store.

There’s no doubt about it. With the number of UK Smartphone users set to increase exponentially over the next few years and the planned explosion of broadband connectivity (as part of the Digital Britain agenda) the importance of digital is not to be underestimated. Clearly. But, as I discussed in a previous article on service design, you need to make sure you join up your mobile, online and offline thinking to come up with a coherent story and high-quality service for happy shoppers.

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Using videos on your product pages - a good idea?

By Ismail Ismail on 10 September 2009

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IMRG logoJon and I attended the IMRG workshop on interactive marketing yesterday. We really enjoyed the session and like all IMRG events we met some great new people there, as well as old friends.

One particularly interesting topic of discussion was on the use of digital video as part of the online retail experience. There were good points made by a number of delegates about how video can support brand building and marketing efforts as part of an interactive campaign. I’ve previously blogged about video content on YouTube so I won’t make that point here.

Video content production can be an expensive business so if you’re seriously considering putting video into your retail journey you need to be sure it’s going to give you the return you need.

So, under what circumstances is it optimal to support your customers with video?

In my opinion the best way to work out where in the journey your videos should sit is by examining your customers’ decision-making and discovery process across multiple channels. Videos could be used to provide rich insights at the point when people are scouting around looking at competitior products, trying to understand what features and capabilities they’d like in their new purchase. The kind of product videos that add a great deal of value are the ones that really use the medium to full effect.

For example, videos of expensive, technical products could support customers to answer some preliminary questions about the tactile qualities or usability of a product such as a mobile handset or a digital camera. Apple successfully (and some might say controversially) used product videos of their iPhone across multiple channels to educate would be customers about the user experience of their product. So, there’s a good chance that customers will be visiting your bricks and mortar store to get a feel for the product for themselves and seek some expert advice from your staff. But if you’re a pureplay digital e-tailer then this might not be possible.

So, given the cost involved in producing high quality videos how would you decide which products are worth investing in?

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The IMRG Experience

By Elisa del Galdo on 15 July 2009

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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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