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Archive for the ‘User Experience’ Category
Back when I spent much of my day contacting media folks with the latest and greatest from my PR clients, the best compliment I ever got from a reporter was:
"I always open your emails because I know they'll contain something I can actually use."
Why should you care about my prized compliment?
Because reporters have a lot in common with website visitors. Really.
- Both suffer from information overload
- Both need information or content to help them complete tasks
- Both want to feel like content providers understand them
- Both get annoyed by content that wastes their time or gets in their way
That's why we recommend you learn three very important things before creating a lick of web content:
- Who the content is for
- What information they want
- How they want to receive information
The case of the compliment
Here's what I learned about the reporter before I ever pitched her:
- Who the content is for. This reporter wrote a personal finance column.
- What information they want. From reading the column regularly, I determined that the information my client had to offer – personal finance tips focused on the emotional aspects of money – was precisely what this columnist was looking for.
- How they want to receive information. I also knew – because I asked her – that her voicemail box was perpetually full and ignored and that she preferred to get PR pitches by email.
The web content connection
Successful websites find the sweet spot between business goals and user needs. Searching for the sweet spot can be a lot of work. But it's absolutely necessary.
Finding the sweet spot
At Brain Traffic, we develop a Strategic Foundation Brief (sometimes they aren't that brief) at the beginning of every project. It includes an analysis of business goals, audience characteristics, and user needs.
First, we learn all we can about the audience – web usage, gender, family situation, etc. Then we cross- reference business goals with audience wants and needs. It's sorta like magic when it becomes apparent that the business and the users want some of the same things.
Voilà. Your starting point. And your path to site feedback that garners the compliment: "I always find the information I need when I visit your website."
Posted in Content Strategy, Information Architecture, User Experience, Web Writing
Like a lot of people, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my finances lately.
There are a lot of things that I either don’t like, or don’t understand, about money. And trying to get real information that makes sense to me . . . well, it’s hard to find.
Last fall, I decided it was time to open up an internet savings account. I looked at a couple of options. At the time, the rates were quite attractive.
I chose ING Direct. They didn’t have the highest rate.
So why did I pick them?
Simple: They spoke my language.
Their motto is simply, “Save your money.” That’s it. I get that. And whether I like to save or not, ING makes the process clear. The basic functions, transactions and transfers, leave no room for interpretation, either.
Even the privacy policy and the terms and conditions, notoriously ugly gluts of legalese on most sites, make sense. Here is an example:
These people clearly understand that saving or investing money is intimidating. Their tone is reassuring and conversational. So right away I feel secure about leaving my money with them. Why? They skip that highfalutin’ financial talk and stick to basics. I feel like I’m in control. (Empowering your users is always a good thing.)
For example, their "Declaration of Financial Independence" explains what being a saver really means. After some basic saving rules, they move to more emotional and global issues around saving money (and even a plug for the ol’ adage, money doesn’t buy happiness). It makes me think, "You GET me, ING!" And it sheds some light. Saving money is less about not getting new shoes, and more about making a better world. I hadn’t thought about that before.
ING also sends periodic e-newsletters chock full of information chunked out into bite-size bulleted lists and easy-to-navigate chunks of copy. They use bullet points, lists, and lots of headings to keep information organized. They touch on the emotional side of saving and investing, but don’t dwell on it. And the newsletter is task-focused so it gives me something to do with myself (besides freak out, I mean).
If a well-written website can inspire this chronic spender to save, anything is possible. I love that ING makes money management simple. Now the only question is . . . can I live without these new shoes? (ING would tell me, straightforwardly: Stick that cash in your savings account, Missy!)
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
I’m certainly not the first—nor will I be the last—to gripe about companies leaping onto the social media bandwagon before they’re good and ready. Before they understand whether blogs, networking applications, or online games actually play nice with their brand and with their audience.
Wells Fargo, I’m talking to you.
I just visited Stagecoach Island, your virtual community. I took my eager avatar snowboarding, then on a quest into outer space. She started saving “shells” to buy her dream home. She even picked up a few real-life financial tips along the way.
I’m all for bringing fiscal responsibility to life for young audiences. These are dubious economic times, and it’s never too early to set a good example. I also get that you’ve probably been told to show a little personality, already.
But.
Stagecoach Island feels to me like the desperate cry of a parent trying to prove he’s still “with it” so his teenager will take him seriously.
News flash: Kids don’t actually want their parents to be cool. They want them to be real. Also, I’m guessing the audience you’re trying to reach isn’t going to be impressed by a video game run by a bank. But what do I know?
I share this example for a reason. In my mind, Stagecoach Island is a major step in the wrong direction.
On the other hand, you hit a home run for me back in November. I was reluctantly logging in to my dwindling savings account one day, when up popped an oversized shot of your distinguished CEO. His photo accompanied a sobering, yet cautiously optimistic, letter. Times are tight, it said, but we’re all in this together. Stick with us—we won’t let you down.
It was the right message at the right time from a company courageous enough to break the fourth wall and let me know they understood my needs and my fears.
Transparency (or illusions thereof) in the corporate world are all the rage these days. But this was something more. It was authenticity. Accountability. I didn’t need a snowboarding avatar—I needed a real person to look me in the eye (as it were) and tell it like it is.
As a champion of candid, no-nonsense content, I have a humble plea: It’s that companies like yours think twice about wooing users with adventures in virtual worlds and focus instead on helping them succeed in this one. Not just with letters from the CEO, but with well-crafted, carefully planned content that educates customers, inspires action, and respects the intelligence of their users.
Posted in User Experience
I think it's time we revisit an outdated practice—the dreaded splash page. You know, that Flash introduction page that displays before you can actually enter the site.
You probably remember these popping up on websites years ago by companies wanting to show off their design creds. Then people started talking about how annoying they were. Well, they've vanished from a lot of sites, and for good reason—they're a real killer for user experience. But they've been popping up here and there, lately, and they put a real damper on an experience with a site.
I recently clicked on a banner for a book I thought looked interesting. I was directed to this site. Before entering the site, a Flash introduction page played in a rotating loop.
This is a lengthy process just to get to a website’s home page.
- I navigate to website
- Splash page loads
- I acknowledge that I'm not looking for this content
- I look for “skip intro” button
- I click “skip intro” button
- I navigate to relevant content
But, by step six, I was no longer interested. Why would I want to watch some swirling graphics with no words that tell me nothing about:
- The product
- The company
- What kind of information I can expect
If the site gives the user the option to skip the intro, then he or she most certainly will take that option (if the button is obvious enough). What value does the splash page have site designers know ahead of time that they will most likely not be interested in seeing it? The user came to the website to find information, and the splash page acts as a barrier to that content.
It's instances like this when the following questions need to be asked:
- How is the site presenting the information to the user?
- Is the content valuable to the user?
With Flash splash pages, you can pretty much guarantee the answer to question #2 is a no. Still. After all this time.
Posted in Content Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
Welcome to this week’s edition of links we like. Let’s get right to it, shall we?
In Defense of Readers
YES! Users want content, which means the design of readability is very important. This post on A List Apart takes a careful, insightful look at how users read.
Make your Firefox work for you
We could all use some shortcuts, no?
Mind-mapping content strategy
It’s the first we’ve seen.
SEO and survival
We’d like to add that you also need a good content strategy.
How One Little Letter Can Sabotage Your Meaning
Editing still matters—spelling and grammar go a long way in helping readers understand your content. Even in the age of spell check, you must choose your words, and use your words, carefully.
Social media secrets
This ClickZ blog post, combined with a great MIMA event today by Jeff Rohrs from ExactTarget, are good reminders that you aren’t in control when it comes to social media. And that’s a good thing. It means people are interacting with your content. And, well, isn’t that the point?
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, Style Guides and Such, User Experience, Web Writing
Contact us. Contact. How to contact us. It’s everywhere online. Often, it’s the reason for visiting a site—to connect with an individual, a company, or a group.
Proof points:
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Googling “contact us” yields 1,540,000,000 results. A BILLION AND A HALF.
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The government expects all federal websites to have a contact us link on every page.
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When a phone book lands on my front stoop, it moves directly to the recycling bin.
Despite the fact that well . . . everyone is looking to make contact, every website seems to do it a little differently. Here are a few examples to seed the conversation, and our "Contact Us" set on Flickr:
A la carte contact
If you’re poking around on Apple’s site, and decide you’d like to make contact:
Scroll to the lower-right corner of the page (any page) and click the “contact us” link. From there, you can scan for a relevant topic that prompted your contact query. Information is presented in a variety of formats—mailing address, phone numbers, related links, popular topics and e-mail.
YAY: There’s a solution for everything. From actually making contact to getting more information to help answer a question—it’s in there.
NAY: There’s a solution for everything. It’s a lot to absorb and may even be considered overwhelming if you aren’t committed to dig in and find what you need.
Concise contact
Minneapolis drama devotees can uncover a lot of information online for the Fringe Festival. What if you need more?
Use the left navigation, to find a persistent link to “contact us.” It’s just what it says – simple, clear information about contacting Festival staff. Includes a mailing address, phone, fax and online form to submit a message.
YAY: There are no frills here. It’s just what it says, “contact us.”
NAY: Not a big fan of asking people to classify the subject of their message. The choices are never accurately descriptive (i.e., there’s no option to “whine,” “complain,” or “send angry note”).
In touch with Twitter
For people who are on the Twitter train, there’s an easy-to-spot link in the footer for making contact.
Click “Contact,” and you’ll arrive at a page titled “About Twitter” with a “Contact us” subhead.
Here, you can visit the blog for more information, check out an online support center, get the mailing address or email for partnership and press inquiries. There’s no phone number, but then again, in the office beauty shot on the contact page, there isn’t a phone in sight.
YAY: In this case, it makes sense to package “About” and “Contact” information together – they’re both succinct and a fair amount of the topics are likely reasons people would make contact.
NAY: It’s odd that there isn’t an option to use Twitter as a form of contact. Oh, wait. There IS a Twitter ID to message about spam—but you only find that after clicking “Customer support” on the contact page.
Are my expectations too high? Possibly. But the truth is that a little TLC for online “contact” can make a huge difference in customer experience.
Posted in Content Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
In a previous post, I wrote about the importance of getting your customer service content right.
Here are a few examples of interface copy that makes a difference. We’ll start with this application for an auto loan from USAA.
It clearly explains what you need to get started (helpfully listed under the "Things you’ll need to get started" header). It also tells you what will happen once you’ve finished the application. And if you still don’t understand, you can contact them with questions.
The "create a new account" screen on mint.com also has several nice examples of contextual help.
If you enter the wrong information, you’re told immediately what type of information needs to be entered, and how it should be formatted. It’s simply written and unambiguous.
This is a much better experience than most sites provide: a) enter the wrong info, b) click "Sign Up," and c) get the "Sucks to be you. Now start over" page.
And what makes the difference is good content.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. Make sure your online self-service content is clear, concise, and delivers on your promises before spending too much time on the follow-up pitch.
You might be surprised at how much more open your customers will be to that conversation.
Posted in Content Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
I just finished watching the movie Gabriel.
It’s not good. I don’t recommend it.
I'll be honest, this is not the first bad movie I’ve seen. I wish I could redeem myself by blaming it on my husband, who put it in our Netflix queue. However, part of what drew us together 11 years ago was a shared appreciation for Hudson Hawk.
Turns out, though, that after extensive research, I've discovered this secret: Not all bad movies are bad.
Sometimes you get to the ending and the concepts reveal themselves to be thoughtful, although unsuccessful, attempts at telling a story.
This got me thinking.
As an Information Architect, I start every project with a current site audit. Now, while mocking a bad website provides great office fodder, it's safe to say that the site will nevertheless have good or interesting parts. Usually, it's typically an unsuccessful site experience because there are somehow barriers between the users and their goals.
Some of these barriers are similar to what makes a bad movie bad.
Bad Dialogue. Even 20 years ago, the theater audibly groaned at, ”Nobody puts Baby in a corner." But how often do you see web copy like, "We deliver a complete, pre-integrated technology foundation to reduce the cost and complexity of building and deploying enterprise business intelligence." Seriously. Groan. Talk like people talk and use plain language on your site.
Bad Editing. Ever get to the end of a movie and have no idea why the long lost cousin who liked to do magic tricks kept showing up? Scenes or characters that don’t advance the story need to be cut. Same thing on the web. Just because someone, somewhere might find the random detail interesting does not mean it's earned a place on the site. Ask yourself "Why would the user want to know this?" Do some research, decide who you're talking to and make some strong decisions based off that.
Bad Structure. 53 minutes in, it's the coolest sword fight of all time. (Oh, did I mention I like movies with sword fighting?) Too bad the past slow-going 52 minutes to get there just weren't worth where we arrived. I know there's an expectation that movies are a certain length, but there are no such rules for websites. Determine the importance of your information and make sure the structure of your site reflects that. When something needs to be told later, provide some really good hints to keep the interest going.
I'll wrap with a personal note to my IA colleagues out there. While writing this, I realized two things that affirm my career choice as an Information Architect. I figured you might appreciate them.
1. When I watch a bad movie, I think about how it could be restructured to tell a better story.
2. Watching bad movies reminds me that I enjoy digging through the junk to find the good bits.
Posted in Information Architecture, User Experience
Writing and designing for the mobile web—it’s about being pithy on an even smaller scale. There’s a mode that will be helpful to keep in mind when considering content for the mobile web: transactional.
The inverted pyramid keels at even steeper pitch, and each word must work twice as hard on a miniscule screen.
Typically, people logging on from Blackberrys, Treos, iPhones, and the like are looking to make some kind of transaction—bill pay, driving directions, checking a bank balance, fantasy football rankings, the weather, or their flight departure time.
And since they’re on the fly (sometimes literally), they want what they want and want to move on. Small screens, even tinier keyboards, and limited navigational capabilities means they don’t have time or patience to mess with multiple screens, gigantic graphics, or extra features—whether writers or designers find it to be filler or not.
It comes back to the mantra of keeping it simple. Think about what users are coming to the site for and make it readily available, near the top of the page. They might be in harried situations or moods and need to take care of business immediately.
Make transactions simple—one-button "pay now", "check flight status," or other commands with easy-to-use forms (as few open fields as possible) at the tops of pages and little to no redirection to other screens.
As always, the simplest routes and products have the most complex thoughts behind them, and have to be planned in advance so that the web site serves all of its users, no matter from which device they access the web.
Posted in Content Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
"Whatever you may have heard, this is our world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly free. Our heart goes on forever. People of Earth, remember."
The Brain Traffic team sat together in the conference room to watch the inauguration yesterday. There were tears, applause, and lots of comments about Aretha Franklin's hat. Every one of us typing away on our computers—not only sharing the experience with people in the room, but those far away in cyberspace.
Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution
The Obama campaign—which has inspired so many with its themes of hope and change—has often reminded me of the "internet revolution" of the late '90s.
In retrospect, it sounds a bit trite, but anyone who worked in the first wave of interactive agencies from 1996 to 2000 will probably tell you a similar story: We went to work every day believing we were the "pioneers" of the internet age. Groups of incredibly smart people (most of us in our early 20s) toiled for small paychecks in dodgy warehouse spaces. (Revolutionaries have to suffer, right?) But, we believed the Internet could triumph over the big corporations and big governments . . . engage the whole world in a global conversation . . . give every human being on Earth a voice.
This fervor was even documented with a manifesto—the Cluetrain Manifesto. The quote at the top of this post is not a part yesterday’s inaugural address, it's actually part of the introduction to the Cluetrain written in 1999. Thankfully, Obama's speechwriters have more talent, but Locke & Co. (Cluetrain's authors) were trying to convey a message of inclusive, universal change, too.
Storm Clouds on the Horizon
Speed ahead a few years. By 2001, the internet "bubble" was bursting. Those of us on the ground realized the big corporations that we were trying to bring to heed were actually the only clients paying us for project work. On September 11, I also sat in a conference room with my coworkers huddled around a TV. There were only nine of us left at the agency. There had once been more than fifty. Like everything else that stopped that day, it seemed like the revolution no longer mattered.
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Yesterday, after more than a decade of working in the internet industry, I thought I would take a look at the Cluetrain Manifesto again, for old time's sake, and to have a good laugh. I'm not 20 and naïve anymore, after all.
As I read through the Manifesto, there were certainly things that gave me a chuckle. But, I also realized that a lot of the "95 Theses" are starting to happen. The internet has changed big business (airline or newspaper execs can attest). Internet conversations are affecting how consumers spend their money (Angie's List, Amazon recommendations, etc.). People around the world are linking to each other and communicating faster (Facebook, Linked In, Twitter). Even the Obama campaign is a proof of how the internet can mobilize the people. (Not to mention that our new President is taking a stand to keep his Blackberry.)
As Barack Obama took the oath of office, the typing in the Brain Traffic conference room paused. I looked around the room, and realized the same thing that drew me to Obama, drew me to Brain Traffic. Smart people, working toward a change for the better. So, maybe there's a little revolutionary in me yet. (Luckily, this time around, I work in a far less dodgy warehouse.)
Posted in Around the Office, Content Strategy, Information Architecture, User Experience, Web Writing
