Archives / May 2008

The latest ImprovEverywhere prank by Charlie Todd (a veteran Gel conference speaker and Day 1 host) brought hundreds of people onto the Brooklyn Bridge to do the wave... with camera flashes.

The line of blue lights on the bridge is from those individual cameras:

I also liked this photo from the recap:

Read all about the Camera Flash Experiment.

Tim Ferriss is the author of the popular book The 4-Hour Workweek and a companion blog (I've linked to it in the past) that promise to enable readers to "escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich." Judging from Amazon reader comments, many people have found the book helpful.

The book, which covers a lot of ground, isn't primarily about managing information overload - but there are some tips included. Solely in terms of that one topic, from my reading, the book makes two main suggestions: outsource as much of your efforts as you can, and foster a discipline of not constantly checking email. Presumably, checking email just once in the morning and once in the afternoon (or some similar schedule) will free you up to spend time on more important things.

On its own, it's a fine suggestion. In Bit Literacy, in fact, I say that some people may find it helpful to have pre-defined email times to check email. And I say that other people may find it helpful not to do so. It's really up to the reader to choose what's best for them. But I didn't have much more to say on the point, since this isn't the key question in solving information overload.

The solution, rather, is learning to "let the bits go" - so that one can be online constantly, or twice a day, or anything in between. Practicing bit literacy allows you to work whenever and wherever you want, without feeling stressed or guilty from all the incoming information. Specifically in email, this means emptying the inbox once a day, a process that relies on deferring action items to a future day's todo list - a skill that has hardly been discussed, let alone practiced, in today's workplace.

So when Women Entrepreneur magazine interviewed me recently, and asked me (among other things) my take on Ferriss's email-management tips, I said the following:

Timothy Ferriss is focused on outsourcing and not checking e-mail so often. The last time I checked, the amount of e-mail you get is not a function of how often you check e-mail.

And that's my take of his book's two main suggestions, as I've explained above. While it may be helpful for some people to check email less often, by itself that doesn't solve the problem.

Strangely, the comment made Timothy Ferriss angry. He posted today:

I just take offense at his tone and blanket statements about people who are attempting to do the same thing as he: help others overcome digital overload. In the end, I think his comments come from a mistaken view that there is only room for one version of what is inherently “personal” productivity.

And as if to underline the importance of tone, he starts the post with a picture of the Hulk (caption: "You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry") and finishes with "friends come and go, but enemies accumulate" - followed by a Youtube clip of Bruce Lee kicking an opponent again and again and again. Ferriss's readers cheer him on in the comments: my book is "dreadful," my comments "insulting," and so on.

As I say: strange. Had I known it was such a hyper-sensitive topic, I might have just passed on the question. As it was, I did what one does in book interviews: explain what I believe is helpful to the reader.

Zig Ziglar says that the best way to get a chip off of someone's shoulder is to have them take a bow. So: Tim - congratulations on the success of your book, blog, and community. I know I could learn a lot from you on all three. Good luck with your continued efforts, and if you'd like to cover this ground more calmly for your blog, drop me a line.

I'm happy to announce a new iPhone version of Gootodo, our online todo list.

What's new:

• It's much easier to read your todo list, since the text is custom-formatted for the iPhone screen.

• Redating a todo works great, using a fast Ajax calendar.

• Viewing other days' lists is easy with the "prev" and "next" links on top of the page (or by using the calendar).

• You can tap "Gootodo" on the top of any page to go back to today's list.

• "Your Account", "Help", and "Logout" are available at the bottom of the page.

Two tradeoffs:

• There's no drag-and-drop in the iPhone API, so you can't reorder your todos in a given day. In Your Account you can choose between viewing todos alphabetically, or in whatever order you set them in a regular Web browser, but that's it. (You can also, of course, redate any todo to another day.)

• To minimize clutter, we've omitted search. I'll await user feedback to see if that's a big problem.

I'm know I'm going to use my iPhone more, now that my todo list is much easier to use.

Next steps:

• If you have an iPhone, just go to the site (on our standard or secure server) and the iPhone version will automatically kick in.

• If you haven't tried Gootodo here's a 30-day free trial.

• If you're wondering what this is about, read this summary or read my book, Bit Literacy.

Have a goo' time,
-mark

I’ve been using Mark Hurst’s gootodo for over a year now and I can’t imagine work life without it.

The basics of resizing and sharing photos. (NYT)

This is an essential skill that I devoted a chapter to in Bit Literacy.

I've written about Zappos, the customer-obsessed etailer, in the past - for example, this post - because I think they're an important site for all experience practitioners to know.

Then a few weeks ago, members of our Councils voted Zappos a Copernican Award.

But this is a new one to me. From Bill Taylor, here's what happens at Zappos during a new employee's training period:

After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, it’s time for what Zappos calls “The Offer.” The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!

Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)

This is much like what Chip Conley writes about in Peak - the employee experience is just as important as the customer experience. (Read my interview of Chip.)

(Thanks to David for the article pointer.)

Low-tech/hi-tech todo list: chalkboard on the back of a laptop. (Seems like Gootodo would be much easier...)

(thanks, bb)

I recently gave a talk to a company that is beginning to invest more in the customer experience of its website. They wanted to know: how do we avoid the errors of other teams making this investment? There are lots of gurus, blogs, and trade groups, all promoting their own tools and methods - usability, user experience, interaction design, information architecture, and so on. The team knows that they want "better usability" but aren't sure about the next step.

And this company is growing fast, so a lot is at stake in them getting it right. If they build the right processes in-house (or hire consultants that offer them), they'll reap the rewards.

I told them that when committing to customer-centered development (of a product, service, website, or whatever), it's important to stay strategic, always try to improve the business, and listen to customers (as human beings, not as users of a tool).

But in doing so, avoid the following:

1. Not conducting any customer research.

Some companies still don't conduct customer research, but instead rely on their best internal guesses as to what their customers want. Except in organizations where ESP is a common employee skill, this tends not to lead to healthy, customer-centered operations.

2. Conducting "pretend" research.

Let's pretend our user's name is Jane. Let's pretend she is 38 years old, drives a purple Prius, reads mystery novels, loves bulldogs, and likes to go sailing. Let's pretend she comes to our website and likes feature A but not feature B. Therefore, we should develop more things like feature A. See? We're very customer-centered.

This is the fun of creating a persona, which allows teams to make decisions based on fictional people, rather than doing the hard work of listening to real customers. (Yes, I'm being provocative; yes, personas can be useful in some cases - see more in this post.)

3. Conducting research, but the wrong type.

One of the most popular research methods in business today is the focus group: an individual moderator, typically a high-energy person, encourages a live panel of many respondents to give feedback on a product or service. This can be useful in some situations. But where customers interact individually with a company - say, on a website or in some other customer experience - the one-to-many method of focus groups doesn't yield very appropriate findings.

4. Conducting one-on-one research, but with tasks defined beforehand.

Traditional usability dictates that the moderator should write the test questions beforehand. But how can you know the right questions to ask before you've even met the customer? Task definition comes from the age of software, when the tool - a piece of software - was being optimized (thus the term "usability" refers to - and focuses on - a tool, not a human). Customer experience is concerned with the customer; their individual, real-life experience is what we're supposed to be observing. It's beyond presumptuous to think you can predict the appropriate tasks before the session starts. (Read more in this column.)

5. Not inviting stakeholders to attend research.

I've often heard the complaint from UX professionals that "we don't have enough impact in the organization." Maybe that's because too many practitioners write reports about their work, and lob them over the cubicle walls, rather than getting stakeholders involved in the research. Writing reports may work in the publish-or-perish academic world, but in the business world, it's infinitely better to have stakeholders physically sit and watch customers as they interact with the website (or product or service or whatever).

6. Not prioritizing findings.

My favorite, love-to-hate conclusion of a usability report goes something like this: "We uncovered 52 usability errors on the site, and here's a list of all of them." Oops: an unending list of tactics that no one will want to wade through. Instead, whenever discussing results (presumably in-person, to stakeholders who attended labs), focus on the most important two or three strategic findings - the ones that will really move the needle on key business metrics. (You DO focus on the business, don't you? See the next point.)

7. Not relating to business objectives.

Some usability researchers seem to see their work as an extension of their master's thesis in human factors - a scholarly exercise that demonstrates their mastery of various research and analysis methods. This may work in academic research labs, but in the business world, the point of this work is to improve the business. If you want to have an impact, then conduct the work in the light of business objectives: increasing revenue, or cutting costs, or improving usage or conversion rates or pageviews or something that helps pay the bills.

8. Missing the larger picture.

Tactical disciplines like usability and information architecture are useful, valuable, and have their place in the development process. But what's much more important is to understand the people, the human beings, who make the company possible. The customers, the visitors, the patients, the readers, the guests, whatever you call them - their experience is what determines the company's success or failure. So focus first on the overall experience. It's strategic, not tactical. It's about the people, not the tool. Focusing on the larger picture first will set a better context in which to work - later - on usability tactics.

- - -

See also: You DO talk to customers, don't you?

Substitute "product" or "site" or "book" for "experience", as necessary.

Lynda Resnick is the billionaire marketer who brought us Pom (the pomegranate juice in the strangely shaped bottle), Fiji bottled water, and other well-known brands. In the recent New Yorker article "Pomegranate Princess," she reveals her "secret" for consistently delivering products that customers want:

People say, 'She's a marketing genius, she just gets it' ... I really don't. I came up with this epiphany the other day: being a great marketer is synonymous with being a great friend. In other words, you have to listen. ... You don't have to be a genius. ... you have to see what people are watching. You have to listen to conversations. You have to pay attention.

You have to listen. You have to pay attention. That's pretty low-tech advice for high-tech marketers and product managers. And yet I can't think of a better foundation for customer-centered work. LISTEN.

Echoing this theme is another recent New Yorker piece, on sleight-of-hand magicians and their craft. One well-known practitioner, Jamy Ian Swiss, wrote that

magic was, in his words, "an experiment in empathy" - a contest of minds, in which the magician dominates by a superior grasp of the way the minds work. The spectator is not a dupe who gets fooled but a rational actor who gets outreasoned. ...

...the magician [must] imagine an audience to experience his effects: "From the very start, the moment a magician looks into his practice mirror, he is envisioning an alien awareness - a mind other than his own, perceiving an illusion that he is creating but cannot actually experience for himself." Only by a command of intellectual empathy can the magician lead the viewer down an explanatory highway ...

Empathy - the driving force behind good listening - is the number one requirement for anyone who wants to create a good experience. Not a long list of methods, not a scholarly knowledge of one's niche field - but empathy. Anyone can learn a method; but people who can listen, can pay attention, can see the experience from someone else's perspective, are rare and valuable.

Writing a book, for example, requires the author to constantly read and re-read the text from the perspective of the readers: will this make sense to them? Not to me, the author, but to someone who's coming at this fresh?

Creating a website, or application, or any sort of product, requires the developer to consider: what will the user think of this? Not me, the developer, but someone who's not me.

It's a difficult skill, and some people are better than others, but it can be developed. Listen. Pay attention. Think about the experience from someone else's perspective. That's the basis of creating good experience.

- - -

References:

• "Pomegranate Princess: Lynda Resnick's eye for a product," by Amanda Fortini, New Yorker, March 31, 2008.

• The Real Work: Modern Magic and the Meaning of Life, by Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, March 17, 2008.

Any place has its pros and cons, but one thing to admire about Paris is its insistence on high quality in things like food and wine. Standards, even top down, can be helpful! (Bottom-up has its place, too... the trick is to know when to apply each.)

What if I told you there was an industry that was committed to, even obsessed with, customer-centric business? An industry that conducts trade shows all about understanding the customer - meeting customers' desires - measuring success - and continually improving their operations? Wouldn't you want to learn from that industry?

This was the introduction I gave on-stage to Natasha Schull, a speaker at last week's Gel 2008 conference (see the recap). She's based at MIT and studies the "gaming industry" - specifically, the companies that design slot machines for use in Las Vegas, among other places.

(Update Feb '09: Watch Natasha Schull's video from Gel 2008.)

While Schull's research is primarily sociological, it's strongly relevant to anyone who works in any experiential field - design, user experience, customer-centered business, you name it. In fact I'm not sure why other conferences aren't banging down her door to speak: she has uncovered a side of our business that most people aren't remotely aware of - or perhaps would rather not know about.

Now, I should note that "some of my best friends go to Vegas." I'm not writing a polemic against gambling. Plenty of people have good clean fun at the slots, at the tables, everything in moderation, ya ya ya. OK? No offense meant.

But the thing is, as Natasha points out, the language of the slot machine industry belies its ultimate aims. There's a term bandied about at the trade shows: "extinction." We need to design for extinction, we need to reduce time-to-extinction, and so on.

What's extinction? That's the moment that the customer - the gambler sitting at the slot machine - runs out of money. The wallet, or credit card, is now "extinct." Mission accomplished. (Now, if we could just achieve that a little bit quicker with an improved design...)

So the customer experience is really important: what games do customers want to play? What sounds will they best respond to? What physical interface is easiest to use? (Turns out push buttons are much easier than pull-handles.) By constantly studying customers and delivering what they want - in the short term, at least - the industry continually pursues a faster time to extinction.

Anyone who does customer-centered work should give this some thought. What's more important, the ends or the means? You may be the greatest user researcher in the world, but what if you're asked to apply those skills to an end you don't believe in?

This is part of the reason I write Good Experience and run Gel: to challenge people to look beyond their own narrow disciplines and fields, and past the methods, to consider the wider world. Good experience, in the end, is mostly about the outcomes we want to achieve, and the spirit we bring to our work.

Enjoy the recap.

-Mark