Strategy Blog: Viget Labs

Jackson Fox - Former Staffer :

I was at the Agile 2009 conference last week to give a talk based on a project we did with Choice Hotels, this is the short version of my presentation. A quick thanks to everyone who came to my talk at the conference, and to everyone who provided feedback afterwards!

I like to think that most designers accept that integrating user feedback is critical to the success of a project. I also like to think that I’m not alone in struggling to find time and budget to undertake a thorough research phase on every project. As a group, UX designers have found a lot of ways do design research quickly (and cheaply) in order to make the best use of the time they have available on a project. On a recent project we found just such a solution that allowed us to gain critical insights while overcoming hurdles that made doing user research difficult.

Continue reading "Closing the feedback loop with a little help from your friends"

M. Jackson Wilkinson - Former Staffer :

Earlier this month, we hosted a workshop here at Viget led by Thomas Vander Wal centered on Social Design in the Enterprise. I think it went great, and thanks to those who attended as well as to Thomas.  A few of us went bowling afterward, and for those who didn't: you missed out.

Thomas led us through a series of challenges and practices that try to help the necessary challenge of pushing the needle in an enterprise environment -- while the consumer web may be satisfied with a 1-9-90 model and widespread participation inequality, the enterprise web requires a much higher level of participation.  Thomas was a tour de force when it came to knowledge-dropping; I don't think I'm unlike other workshop attendees when I say that I spent the weekend sparking new ideas as some of the concepts Thomas talked about sunk in. 

The thing is, while some of these concepts are crucial to enterprise products, most of the concepts are still very relevant to the consumer space as well.  I just want to take a second and look at two things that I found interesting during and after the workshop.

Continue reading "Lessons from Thomas Vander Wal: Reputation and Social Comfort"

April Mohr Harding - Project Manager :

For the past several months, I've been working with a client who is based in North America but who operates regional offices in various parts of the world where their (tourism industry) product is offered. Over the past year, we've collaborated with this client one country at a time, through their North American central office, updating some of their country-specific web properties. It's been a cool opportunity for the team to experiment with tweaking web designs to work in cultures that we haven't designed for in the past. One of the best lessons learned (well, more confirmed than learned), is that good web design (as any other form of art) transcends regional boundaries. A good web design in America is also a good web design in Norway, France, or Australia because, at the end of the day, the best web design gets out of the way and lets the content and features pull users in and through the conversion process. So far, we've found that user intuition about how to get from Point A to Point B in the purchase process doesn't vary by location - everybody is looking for the same information.

However, we also found that aesthetic preferences, as you might suspect, vary a great deal between nations. The preference in one country might be for ultra-sleek, clean design with little imagery and a neutral color palette. In other places, users seem to prefer a richer, bolder palette full of evocative imagery and depth. Given those widely varied and utterly subjective preferences, we faced a new challenge with our current design project in this space: How do we define a design that not only works but also looks "good" in Germany, in Australia, in France, in the UK, and many other distinctly different parts of the world?

Our first attempt was to employ our standard process of presenting three mood board options and finding the most preferred of the three. In this case, we had the opportunity to ask our users (during usability testing for the same product) what they thought about the mood boards. For this exercise, we came up with three distinct directions. One that was sort of business-y, one that was fun and lively, and one that was neutral. We asked users how they would describe them and which they preferred. After weeks of interviews, we were able to finally discover that the mood board results were totally inconclusive. Each country had a preference, but with 4 countries responding to 3 mood boards, we couldn't possibly have come up with a less definitive answer. Germany preferred one, France preferred another, the UK preferred the third, and in Australia there was no clear winner. Obviously, none of these design concepts was the "right" answer.

Beyond that, even within the countries that preferred a particular design direction, the feedback was contradictory. For example, we presented a mood board similar to the one below.

Continue reading "Sure, Those Colors Look Nice - But Can You Prove They’ll Work?"

Stephanie Hay - Project Manager :

Last December, I visited a financial planner.  It was well worth the time and hassle of tracking down recommendations from folks whom I trust.  It was enlightening but also daunting -- I had a lot of work ahead of me to get prepared for retirement at 30.  (Tsk, and some call me an idealist).

Anyway, among the many great recommendations was to explore investment opportunities available in any of a number of companies.  So, I started doing some research and now have intimately experienced the user flow and options available to me behind three major financial institutions, which I refuse to name because I don't want anyone to steal from me.

Here are some observations I've found in my micro-research:

Decision paralysis on the home page is alive and well. One of the companies had no visual or content hierarchy -- it was literally line item after line item of everything I could use them for.  This is OK if I'm just scanning for a certain keyword, but it's also anxiety-inducing.  Another company had much better visual hierarchy -- for example, there was a question on the home page that asked "New to Investing?" -- but then led me to a landing page with enough choices for a seasoned investor.  The conversion funnel could be more effective if I felt a guided experience rather than a free-for-all.

Two of three companies structured their user experiences around their own internal organization. This is amazingly annoying when I want to move money from point A to point B and have to sign into two different interfaces and have confirmations from both.  Why on Earth would you require your users to jump through these hoops just because your internal territories are so deep?  However, one company did invest obvious love and care into audience research and ease of use, which then made the other two seem even more bureaucratic.

Pop-up explanations are everywhere, but never seem to help.  Maybe this is just me, but I don't really need a glossary when trying to manage my banking online.  Instead, I need answers to questions that seem nowhere to be found (like, when setting up bill pay for an individual, does the date I choose dictate when the check is cut or when it's delivered?).  Or the answers are off on some page beyond my current view, which makes keeping things in context very difficult.  But, to remedy this, see the next point:

Live chat works.  I feel weird typing this, but it's true.  On each of the three companies I was researching, I used the live chat option and found stellar results -- one of which was so pleasurable thanks to friendly customer support that they earned my business.  (A follow-up call afterwards gave me the warm fuzzies, too.)

Overall, I was amazed that two of three financial institutions I surveyed are capable of managing millions (billions?) of dollars for people but aren't better equipped to manage their users' experiences intuitively.  Maybe I'm expecting too much?

Todd Bayliss - Project Manager :

Ok, so I had a great (and effective) marketing tactic used on me this morning. I’m a relatively new coffee/espresso drinker, but I noticed pretty quickly that the barista at this new, non-[major franchise] shop had forgotten the hazelnut syrup I had requested. But, because I still need my sugar fix, I turned around at the end of the parking lot and went back in with the intention of just grabbing a few sugar packets rather than making a fuss. The barista recognized me though, and I felt compelled to mention the oversight. He apologized emphatically and added the syrup; which is really the best I would have hoped for.

The manager, however, overheard the exchange and stepped in to offer me a free sandwich for the error; which, to me, seemed excessive, but an extremely gracious gesture that was good for his up-and-coming business. I protested slightly, but then he hooked me by saying, “Really, it’s fine – you’re a regular.” Now, I’ve only been in this shop four times (granted, three of them were this week), so I’m hardly a “regular.” But, by calling me one, I now felt pressured to actually BE one. On top of that, I was quick to mention the experience to the first person I ran into this morning. I’m spreading the word.

Here at Viget, we strive every day to not just get people to our clients’ sites, but to make them “regulars” on those sites. We propose marketing and social strategies, blogs, content revisions, and design updates to grab people, draw them in, and, hopefully, keep them coming back for more. But, in a fickle, ever-changing online world, how can we ensure that we’re connecting with our core audience? We’ve written before about ways in which customer service and brand personality effect online experiences, but allow me to add another case study to the list.

The Lefsetz Letter focuses largely on the music industry; but, in a post this week, Bob Lefsetz recounts an experience he had with one of my personal favorite e-commerce sites for outdoor gear.

I immediately received an e-mail confirmation that said "Get stoked - most items ship within 24 hours." That’s how they talk on the hill. But most e-commerce sites use the traditional phrases, vetted by attorneys to avoid any and all lawsuits. These companies are not run by humans, but computers. Just try to complain when you’ve got a problem. And then, three hours later, came another e-mail. With the above quote. Yes, "Holy crap. Your stuff just shipped." Wasn’t I supposed to wait ten days for them to make money on my money? They ship within twenty four hours? But what truly sold me was the irreverence. Real people work at Tramdock.com. Or at least real people wrote the computer scripts.

And those are the keys. Mr. Lefsetz was not only able to make that connection between the company that was trying to make money from him and the people who are actually behind that company, but they exceeded his expectations as well.  So with a necessary focus on keywords and SEO to get people to our sites, how do we bridge the gap between marketing and personality in order to keep them there?

Bob closed with this:

Play to your core. If you deserve to be bigger, your fans will spread the word. And don’t be afraid of offending those not in the loop. They don’t matter.

In the end, he “gets” what I “get” about this site. Backcountry gear isn’t for everyone, so why try to speak to everyone? Find a voice that speaks to your core audience, exceed their expectations, and your “regulars” will do the work for you.

Easy enough, right?