February 2010

New Ask UXmatters Article On Building UX Organizations

by Paul Sherman on February 25, 2010 · 1 comment

in Development, Experience Strategy, Product Management, UX And...

Janet Six over at UXmatters posted her latest “Ask UXmatters” article. This time it’s about building UX teams. She featured a bunch of my thinking on how to prepare and change organizational cultures for more effective user experience implementations. Which was gratifying. I’m glad the field finds my content useful. (You can always read that stuff in my UX Kit, which I just happened to revise this week, adding some salary and job title updates).

But I thought the other Ask UXmatters contributors had some fantastic points and I want to call them out here.

Dan Szuc of Apogee lists a number of questions a UX team *should* be asking itself. I think he nailed it when he said this:

What do you see as success for your UX group?

To me Dan defined the essence of the issue: when you’re building a UX group, it’s critical to define what success looks like. It may be metrics-driven; e.g., “we shall be usability testing 80% of our company’s product line by EO 2010″, etc. It could be anything really. But of course it helps if your success definition is tied to and aligned with your larger organization’s goals…

Joel Grossman recommends taking a business-case approach to building a UX organization:

Start by preparing a business case, outlining the expected qualitative and quantitative benefits that will accrue to the organization,” suggests Joel. “Define a series of milestones that take you from the current state of affairs to an end-state that will maximize the benefits you’ve identified in the business case.

Agree and agree. Except: true “business case” documents are quite formal affairs. I certainly agree with Joel about demonstrating the qual and quant benefits. But I recommend against adopting a B-school format for your document. Keep it short and to the point. I’m pretty sure this is what Joel meant as well, but I wanted to clarify my thinking on this a bit.

Steve Baty of Meld warns against taking a centralized approach, which I heartily agree with:

I’d be cautious about moving toward a centralized service model in this case…Think instead about what you’re hoping to achieve through that move (i.e., of going centralized):

  • consistency of approach
  • efficient use of resources
  • shared customer or user insights
  • shared UX principles across interactions and touchpoints

I don’t know if Steve was reacting to my content or not. But I should say that I definitely do NOT advocate for centralizing UX in a big way. My view, which I think Steve shares, is that user experience efforts belong with the product teams they collaborate with. UX resources shouldn’t all be piled atop the organization in a service bureau model. And they certainly shouldn’t let themselves be seen as sitting on some fancy “UX throne” issuing UX directives from on high. And even when some centralized user experience concentration is called for, it should be about providing consistency and efficiency; i.e., some “UX glue” across the organization.

Having been on the wrong end of the barrel during several workforce reductions involving centralized UX functions, I have to say that UX contributors and managers are safer when they’re allied with (and aligned with) the product teams they serve. It’s all too easy to lay off an entire centralized UX group, because they’re not directly tied to any specific profit center. When things get tough, an embedded UX group has a much better chance of survival, albeit with attrition.

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How To Disable The Paypal Help Center

by Andreas Bossard on February 23, 2010 · 9 comments

in Design, Usability, Web

(Note: Here’s another guest post from Andreas Bossard, proprietor of the blog News of the Future and author of several excellent UsabilityBlog posts. Today he talks about his travails with the Paypal help system. Enjoy. -Paul)

I wanted to get help in Paypal, that’s why I clicked on “Help” and expected to see the help section of Paypal.
Instead I saw the following:

Cannot access the Paypal help section

All that I read when scanning through the page is:

Help information isn’t available in English yet. […] select U.S. English.

So I need to change the language to U.S. English. Okay, I try to remember all the steps that they tell me, go through them and reach this page:

Paypal: How to select U.S. English?

Hmm. I cannot see U.S. English. How to select U.S. English now? I think I will contact the Help Center. …But wait a minute… I could not access the help pages, that’s why I came to this page in the first place. I’m trapped in a can-not-get-help-loop. *argh*

Note: If I select German, then the help center is shown! But if I was an English speaker I would not be able to get help. I think this bug exists only for Swiss users, otherwise it would be fixed since a long time.

What to learn from this mistake by Paypal:

  • Let me select the language for the help pages directly
  • Or give me a direct link
  • But no lengthy instructions please

When I clicked the help link, I need help immediately!

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My Usability Marathon 2 Preso Embed

by Paul Sherman on February 21, 2010 · 3 comments

in Development, Experience Strategy, Product Management, UX And...

I thought I did a decent job presenting about strategic user experience at Usability Marathon 2. I just remembered that they posted the webinar slides (and voice as well, if I’m not mistaken).

So here it is. I received good feedback on it. YMMV. But I hope you enjoy it.

Usability…Or Strategic User Experience?

View more presentations from Paul Sherman.

Usability Marathon 2 ::  Paul Sherman

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Two Completely Unrelated Observations

by Paul Sherman on February 15, 2010 · 7 comments

in Everything Else, Privacy


Click to view full size
Originally uploaded by Matthew Oliphant

Just saw this via Matthew Oliphant’s Flickr collection. I have two unrelated observations to share with the Twitterverse / blogosphere / interwebz:

1. Hey, at least they’re sayin’ so.

2. “Chromed Bird” makes me think of Maltese Falcon.

Look, no one said I had to be 100% on-point and all UX-smart for every post.

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The Nirvana Phone: Can I Have One Now Please?

by Paul Sherman on February 4, 2010 · 1 comment

in Design, Hardware

Yesterday I posted about a discussion Jared Spool and I had about the import of the iPad.

I made the claim that the handset would continue to be the innovation driver, and as soon as it had the computing horsepower to drive a large LCD monitor and run productivity applications, it would be the primary and dominant computing platform.

Several smart commenters weighed in as well, so check out their comments here at the post’s permalink.

Anyway, it turns out I’m not much of a prognosticator. It’s already being done.

Check out the video to see Citrix’s Nirvana phone driving a full-size LCD, keyboard, and mouse, and running Windows.

Now *that’s* what I’m talking about.

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Tablets Are (Probably) Superfluous

by Paul Sherman on February 2, 2010 · 11 comments

in Design, Hardware, Product Management

I really thought I’d be able to resist bloviating about the iPad. But then I read this tweet from Jared Spool:

Is nobody else talking about the iPad’s interesting facet? It brings the gap between phone & computer manufacturers closer together.

It got pushed to his Facebook as an update, where I flippantly responded:

And that’s a good thing why?? :-)

Graciously, Jared ignored my dumbass comment and persisted, writing this:

Seriously, I think there’s going to be some really interesting synthesis here. Nokia, LG, and Motorola really haven’t done anything scaled up before. The laptop & netbook players haven’t gone this small.

The competition will be interesting. Of course, there will be a lot of crap produced. (It’s Sturgeon’s Law.) But, there will be some really interesting innovations.

All because Apple had the balls to try something nobody else had done before. I think that’s the most significant part of all this….

(And here’s a question: How will Google respond? After all, they have Android on the low end and Chromium on the high end, but neither will really talk to each other.)

His follow-up got me to thinking. I didn’t respond point-by-point to his last comments, but his points helped me to suddenly sharpen my thinking and spin out a scenario in which tablets aren’t the wave of the future, but phones will continue to be.

So below I present to you my reasoning for why and how tablets are at best a diversion, and the real innovation will continue to happen with handsets. Read on for yet another opinion on the future of computing.

I agree with what you’re saying J. But my thinking is that until we have a truly convertible handheld-slash-desktop (and mobile computing) solution, the gap will continue to be a chasm into which product after product will fall into.

Now I’m not the most visionary person in the world, but it seems to me that the big, latent, unmet needs are this:

  1. I need a mobile device that fits in my pocket, that allows me to do [pretty much what the iPhone, Android, and BB handsets do].
  2. I need a computing device that gives me my familiar input devices (read: keyboard and pointing device), gives me access to my apps and content, and provides a large enough viewing area so I can work productively.

Notice that I didn’t say “contains my apps and content.” That was intentional. It doesn’t take a tech visionary to see that both our apps AND our content are migrating to the cloud.

Anecdotally, I can affirm that I am mighty tired of “curating” the content on my hard disks. I’d rather that stuff just lives in, is accessible from, and gets backed up in the cloud. And I WILL pay money for that. So, long story long, you’re right, the iPad comes close. But I think the real opportunity is this:

  1. My phone-like mobile device does it’s thing while I’m mobile.
  2. When I need to sit somewhere and work, I dock it. Then it pushes (at the VERY least) 1280×800 to an LCD, and automagically connects to my keyboard and mouse, to my suite of apps (wherever they may live – Office Live, Google Apps, whatever), and to my content. (And of course it brings up all my social interfaces.)

Obviously, handsets don’t have the horsepower to do this…yet. But they will. It’s clear that current PC architectures have massively oversolved for the computing horsepower problem, and if you’ve read any Clayton Christensen you know this is a scenario that’s ripe for disruption by a “good enough” solution that addresses the market’s new value dimensions.

Netbooks are an ongoing attempt to serve these new dimensions of value, but they’re constrained by having to run either bloated legacy OS’s or not-ready-for-primetime Linux distros. Plus, they don’t serve as  phones very well. Imagine holding one up to your ear… it’s like Maxwell Smart with a shoe to his head.

And you probably noticed I didn’t address the “how do I work productively when I’m mobile?” scenario. I’ll grant you that. But it’s certainly not an impossibility…I can envision a netbook form factor device with a big-@ss slot for receiving – you guessed it – my mobile phone-slash-computing engine.

So, to sum up:

  1. You’re right, things are getting interesting, and
  2. If product makers can make the phone the bearer of CPU horsepower, connectivity, and OS, then everything else becomes a terminal that the phone docks to or slides into.

And I’m adding here that this last point is what makes tablets superfluous.

Thoughts?

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Ling’s Cars: It Works

by Paul Sherman on February 1, 2010 · 13 comments

in Design, Experience Strategy, Usability, Web

Here’s the thing about LingsCars.com: It works.

Yes, it’s ugly as sin, an affront to the design sensibilities of practically everyone.

And this picture doesn’t do it justice. Go to the site, you need to see the seizure-inducing blinky-blinky.

But it works. It really does.

Let’s unpack that a bit. What do I mean when I say it works?

It’s simple. The site fulfills the goals of the business, which I’m guessing are:

  1. To lease cars to customers.
  2. To create a memorable experience and make Ling’s Cars top-of-mind for UK people who want to lease an auto.

By those simple measures, the site is learnable, memorable, usable, and creates a unique brand experience to boot. (No, that is not a pun on the UK’s use of boot for trunk.)

Go ahead. Check it out for yourself. And give yourself these “typical” usability test goals, just to prove my point about the usability of LingsCars.com:

  1. Go find the link that takes you to Ling’s cheapest leasing deals.
  2. You want to ask Ling’s Cars a question. Can you chat online with someone at Ling’s cars? Find a way to do that.
  3. You want to lease a Volvo automobile, but aren’t sure which one you want. What does Ling offer?
  4. You’d like to see what the lease prices are for every one of Ling’s autos. Find a way to look at all the prices together in one place.

And here’s the kicker: I’ve established that it’s somewhat usable. Now, is it memorable? You bet it is. Admit it – the memory of the first time you saw lingscars.com is burned into your synapses. Psychologists call this “flashbulb memory” – memories that are so strong, you remember where you were, what you were doing, and a host of little details associated with the memory.

Granted, your flashbulb memory of Ling’s Cars is probably of the Kennedy assassination, Challenger explosion, or 9/11 variety. But still, I guarantee that you won’t soon forget about Ling’s Cars.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m actually experiencing prodromal migraine symptoms just having Ling’s site in my peripheral vision. I’m not defending the so-bad-it’s-good design in and of itself. What I’m saying is that even the worst design can serve its organization’s goals. It’s a high-risk strategy, yes. But does it work in Ling’s case? I think it does.

Update: A commenter below points out that the site doesn’t exactly fill you with warm fuzzies about the reputation of Ling’s Cars. That is, it doesn’t score points in the professionalism and trust categories.

I would argue that certain businesses need that more than others. If (like me) you grew up in the 70′s and 80′s in the NYC area, you probably remember those Crazy Eddie’s commercials. “Crazy Eddie’s! Our prices are so low, it’s insane!” And of course the pitchman jumped around like a lunatic. They didn’t come across as a staid and somber corporate entity. But they didn’t need to. They were differentiating on price. For electronics, that’s frequently the deciding factor.

Is it the same with car leasing in the UK? I have no idea. But I suspect that Ling is indeed trying to differentiate on price – notice the frequent references to “low prices” on the site. And do you need to build a staid and somber site to trumpet your price differentiation? Probably not. In fact, one could make the argument that the site actually *supports* the price differentiation claim thusly:

Ling’s Cars…our prices are so low, we don’t even bother spending a lot of money on our site…we just home-build it so we can keep our prices low.

Maybe that’s a stretch. Thoughts?

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