Domain Building Level 12, 380 St Kilda Road Melbourne, Victoria 3004 T +61 3 9684 6450 F +61 3 9682 4019 E info#dtdigital.com.au W www.dtdigital.com.au SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF Phil Whitehouse / General Manager DTDigital Sydney @casablanca Hi everyone My name is Phil Whitehouse I’ve been managing experience design teams for over 15 years And this talk is going to be about attention to detail
stuff. Because I believe that this is what increasingly sets you apart from the competition, home and abroad It’s not good enough to do UX, or CRM, or SEO - the devil is in the details Very few are doing this well.
Start with a blank page I don’t mean physically, I mean philosophically Every designer and every company starts with preconceptions Maybe you want to iterate on your current model, or copy a competitor These preconceptions seriously limit the potential of the product. Give yourselves the opportunity to innovate - otherwise someone is going to outflank you
for survival, but not for success” - Edward De Bono “ It’s important to make constant improvements to your current system But to be resilient, to be a market leader, to outflank others, you need to innovate Abandon preconceptions Start from your imagination, and work backwards.
They are hard to find! You want people capable of understanding and meeting the business needs, but who puts the customer’s needs above all else They will probably come from outside your organisation, because they have to be free from political and technical constraint
lots of potential concepts in sketch form, from lots of different angles What if your solution was all about service? Or all about choice? Or all about speed? Or all about community? Look at your brand values for inspiration...
on those brand values one at a time Maybe your product is about trust. Or value. Or vision. And so on. Once you’ve done this exercise, 2 or 3 will jump out as having real potential. While you’re still at this sketch phase, you can get get multi-channel right at a conceptual level. (not just web and mobile, but also in-store, devices for shop assistants, back office and supply chain, social, measuring intent). You have to consider them all together, and sketching is perfect for this.
2 or 3 ideas, go and test them. See what customers actually think. It’s actually better to show them this stuff in sketch form, rather than like this, because people will focus on the concept rather than the detail. Then once you’ve settled on your new concept, you’ve got the perfect foundation for moving forwards.
Protect your team So.. Hire the right people - and you’ll need to learn how to spot them first (URL at the end) (credit: Jason Mesut // @jasonmesut / Head of User Experience at RMA Consulting) Understand the process yourself - and challenge your team to help improve it Protect your team - they will be seen as disruptive, and might come under attack
ties into the first rule, it’s about direction setting It’s actually quite hard to do - but I think it’s critical. It’s a group effort - critical that everyone is pursuing the same thing “Building an eCommerce platform” is not the kind of goals I’m talking about, so to illustrate that I’d like to tell a story
President Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He walked over to the man and asked “What are you doing?” The janitor responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon” It’s worth thinking about your goal, and how you define it, because the work of everyone in your organisation can then align behind it. It needs to be aspirational, exciting, clear, concise. And it needs to align with your customer’s goal. We’re building the ultimate driving machine. We’re the fresh food people. We’re putting a man on the moon. What sets you apart?
add features due to business demands is overwhelming. Orange > They had a beautiful, simple, clear online shop and a well respected brand. And in 2006, this needed to be merged with Wanadoo, their complex, clicks-driven broadband portal with news and horoscopes and sport. Revenue which Orange made from selling phones and plans was several orders of magnitude higher than the money made from advertising revenue associated with this portal content.
removing their links, and the phone and plan sales guys couldn’t prove the effect of adding these extra features and links. It desperately needed - and still needs - a leader to step in and apply some common sense. Someone with good taste. And this is why I mention Apple in my synopsis. They are the cheerleader for design simplicity. If you need proof of an ROI model around simplicity in design...
first-apples-rank-in-mobile-phone-profitability-and-revenues/ ...there is it. iPhone numbers in the smartphone market in January 2012. Customers are crying out for this. They will pay for this. Your team needs to be aware that every additional piece of functionality contributes to the overall complexity of the product, the cognitive overload for the user. It’s not good enough for each function to fight for it’s place; the leaders need to ensure the overall goals are met as well.
with it because they’ve always been that way It might be a complex product, but people know where to find what they’re looking for Their navigation hardly ever changes, and their internal search is amazing Your solution can be much better
effort has been put into the product. Expectations are high. Make it easy for me. Example: Twitter is simple, clear, gave immediate feedback, only essential information They don’t ask people to fill in lengthy forms (CRM data is important, but having happy, repeat customers is more so) They don’t ask people to fill in forms before it’s necessary (which is the best way to get bad data anyway)
effort has been put into the product. Expectations are high. Make it easy for me. Example: Twitter is simple, clear, gave immediate feedback, only essential information They don’t ask people to fill in lengthy forms (CRM data is important, but having happy, repeat customers is more so) They don’t ask people to fill in forms before it’s necessary (which is the best way to get bad data anyway)
those who focus on look don’t always think about feel. The feel is an essential element of your brand, it is a point at which a brand interaction takes place. Take a car door for instance, the sense of quality you get when you close the door on an Audi is different to that of a Holden. The result is the same - a closed door - but the emotional resonance is different. It is not just a veneer, IT IS A VITAL POINT OF DIFFERENTIATION.
record Make sure your disciplines talk to each other So... Lead by example - show people you care, reward people who care Hire people with a good track record - study their work for evidence Make sure your disciplines talk to each other - UX / Design / Front end development, don’t just build a website - craft an experience
Gandhi said it best “A customer is not dependent on us, we are dependent on him” Not good enough to tell people in your organisation to give good customer service, this gets interpreted in different ways. You’ve got to sweat the details. And get other people to sweat the details. And get them to join in their thinking. I’ve got a great example of how this is manifested when you get it wrong.
even on the Vodafone site any more. I’ve worked with several big telcos in my career. I know that they need to reduce the cost of their call centres. But the fact remains that if you don’t talk to the customer on their terms, one of your competitors will be happy to step in. Unveil what I think is the best contact us page I’ve ever seen: <drum roll>
phoned them, they answered within one call. That was at 8.20 in the morning. I told 850 people via Twitter. We’re going to see a lot more humility like this in the coming years. Yes they might be small and nimble compared to Vodafone, but customers don’t have lower expectations because of that - they’ve got higher expectations.
phoned them, they answered within one call. That was at 8.20 in the morning. I told 850 people via Twitter. We’re going to see a lot more humility like this in the coming years. Yes they might be small and nimble compared to Vodafone, but customers don’t have lower expectations because of that - they’ve got higher expectations.
how they work, then figure out which QR code reader to obtain, download it, launch it, scan the code and wait for the reader to translate it into a URL or (b) type in a simple URL. These are all just individual examples and anecdotes, but they point at a major underlying problem The customer’s needs are not being put first And that’s a very dangerous game to play
figure out which QR code reader to obtain, download it, launch it, scan the code and wait for the reader to translate it into a URL, or... ...is it easier to (a) learn what they are and how they work, then figure out which QR code reader to obtain, download it, launch it, scan the code and wait for the reader to translate it into a URL or (b) type in a simple URL. These are all just individual examples and anecdotes, but they point at a major underlying problem The customer’s needs are not being put first And that’s a very dangerous game to play
figure out which QR code reader to obtain, download it, launch it, scan the code and wait for the reader to translate it into a URL, or... 2. Type in a simple URL. ...is it easier to (a) learn what they are and how they work, then figure out which QR code reader to obtain, download it, launch it, scan the code and wait for the reader to translate it into a URL or (b) type in a simple URL. These are all just individual examples and anecdotes, but they point at a major underlying problem The customer’s needs are not being put first And that’s a very dangerous game to play
employee engagement strategy Improve communications across your business So... Make customer experience a KPI - be specific how this manifests itself Tie it into your Employee Engagement strategy - This will differ from company to company, it’s definitely a cultural thing first, and organisational thing second Improve communications - Make sure marketing talks to finance talks to customer service talks to IT, Join the dots and establish the principles that you need to survive
right thing Quick show of hands: Who’s heard of VRM? VRM = Vendor Relationship Management An emerging set of tools allowing customers to manage their relationship with vendors, at scale If you think customers are powerful now, in terms of how they share their knowledge and experience, you ain’t seen nothing yet. So, what are you going to measure? I would argue that you should measure site performance from the customer’s point of view
so much effort on SEO, the external search engines, but how much effort do you spend on internal search? The journey doesn’t end when they arrive on your site! We spend so much effort trying to guess or figure out what our customers want, but the search results is where they’re actually telling us! It is worth hiring dedicated resource to constantly improve search. Amazon do this. Google have provided these search results. Do Google check the search queries and implement improvements?
similar, but how far do we take it? - do you set goals and funnels? - do you conduct A/B Multi-variate testing to see what designs are most effective? Puma - do you segment your visitors, based on geography? Buying habits differ from city to city and state to state. All the data is available, you just need to capture it, and organise it around your business goals. Get this set up properly, and it has the potential to impact your business a lot more than SEO and SEM
product after sketching, and I think that’s important throughout the design process. But what about after launch? Your customer’s needs and expectations are changing all the time. And a million assumptions are made during the design process. If you uncover problems in your Google Analytics funnels, and people are dropping off, user testing is the best way to find out why. Your business depends on it, why wouldn’t you invest in this? And even if you haven’t got budget, there are low cost ways of getting this feedback. People love it when you ask their opinion. Just ask.
up front Fight for simplicity Build your culture around the customer Measure the right thing Not good enough to just have people responsible for this stuff You’ve got to make sure they’re tenacious and passionate about the details Make them sweat the small stuff!
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