Preparation

After arranging a first date, most people will take the time to prepare for it. Usually you would try to find out a little bit about your date, so that you can tailor your evening towards things that she will like. In effect, this is the first-date version of User Experience research. If you know that your date’s favourite colour is yellow, then bringing her a yellow flower is likely to impress her far more than a generic red rose.

UX research works in a similar way. Knowing and understanding your target audience before they visit your site will allow you to shape your design to what the users want and need.

The key here is to be creative. If a user knows that that you have taken the time to consider their requirements whilst in the planning stages of the site, they will be far more responsive to what you are offering them.

First Impressions Count

You would not turn up to a first date wearing miss-matched clothing in garish colours, looking shabby and unkempt (at least I hope you wouldn’t!). The same goes for a website.

Showing any form of disregard for users in your design, via cluttered copy, poor or difficult navigation or obsolete information, will result in a first time visitor losing faith in the website.

One great example of this was shown in a usability test run by Rolf Molich and Christian Gram.

Within their study, Molich and Gram placed an out-of-date map onto a website. The map failed to show viewers a recently constructed bridge in the area, resulting in the users forming an instant opinion that other things were likely to be missing from the map too, therefore resulting in a loss of trust in the site.

Consistency Is Important

If your date has heard about you from friends or family before meeting up with you, then there will be certain expectations of you in their minds, and the same applies to a website.

There must be an element of consistency, both offline and online; this comes down to user expectation. When the consumer sees something, be it a magazine article or leaflet, they will expect design elements to be reflected in the site that they are then led to.

If design does not maintain consistency throughout the various marketing channels, then the user feels betrayed and deceived, instantly creating suspicion regarding the motives of your brand.

Be Polite Not Pushy

Etiquette on a first date is a priority. Being in charge of the date and making decisions for your potential partner is important, but you should not do this all of the time. Offering to open a door for a woman is fine, but if she wants to do it herself then let her – be polite, not pushy.

This same etiquette applies to a website. There is a certain amount of hand holding needed on a site, often dictated by the layout and navigation, as there is a want for the user to achieve a conversion or goal. But it is also important to bear in mind that although structure is required, it does not have to be so rigid that the user feels pushed or forced to convert.

The Topic Of Conversation

Most people are very aware that on a first date, conversation is very important. Providing your date with something interesting and engaging will make them want to learn more, and this works in the same way with website content.

The age old rule that ‘Content is King’ still applies. Too much content will overwhelm the visitor and too little content can leave the user clueless as to what it is that you are trying to say.

Website content needs to be concise, compelling and should involve the reader. Keeping your web content fresh and up-to-date will provide the user with a reason to come back, and will give first time visitors a desire to stay on your site to read more.

So, Do You Fancy A Second Date?

In the same way that if you don’t trust a date you will not going out with them again, if you do not trust a website then you will not return to it. Gaining the trust of your visitors, through user research, design quality and content, is key and, as Jakob Neilson once said, “it’s trust or bust”.

Why Focus Groups are Used

Getting a focus group (often consisting of 4 – 10 people) to look at a new product or website can be a fantastic way of understanding how consumers will view your creation, and so long as the group is targeted towards your required demographic, results can often be generalised and rolled out across the board.

You will actually find that there are a number of increased benefits by performing research with a focus group, one of these being that within a congregation participants have the ability to build on ideas of others within the group. This can then provide you with more extensive results, and reactions to ideas and/or comments can be easily observed and recorded during the group time.

The Rosy View

However, it has been established in social psychology studies, that participants often require a few days following an exercise to feed-back fully on the product that they have reviewed. This has been referred to as the ‘rosy view’ and the simplest explanation of this comes from Susan Weinschenk, author of whatmakesthemclick.net.

Within one of Susan’s posts she makes reference to research governed by Terence Mitchell (1997), which found that the anticipation of a task often exceeds that of the actual experience.

The anticipation of doing something, for example going on holiday, often outweighs the event once you are actually there; disappointments during the experience have the ability to dis-colour or put-a-downer-on the preconceived ideas and emotions that were gathered prior to the event.

A few days following their return however, those who went away were able to look back and perceive the holiday to be better and more ‘rosy’, once they had been given time to think about the experience logically.

This same ‘rosy view’ effect can apply when conducting a focus group. Participants may anticipate the product, or website that they are going to be viewing, in a positive way, which may lead to disappointment upon entering the exercise. It is therefore essential to follow-up with the persons’ involved a few days later, once they have had time to process the information in a rational way.

Majority Influence – The Opinion Destroyer

Although there are numerous benefits to using focus groups, we are also very aware that there are some key issues that must be considered when deciding to undertake this form of research – the main concern being majority influence.

Within a set group of people, there will always be one that is assigned ‘leader’ status by the rest of the group. This person is not always chosen by nomination or through their own election, but often through their dominance and ability to speak up. Dominant participants will always speak first when presented with an issue that requires communication and interaction in a group situation, and it is this voice that will often steer the rest of the crowd.

Choosing the correct personalities and the correct focus group size is often key to gaining the best results – something that we have to constantly think about within a research phase.

The Solomon Asch Study

One of the best experiments performed regarding social acceptance and conformity was conducted by Solomon Asch in 1951.
Asch got together a group of participants, four of which were stooges (and were planted by Asch) and one of which was an innocent subject. The group were then showed a series of cards and asked a question regarding them. When given a secret signal, the stooges all provided the incorrect answer and an astounding 74% of the innocent participants went along with the group, also giving the incorrect answer (even though they knew it was wrong) so as to conform.

Although this experiment is a little more extreme than a mix of individuals in a focus group, it is still important to take away from this study that a majority influence, or dominant force, can have a real effect on an individual, causing them to provide inaccurate opinions or answers just so that they are accepted into the social majority.

Our aim is to get the best that we can out of the individuals participating in our usability studies. In some situations this may mean that we hold a focus group with five people, seven people or even just two people at a time; allowing for the building of ideas, whilst also decreasing the chances of majority influence.

Read the full article written by Susan Weinschenk.

I reckon they’ve arrived. In fact, I think I am one.

One thing that becomes startlingly obvious during usability tests with users of mixed abilities is the different approaches to technology in general.

A basic user will treat the computer as exactly that. It’s a machine that they have to turn on, move the mouse, click on things. An expert user will not even consciously consider that they are interacting with a machine; they will be too focused on the task in hand.

I remember my first computer. A ZX Spectrum. It made a terrible noise when it loaded a game and then after an hour it would announce that there had been an error and I had to load the game again. I was conscious that I was dealing with a machine. These days, my iPhone is like an extension to my body. Like an extra limb.

This full integration with technology is becoming more prevalent due to touch screen technology. Take the iPad as an example. We’re interacting using natural movement.

Like an arm, but better.

The result is a generation of users that have a greater level of trust online due to the lack of traditional barriers. I’m very interested to see how the iPad affects eCommerce sales for example. The fact we feel closer to the product is bound to increase our likelihood of buying.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I like cycling but I’m not obsessed with my bike. I know the basics of how it works – wheels, gears, brakes and that kind of thing, but I couldn’t tell you about every detail of its composition. Frankly, it doesn’t really interest me.

That’s why when I enter a bike shop and ask them to give my bike the once over, I feel a bit daunted. A bit stupid. When speaking to an expert in their field about a subject they’re passionate about, often the expert is unable to talk to you without using specialist terms or unnecessary levels of detail.

The last time this happened to me, I was a little nervous and when I went back to the shop to collect my bike, I was asked “what it is?” to which I replied “the silver one”. I do actually know the brand of my bike, but my mind went blank.

This translates online. All too often, copy is written by a specialist within the organisation (particularly true within the public sector) and specialist terms are used which makes the user feel a little daft.

I’m not saying that all copy should be dumbed down to one syllable grunts, but check your copy with some target users before setting it live. Maybe look to hire an external copywriter too.

Don’t make your users feel like they have just said “the silver one”.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Alternatively, if you’d selected one of the others and found out that the best blender of 2010 was actually cheaper that the one you bought, you feel a little daft. This is known as buyer’s regret.

We all crave choice. We love the supermarket. We like to feel that we’re confronted with all the options – we don’t want to miss out. However, we all have a fear of making the wrong decision. This concept manifests itself online in many ways.

For example, if you offer a user multiple routes to navigate to content, the user will hesitate before choosing one. This hesitation typically takes longer than if they had simply pursued one route and clicked the back button if they’d gone wrong.

Why do they do this? They don’t want to make what they perceive as a mistake. They don’t want to feel stupid.

Clearly, the most obvious way it manifests itself is when buying online. Let’s take Amazon as an example. Millions of products are available which satisfies our need for the widest possible choice. However, left to our own devices, we’d become almost unable to choose for fear of buyer’s regret. Amazon (and most leading ecommerce brands) get around this by narrowing the choice down immediately.

I search for a blender. I have over 500 results. I’m thinking that I’ll certainly be able to find the one I need from that lot. I’m also starting to think about choosing the wrong one (and the amount of time I’m going to need to make my decision).

Luckily… I’ve got a range of ways to narrow down my options. I can filter by price, by brand and even by popularity. I know I’ve got about £20 to spend, so I narrow on price and select the filter option of between £15 and £50.

Ah, now I’ve got 232 results which Amazon helpfully tells me.

Still too many, so now I’ll customise my price range to £15 to £25.

And I trust other buyers (most of us follow the pack), so I’ll narrow down based on customer reviews.

I now have 20 options. My last action is to check the best-selling ones, so I order them by using the drop down.

And I see the one I want. The chances of making a wrong decision are now minimised. I am confident to purchase and feel quite satisfied that I’ve invested a little effort in narrowing down my choices.

Conclusion – for information-led interfaces, minimise choice. For ecommerce, typically maximise choice but allow the user to narrow over several stages.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I personally like to think of Project Management as the vital communication in any project; communication that happens with teams, across different departments and with our clients. The role of the Project Manager is to facilitate these communications, ensuring that people are asking the right questions and delivering the answers to the right people. It’s about keeping people in the loop and about working relationships.

Project Management is also about listening; in order to understand anything it is important to listen carefully. Only when we have listened to everyone can we begin to formulate a plan that works for everyone. Different people will have different concerns and requirements, and whilst every concern is important the Project Manager can take a bird’s eye view and fit the concerns into the bigger picture.

The role of a Project Manager is also to act as a translator so that important communication is not lost in a bubble of technical jargon. Good Project Managers need to be able to speak clearly and in plain English, not only to clients but also between teams. Designers will not necessarily understand the restraints of the development teams and vice-versa. A big hurdle within this industry is that of assumed knowledge – when this happens a project will hit difficulties as often communication will breakdown.

While communication is key to a project the documentation of this communication is equally as significant. Some Project Management processes go extremely in-depth and often a simple adjustment can generate a paper trail which would make Green Peace start marching in protest. I believe in taking the common sense approach – documentation should be easily accessible and logical but not excessive.

So, Project Management can be summed up as clear communication, developing working relationships and of course being efficient and organised.

What can we be fairly certain of?

We know that some people have a bias towards search
We know that on a large content-driven website, users often have one aim and are committed to it
We know that, depending on the site, between 15% and 30% of users will use the internal search

This would lead to the conclusion that an internal search function is a good idea. But what if it throws up confusing results due to a poor search algorithm and/or the amount of content that has been tagged/classified incorrectly?

Poor search results lead to serious frustration. Often a user will be presented with a set of less than relevant results, but as they have personally made a choice to search, they often click one. At some point they need to abandon this route and select another (sometimes returning to search and trying again because they feel that the poor results were due to their own error). It can actually make them feel a bit stupid.

Surely, the answer is to improve the quality of the results? Well this isn’t always possible in the short term due to the infrastructure of the organisation. If there’s 100 plus content authors, then retraining is quite an onerous task in itself.

So in summary, if realistically a search can’t display decent results, it’s better to not have one at all and guide the user to down other routes to locate their content.

The website aims so show the realities of smoking, the effects the tobacco industry has on the environment and developing countries as well as interactive resources.

The average Medway smoker spends £1000 a year on tobacco.

Julia Thomas, sernior public health manager said; “The website is designed to provide young people with the information and support in the way that they want it.”

Visit the new site – http://www.smokefreemedway.co.uk/newgen

www.smokefreehertfordshire.nhs.uk

This is another successful rollout of the Smokefree site we built for Medway NHS back in May of this year.  The Medway site has received critical acclaim, which we are all delighted about.  Please take a look at the case study to find out more.

This latest version of the Smokefree site follows purchases by both East and West Kent NHS and it looks like others nationally could be on board very soon.  Watch this space!

The email stated that my site had been infected and provided two links to look at. One was a google link with my site appended to the end, the other was a page on my site with a load of gobbledegook appended to it.

I checked the domain for the accused page and viewed the HTML on the site which all looked fine. I also searched Google for the site which also showed no signs of infection. After a lot of digging around and reading forum posts I found Googles very own diagnostic tool which allows you to check for yourself whether there is or has been any malicious material on your site.

Luckily the check revealed that there were no infections which filled me with confidence so I just thought I would let people know that I believe some hoax Google emails are going round and to check for yourself using the Google tool before jumping to any conclusions. I would definitely recommend forwarding the email to Google too, although don’t expect an immediate response!