Mission Impossible: Usability business strategy
14 August 2007 For some time I’ve been working with some web-designing friends of mine at Wired Internet Group, based here in Christchurch, New Zealand. We’ve been trying to develop a range of services around usability assessment.This is challenging, because in the local commercial environment, very few clients see any value in spending money on usability. A few of the big B-to-C transactional players have gone into this, but hardly anyone else sees usability as either important or (I suspect) affordable.
This has presented me with a few challenges in trying to build a career in usability.
"You can do the maths: paucity of clients equals paucity of income, right?"Right. So I’ve tried a few tricks.
First we ‘productised’ the website expert review, by building in some user interviews. Not a full round of testing, but a guided walk-through with three users, combined with a comprehensive review. This was good, but still entailed a bit of work, and limited uptake. We needed - I was told - a ‘leg opener’ to get clients on board.
So next we tried a rather clever trick involving analysing customer enquiries to some major brand sites. The idea was that this would reveal ‘stress points’ where users were asking for information that was on the site, but obscured by usability issues. Brilliant! Limited uptake: too clever for our own good.
Finally (and this does sound like the three bears, I know) we got it ‘just right’.
This offering was a short review of homepage usability issues, based on a standard assessment form that could be completed in about 20 minutes and gave a percentile score across twenty variables organised under four main criteria. The report was organised around the four criteria, illustrated with screenshots and focusing severely on a pithy summary and accompanying recommendations: in other words - saleable, action-oriented and brief.
So we had a winner – but how to sell it? Luckily the answer came from my web design service partners. A session spent uploading liquid inspiration with a PR consultant mate of theirs came up trumps.
The plan was that we identify a bunch of companies and undertake a comparative review of their homepages, using the form I had developed for the homepage review. We would rank them competitively and publicise the results in the media. Then we tell the companies that they could buy a full report detailing issues with their homepages, and recommendations for fixing them.
"Bingo – a successful usability service product!"After this we’ll try to up-sell them to the full site assessment or the enquiry analysis products we have previously devised. Hopefully.
So far, we’ve managed to get it to the media. You can see me do this on ASB Business, as broadcast on TV1, Monday 6 August. Just follow this link… http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411415/1273251 Look for the story headlined ‘Raising corporate awareness’.
Now we’ll start calling the businesses we’ve surveyed and try to get them interested in what they don’t know about how well their homepages are working for them. You can find out more from the Wired Internet group at www.wired.co.nz
We’ve also done a parallel exercise on the NZX Top 50, concentrating on investor relations. We’re launching this via the Stock Exchange itself, getting them to promote it as a free offering to their members – followed by a sales blitz. I’ll keep you posted.
Labels: business plan, information design, product, usability
posted by Bruce on Tuesday, August 14, 2007,
,
What is an information designer?
13 August 2007 Bruce and I often get asked what an information designer is. We've had a few thoughts over some good coffee (Savoy Brown in Christchurch, if you must know), and here's our answer.First, for us, Information Design is the discipline dedicated to making information as effective as possible.
It is a careful balance of the disciplines of graphic design, information architecture, and writing, while embracing significant elements from research into human factors, cognitive psychology, and perception. It has grown out of all these fields, along with a historical connection to technical communication.
So what is an Information Designer?
An Information Designer is an advocate for the user in the design process. They try to think of how a user would work with and use something. They think of the user's context, where and how they will use something, and for what purpose. Their aim is to ensure that all information, regardless of media is 'optimally fit for use' in this way.
An info designer understands how to write in a way that communicates well, and how to explain complex ideas in simple and clear ways. They also know how good design makes things easy to use, easy to work with, and easy to understand.
How do you become an info designer?
There are many paths to becoming one, but that doesn't make an info designer a "jack-of-all-trades" even if they might seem that way. Similarly, don't assume an info designer is master of no trades, because most info designers often have hidden and unexpected talents from their past, experiences that they bring to the role in a symbiotic and beneficial way.
For this reason, there's no one way to become an info designer, but there are some character traits that distinguish one.
Info designers often have a liking for technical stuff and understanding how things work. They can probably program your video machine for you, or connect you to the RSS feed for the BBC News on the web.
They know ways to help make the complex understandable, and how to best communicate that through good typography, layout, and illustration. Planning, content management, and analysis are all strings in their box, and they know how to manage collaborative work processes to maximise how organisations create, manage and re-use information.
Info designers know your customer is the most important thing to you, and understand that communicating information is essential to your business, so they often have skills in marketing and promotions to add to the mix.
Of course all this personality is very nice, but you also need some skills, and there are a variety of training courses around the world available to "gear you up".
Why should you use one?
Aren't they just another body, an extra cost in the development/design process?
Good question. Everyone seems to want a finger in the pie/seat at the table these days, from the usability consultant to the knowledge management specialist. All seem to think they should rule the roost, and need to drive the project. Well, actually that's project management.
In fact, the info designer is a good choice for a design project manager, or at the least a key part of a design team, as they are able to realise the IP value of everybody in a design project, and use them to create something that is truly a gestalt - greater than the sum of the parts.
They do this because they are trained to recognise the expertise of all involved is necessary to produce effective information and communication products, and because they have an understanding of all the aforementioned disciplines.
They can also help manage relations with stakeholders inside and outside the organisation, to support the good work everyone is doing but perhaps not everyone knows about.
Sounds wondrous? Unreal, even. Not really. As the working world moves more and more into being knowledge-orientated, information design as a discipline and skill-set is becoming not just incredibly useful but also essential to economic and organisational success. If you don't communicate effectively, you lose.
Information designers are now working in every conceivable industry and field, not just the information technology and technical communication fields. Bruce and I are constantly surprised at the industries our students work in, or find work in, and considering the talent of many of them, it seems like the future may well be one where information is easier to use. We all know it needs to be!
Labels: information design
posted by Greg on Monday, August 13, 2007,
,
