Featured talks at UI11 Conference

The second UI11 Conference day featured five rounds of 90 minute talks. Here is my impression of the day.

Waiting For Your Cat to Bark? (Jeffrey Eisenberg)

In the first session Jeffrey Eisenberg advocates the principles of Persuation Architecture he and his brother write about in their latest book ‘Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?’ (which were generously handed out to all attendees). Eisenberg states that success (sales) is driven by customer experience, not marketing. In fact, some studies reveal that people are becoming resistant to aggressive marketing. Some marketers blame the blogs (see illustration, Forbes, Nov. 2005), but the ‘word of mouth’ has always existed. Only now, having cell phones and weblogs, word travels much faster. Marketers really should be blaming themselves.

Eisenberg advocates that marketers should follow some principles that web professionals call ‘user experience’:

Relevance: “Consumers are only concerned with how they want to buy and to what is relevant to them”. Find out who your customers are and what he needs/wants.
Confidence: Provide good scent, make the customer feel confident about purchasing.
Consistent experience: Have all your channels provide the same experience.
Generosity: People appreciate gestures. Generosity contributes to a positive experience.

Customers are more like cats than like dogs. You can’t condition them, they set the terms, you need to deliver.

The Key Secrets of Search Optimization (Gerry McGovern)

“Releasing a new web site is like being on the North Pole: nobody knows you are there and nobody cares.”

Many people have said many things about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Most of them focus on ‘how to achieve better ranking on Google?”. Gerry McGovern approaches the subject from a different angle: “Don’t think about the search engine, think about the people who are searching”. What are they thinking? What words do they use?

Here are some useful remarks from McGovern:

There is a difference between the words that bring people to your site and the words that help them complete their tasks.
Use simple, common words. Those are much better understood. But be also alert on new words (trends).
People don’t read complete sentences on the web; instead they scan the first bit and they scan the hyperlinks. Put the most important words in front.
Following on the previous comment: Don’t start sentences with your own name. People don’t care about you (much), but about themselves. Example: Don’t use “It’s our 10th anniversary, so…” but “This week 60% off, because it’s our 10th anniversary.”
As many people know, Google relies heavily on link popularity. The more sites that link to you, the better. The best type of link you can get, is from a website that is heavily linked to, but links out sparsely (high authority websites).
Keep your page titles compact. The more words it contains, the less relevant each word in it will relatively be.

Achieving the Fast Without the Furious (Jared Spool)

Which teams succeed in creating great experiences in fast environments, and which teams do not? What makes a great team?

The entire team should have a common vision on the ideal experience.
The team should celebrate design problems because they learn from them.
Usability professionals must bring in observations instead of recommendations. If the entire team makes an informed decision, the individuals will learn from the observations.
The team must involve everyone who plays any role in the process, including copywriters and customer service.

More Meaning Experiences (Nathan Shedroff)

This was the least tangible session in my program today and, unfortunately, not really my cup of tea. Shedroff describes ‘meaning’ as the deepest level of significance in an experience.

The 5 levels of significance are:

Function: Does it do what I need it to do?
Price: Does it do what I need it to do at a price that’s worth it?
Emotions: Does it make me feel [good]?
Status/Identity: Is this me?
Meaning: Does this fit into my understanding of the world?

Shedroff’s ultimate question was: “Should companies (and designers) should evoke meaning in things?” The audience seemed to agree they should.

Recommendations on recommendations (Rolf Molich)

Everyone who does usability studies, gives recommendations. But although many testers find the same usability problems, their recommendations vary widely. And from experience Rolf Molich concludes that many recommendations don’t get high scores in usefulness and usability.

A good recommendation is both useful and usable. A useful recommendation solves the problem completely. A usable recommendation tells accurately what the design/development team must do to improve the usability. As a rule of thumb Molich advises to limit the amount of words per recommendation to 100 to 150.

When you suggest sweeping changes or when you not entirely confident that your recommendation will completely solve the problem, always advise a follow-up usability test before deploying the changes.

So far for now. Tomorrow I attend Rolf Molich’s full-day workshop on advanced methods for usability testing, so more recommendations on recommendations will surely follow.

Ferry den Dopper’s blog