WebWord

Here’s the short story. I created a short (4 minute) video answering this question: What is usability?

I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t perfect but I care much more about getting the information out to people than getting the video perfect. Makes sense, right?

If you don’t have time to watch I talk about usability as both an attribute and a method. I also give 3 “formal” definitions by Ginny Redish, Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug.

If you’re already familiar with usability then the What is Usability? video will be too basic for you. Just skip it.  Then again, maybe you could view the video, rate it, and bookmark it for me. That would be smashing!

On June 16th I wrote a blog entry about my time at UPA 2008. When I was there I had the opportunity to attend several presentations. The best one was Take the Next Steps to Persuasive Design. It was done by Spencer Gerrol (Human Factors International) and Kim Snedaker (AAA).

Spencer and Kim explained the difference between usability and persuasion. In simplistic terms, usability is about: can do (ability to complete a task) whereas persuasion is about: will do (willingness to complex the task, motivation).

I believe this is a useful starting point but there is a need to better separate the two concepts. The reason is that many users are highly motivated to complete tasks before they begin and before any external motivation is provided. In other words, usability can easily be an umbrella that covers persuasion.

Before I go on, here’s something I’ll be even more blunt about. The idea of usability being fundamentally different than persuasion is deliberately artificial. It was obvious to me but the crowd was wild about it. The positioning and branding by Human Factors International was a very wise move. They are shaping the conversation about usability versus marketing. It’s a brilliant marketing tactic. Hat tip!

Let’s keep going…

But before I really dig in, here’s a great info nugget. Online membership accounts for 90% of AAA’s revenue. What a great tidbit. AAA is a company that sells memberships. There’s a lot to learn from AAA from this information alone. They’ve gone from “meatspace” to online successfully – that’s the short story.

So, how did HFI and AAA validate that users would be able to find material on the home page during testing? (1) They brought in motivated participants, (2) participants generated their own “motivated” tasks, (3) they measured task completion rates before and after design.

AAA cares very much about the “Join” page. Makes complete sense given how important subscriptions are, right? They have closely monitored basic web analytics but more importantly, they’ve really watched conversion rates and traffic to the Join page. After a healthy dose of Persuasive Design, AAA is doing better in terms of both traffic to the Join page and the conversions.

I’ll turn to the Meat and Potatoes of the presentation. Plenty of little, helpful tips here. My notes aren’t perfect, but here’s what I gathered for you…

6 Keys to Persuasive Design

1. understanding decision-making
a. reason vs. emotion
b. “it depends”
c. “we cannot make decisions without emotion”

2. Understand emotion
a. Physiological response to emotion
b. Misattribution of emotion (e.g., fear arousing date)

3. Create persuasive interactions
a. People hope and dream, it’s fun: lottery
b. Because it’s exciting, fun: lottery
c. Buy ticket: hope, check number: excitement

4. Create a persuasive visual design
a. “thin slicing” ? (no definition)
b. “more professional”
c. stronger brand (crazy higher branding)

5. Create persuasive content design
a. Often reduce content (re: pages, from 900 down to 250 pages!)
b. Heavy increase indicated by eye tracking heat map
c. Emotional and rational elements
d. Relativity is huge re: cost (per day, other costs, relational value)

6. Design Guided Paths
a. Signing up for membership
b. AAA wants to sell insurance too, margins plus nice cross-sell
c. AAA offers 267 products and services (!)
d. $60 per year

So, that’s my introduction to persuasive design as it was presented to me by Spencer Gerrol and Kim Snedaker. All in all it was a good presentation and I learned a couple of new things, although I’ve been a student of persuasion for a long time on WebWord.

I’m also pleased that so many UPA’ers were interested in this “marketing” topic. There’s a marketing this information which tickles me since that’s where much of my expertise can be found.

The Future of Usability is Mobile is an article I wrote for Apogee.

“People are very accustomed to getting the same information in multiple formats and devices: email, web, print, PDF, mobile phone, TV, radio. Yet this information is not the same in each of these contexts. You can’t click on a link in a radio advertisement. You can’t print out a TV commercial. The exact same information changes due to the context and technology.” (Note: Emphasis added.)

Don’t let the title of the article fool you. While I do make the point that mobile device usability is important and interesting, what’s more important is that we need to undertand the usability of information itself. This is subtle yet profound.

What tools and techniques do you have to test information for usability? Simple proofreading for quality is reasonable but what about usability? What’s the test for usable information? And, not just usable information from the point of view of users, but usable to other services and systems.

This is radical stuff if you start to dig into it. I’ll tell you now that it’s easy to dismiss the usability of information because it seems so simple. But it’s not. If you want to sniff around this idea I suggest you start with the observer effect. You might start to understand that the usability of information is not a single thing but instead it’s a process and a way of thinking.

Well, enough puffery about my ideas. Go read The Future of Usability is Mobile.

I’m very happy to say that on Tuesday, June 16th I’ll be at the 2008 Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. I’ll be presenting with Daniel Szuc and Paul Sherman. Here’s what we’re covering:

Make Yourself Heard! Selling User Experience in Your Organization

Here’s the abstract…

“When it comes to selling user experience(UX) processes, methods and techniques in our organizations, even experienced practitioners often don’t always know how to sell effectively. We advocate for taking a very basic approach, one that looks at business goals, aligns our usability work with their objectives, and demonstrates how usability tools, methods and techniques can help accomplish business goals. This experienced practitioner session provides practical examples, tools and stories that attendees can use to help sell UX more effectively in their organizations.”

Will you be at UPA 2008? If yes, please make it a point to look me up. I’ve like to meet YOU face to face.

Paul, Dano and I will be working through about 190 slides in 4 hours. It’s a lot to cover and I’m sure we’ll skip over stuff. That’s cool. The main point is to help the participants reach their goals. This is for them. We want to take their game to a new level.

It’s been a very, very long time since I last posted to WebWord. It was in the middle of January this year. So that’s about three months. So much for frequent blog postings. Ugh!

I’d like to give you a quick update on what I’ve been up to the last three months. First, I finally took the plunge. I bought an Apple. To be specific, I bought a MacBook Pro. I have to say it’s one of the smartest technology purchases I’ve made. Perhaps ever.

Yes, I drank the Apple Kool-Aid.

For years I heard that Apple’s is easy to use, user-friendly, and just a complete joy to use. However, nearly all my friends used Windows machines. Also, I was simply worried about making the switch. But, I have to tell you, it was the smartest thing I’ve done in quite awhile.

The 17 inch MacBook Pro is a beautiful machine. To complement my laptop, I bought a 24-inch Samsung flatscreen monitor. So I have a dual screen set up now. I also bought an external hard drive. Backups are done automatically for me every single hour. (Thanks Tim Machine.) Absolutely brainless, no worries, no problems. I also decided to get a wireless mouse. Yet another smart investment.

Productivity is soaring.

I am mildly frustrated with some of the user interface elements of my Mac. But they are mostly trivial. In fact, so trivial, they’re not even worth mentioning here. That’s because overall I really do enjoy my laptop that much. The honeymoon is over, yet I am still as productive, if not more productive than I was before. Seriously, even with the learning curve.

I’d also like to point out that I bought a speech to text program called MacSpeech Dictate. After years of hearing that speech to text technology was good, I decided to make the investment. Extremely smart move. I can speak rapidly, more rapidly than I can type at least, and MacSpeech Dictate actually is able to keep up. Productivity is through the roof. By the way, the program is based on Dragon Naturally Speaking. The speech to text conversion engine is quite mature. Quite happy, as you might imagine.

Next I wanted to tell you about the Usability Professionals Association conference that I’m going to soon.  I’m doing a presentation with Paul Sherman and Daniel Szuc and it’s called Make Yourself Heard! Selling User Experience in Your Organization. In case you didn’t know, the UPA conference this year is in Baltimore, Maryland from 16 June through 20 June.  I really hope to see you there.

By the way, in the latter part of May, I plan on finishing my book: User Experience Infiltration Tactics. It’s about getting usability and user experience into an organization without doing any selling, at least not direct selling. I provide guerrilla tactics, secret methods, tools, and special tips to help usability professionals get usability into organization. It’s very “cloak and dagger” stuff. Plenty of fun. It’ll be available at the UPA conference.  Exciting stuff; can’t wait.

I’ll end by saying that a lot of my time has been spent doing online marketing and internet marketing. I’ve become something of an expert in this area. I’m quite keen on learning more about the intersection of usability and online marketing. In many ways, it’s an undiscovered country.

If you’re interested in usability, but you don’t know much about marketing, I strongly encourage you to get in touch with me. Similarly, if you’re an online marketer, but don’t know much about usability, I’m also the guy to talk to.

My friend Jesper Rønn-Jensen wrote something I think you might want to take a look at right now. It’s a great article, if not an outstanding reference:

Usability of Pagination Links

It’s a response to the Pagination Gallery which is also a great resource.

~ John

p.s. If you want to make sure that you don’t miss great resources and articles, like the ones above, you really ought to subscribe to the WebWord Newsletter.

Wow, I’m surprised I didn’t blog about this…

Back in November I wrote Choice Kills Usability for my good friend Daniel Szuc over at Apogee. Here’s a little teaser for you to read:

“One of the easiest ways to improve usability is by focusing on just one thing. When you present something to the user, be sure that it’s just one thing. All too often we try to hard to offer people several options.”

The article is a fast and easy read. Check out Choice Kills Usability right now… 

Here’s a link for you; great list:

>> Top 100 UX Blogs

I haven’t seen a list like this re: usability and UX in quite a while. It’s nice to see it.

Of course, I have to laugh a little. I see it as a “linkbait” attempt. Lot’s of people discussed this list and linked to it. (Smart move.)

Note: That link above was originally provided through the WebWord Newsletter.

Here’s another linkbait that I created recently, if you’re trying to figure out what I’m talking about.

How to Generate Web Site Traffic

See? It’s a resource that sucks you in and maybe you want to link to it. I’d love that. Or, maybe you want to Stumble it, Digg it, or bookmark it. Again, I’d love that.

That’s how it works.  Create something useful and — shocker! — people will visit your site, link to you, and drive traffic. Nothing tricky, just smart.

As most readers know, I write articles for Daniel Szuc and Apogee. We’ve just released my latest article…

How Direct Marketing and User Experience Are the Same

The punchline is that direct marketers depend very heavily on data and metrics. Keep in mind that many types of marketing do not focus on measurement and testing. Many marketers only talk about branding, positioning, and marketshare.

Direct marketers, on the other hand, absolutely must measure everything they do. Their success is directly related to how well their efforts convert to sales. Direct marketers care about generating cash, and the only way to do that is to measure and test everything.

This is how direct marketing and user experience (UX) are the same. It’s pretty good stuff when you think about it. There is a real, legitimate tie between marketing and UX. That’s something to cheer about.

I encourage you to talk about the article. Post a comment and let other WebWord and Apogee readers know what you think about this brotherhood.

Without a doubt, the best work is done by people who are dedicated to their work.  The reason is pretty simple. It is hard to develop something amazing if you don’t care about it, when there’s no interest or passion.

If you talk to people who do great work, they will tell you that there is dedication based on the inner need to craft something wonderful. It isn’t money or external rewards that drive the best people, unless you’re talking about people who make money for a living such as sales people.

When it comes to usability, this focus and dedication is especially important. The reason is that usability is mostly tedious, nasty work unless you are truly in love with delivery of a great experience for other people.

(UX folks are an odd bunch but I love them!)

This is a profound state of affairs. You see, it takes special people doing special work to make usability a reality. If you’re doing UX work, you need to actually care about the work you’re doing, and the people that will feel the pain if the design isn’t right.

This is why focus is so important. First, you need the passion. Second, you need the skills. But third, you need to focus or nothing will be done that has any lasting impact for world. Put another way, UX work can be good but never great without focus.

Dedication is the key ingredient. But, it’s often neglected.

The good news is that humans have the ability to learn how to be focused. More precisely, humans are predisposed to be focused. This is achieved through flow as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

There’s another way to think about passion and focus and flow. Many people wonder how long it takes to become an expert and to kick ass. Well, most research indicates it takes about 10 years to reach “expert” status in a domain. That’s dedication. That’s focus.

So, there’s focus on a task and flow, and then there’s focus over a long period of time. Both are required to achieve greatness in most domains, but especially usability. The reason — again — is that UX work takes focus because it isn’t always fun.

Greatness is found in the details. It isn’t instant and it’s rarely easy.

So, if you want great usability please be prepared to focus. Put in the time and you’ll see rewards. Learn to get into the state of flow and be ready to spend years on the craft.

You can make a difference right now. You can do great now, and it will come easier and faster as time goes on. Get going and good luck. Focus!

Are you looking for tips on parenting? If you are, you’re in luck. It seems that Jakob Nielsen has put together a web site for parents.

Well, maybe Jakob didn’t literally put together this web site. Perhaps he did not write the helpful articles. Maybe it’s not even his site at all.

However…

I think it’s really interesting that this relatively new site is so plain and simple. It’s as if Jakob Nielsen was speaking in the ear of the person putting the site together: “Create an extremely simple web site that provides tips on parenting. Make it deadly easy to use.”

If you think that the days of simple web sites have come and gone, you are mistaken. As Tips on Parenting clearly indicates, these unassuming web sites are still popping up all the time. People are just cranking out simple web sites with great information.

Let’s be realistic. A site with tips for parents really just needs one thing: great content. It doesn’t need fancy graphics, Flash animation, Ajax navigation, or even an RSS feed. Sure, those things might be fun, but they aren’t necessary.

In fact, I argue that the Jakob Nielsen inspired “tips on parenting” provides better return on investment than other sites with bells and whistles. The reason is that someone could crank out two sites like Tips on Parenting in the time it takes to build one fancy site. Speed is money.

Even if you think you have the best mobile web site on the planet, many people still think the overall mobile experience is terrible. That means that your wonderful mobile web site isn’t all that special to those people.

Let’s take a look: Five Reasons Why The Mobile Web Sucks

1. Wireless carrier networks are SLOW
2. Public WiFi access is a SCAM
3. Sites aren’t formated for small screens
4. Mobile device screens are too small
5. Advertising gets in the way

Yes, it’s true that the mobile phone user experience is getting better all the time, but it still isn’t good enough for a huge fraction of potential users. Putting that another way, I think that people *want* to enjoy web sites from mobile phone and mobile devices, but they can’t for one reason or another. (See the above article if you can’t understand why browsing the web from a cell phone or mobile device stinks.)

By the way, you have to remember that it isn’t just the devices. Few people can claim they have “The Best Mobile web Site” — Indeed, most web sites aren’t even viewable from a mobile phone.

The iPhone and Blackberry, for example, have made the experience better. However, again, it isn’t just about the device. Coverage is spotty and expensive and complicated. That makes the experience miserable in many cases.  And, the business models aren’t friendly to users. Take a look at issue number 5 from Five Reasons Why The Mobile Web Sucks — Advertising gets in the way.

The bottom line is that the mobile experience is better than it was but it still has a long way to go. Creating the best mobile web site will help you but you need to try to make the entire user experience is excellent. That’s hard to do since so many factors and variables are out of your control.

Eventually things must get better. However, right now, it’s a train wreck…