Why The Nook Isn’t a Kindle-Killer

First, I have to say that I’m a very happy Kindle owner who tends to read about 6 books a month. That might make my opinion bias when it comes to the Kindle itself, but as reader – I still exist as a consumer of information and books.

The Kindle’s innovation came first with it’s connectivity and delivery platform. It simplified the searching, downloading, and let’s not forget purchasing ease of getting books on the go. Never again did you have to make a trip to the airport bookstore while traveling. Its black and white interface using strict E Ink itself wasn’t innovative, it didn’t reinvent the way people read books. However, Amazon has taken a route taken by Nike and Apple, the long-term iterative improving experience. While the Kindle itself still has it’s limitations (to which many might point to its position on data openness), the constant changes that Amazon does allows the Kindle to adapt, keeping it competitive.

Many Kindle readers already know they can purchase and read books on their iPhone, but there is something that was announced a little more quietly. Amazon now has http://kindle.amazon.com – which at first sight is a bit mediocre. Its initial explanation for its existence too, is a bit… weird. Praising how many customers love their notes and highlights, I can’t imagine that reading the information out of context provides some level of insight in the thought process someone had while making the annotation within the book. This could instead be a preview for online and community shared book notes and annotations. Imagine sharing your books with friends and being able to read the notes each other thought were the most important about a book? Now that’s what will convert traditional readers.

What the Nook has done is something that is a necessary step in the evolution of ebook readers – like CDs, it will change the way things are done from this point forward – though it hasn’t envisioned anything extraordinary. The built in Wi-Fi connection means nothing to the everyday user. Why would they care to configure an additional connection when the always-on 3G network can take care of things without any additional configuration. Adding the idea that people are going to come to Barnes and Noble with their Nook because of the “Free Wi-Fi” is just asinine. The point of having a digital book reader is to reduce trips to a bookstore. Sure there is a touch screen – but it’s for navigation, and yes you can lend to friends for 14 days. When I loan a book my friends typically take it for more then that… but to each his own.

For an ebook reader to truly be a Kindle-Killer they are going to need to change the way people read and communicate about books. Book readers have a connection to the tangible feeling behind books, the feel, the smell of the paper. There is more there then just pages. You are going to have to combat history by changing the conditions of what reading means. Bring people together in either book sharing, long distance book clubs that can allow users to read everyone else’s comments and annotations, or simplifying book publishing. Amazon themselves, while they have ways to publish quickly on the device really drops the ball when it comes to supporting would-be authors with real information about publishing to the device.

Maybe Apple has something that will really shake things up?

Time will tell. Anyone considering making the switch from either a Sony Reader or Kindle to the Nook? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Consensus is the Foundation of Mediocrity

I consider myself somewhat of a “Lifetime Learner” always trying to learn new things and listen to perspectives of other people, even when I have my own opinions. The biggest reason I started studying business as a developer was because I saw the gap growing between business understanding and technical implementation and wanted to do something about it.

Recently I attended a seminar on “Managing Project Teams” where various areas of the project process were discussed in how you can help make the team work effectively together. Something really stood out for me. During the training the discussion moved to negative team dynamics.

The slide went up showing examples of “Negative Team Dynamics” which showed in bullet point examples. Most of the items seemed to make sense as they included things like, “Team Members Refuse to Work Together”. But then there was one that really caught my attention:

Team members disagree about an important topic.

Think about that for a minute… “Team members disagree about an important topic.”

For me this couldn’t be more wrong and is a fundamental reason behind teams that just don’t work well together. If teams can’t engage in healthy conflict and disagree on points they will never grow past their preexisting beliefs. All too often the practice of team building encourages the process of finding consensus within the group. In my opinion, consensus is a lie. When you put a bunch of intelligent bright people into a group the last thing that you’ll ever get them to do is agree on an important topic. If they do, the topic either isn’t really that important or your team has been conditioned to “let the matter go” in favor of a sense of consensus.

Of course the team should decide before the discussion how the solution will be decided upon, and it’s important for the team to stick with the selected solution knowing that they have put all of their opinions on the table. Patrick Lencioni talks a great deal about this type of healthy conflict in “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team“.

It frustrates me when I hear the idea of teams and team members that don’t want to stand up for something, that aren’t passionate about a specific solution. Just as I said in Start Standing for Something – be passionate, have an opinion and let that passion pull you into creating something great.

Start Standing for Something

Around my office I can often be heard saying something that has for me, become a bit of a mantra.

If you want clients to absolutely love you, you have to stand for something. There will be those people that don’t like what you stand for, but the people that follow you – they will absolutely love you.

And I really do honestly believe that. If you don’t stand for something, how do you matter?

The example I always use with my conversation is of course Apple and Microsoft. This is not a conversation about which one is better. It’s simply understanding their approach to their market. Think about it… Microsoft has mass adoption. The majority of computer users use Windows and they further target new clients through mass marketing and mass partnerships with hardware vendors like Dell, HP, and the like. Now consider Apple. They have exclusive use of their software on their own hardware. They focus on early adopters and gadget lovers. They aren’t concerned about mass adoption but rather instead target a certain subculture for their success. They believe that beauty is part of functionality and have clients willing to pay a premium that agree with them.

Rarely have I come across, even in my past history as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, users that absolutely loved their Windows machine. Never have I heard a user talk about how impressed they are with how the start button works or how easy to use Microsoft Word was. But look at the Apple folks… the people even call themselves “fans”. They love everything the company is about. Of course there are many people that dislike Apple and find their products silly, but they rarely matter… because the people that love Apple, absolute love them.

Another thing that fans will do is forgive. If they absolutely love your product they will tend to forgive small mistakes or inconsistencies that might come up. They would rather be involved with helping make something better so they often are the types that will email, or tweet you unsolicitedly with ideas of making the experience better, or even reporting a bug they found. The important thing is they want to be involved. They want to feel like they too are making a little bit of a difference by helping you improve your product so it’s important to listen.

Where Geeks and Business Folks Collide

A complaint I’ve always heard from business people tends to be that their technology group is so opinionated about everything. They have a passion for either a specific language, a technology, or whatever. I say, “learn from this!” The business side should take this as an example of passion, and purpose, and start standing for something from the top. Too many companies just sit there, they do the same things that all the other companies in their industry do. If one company pushes out widgets, the other company tries to make a better widget and then push those out. We are greatly amidst an Experience Economy, where purpose and well-functioning, collaborative teams will be the greatest competitive advantage any organization could ask for. The company that can grasp the power of purpose will breed an environment of passionate people ready to stand up and make a difference.

Ready? Because your competitors are hoping you fail at it. They want you to be as mediocre as they know to be, with a templated mission statement and services that hint at average. Seriously, the world has enough “average”, so start standing for something and evolve – or die.

The End of Bullhorn Salesmanship

A few days ago, I was at the car dealership having some routine service done on my car. I was sitting in the waiting area quietly reading. Five other people joined me in the room, some reading, some chatting, you get the idea – they were all generally self-entertained and seemed comfortable.

A pudgy gentleman comes into the waiting area to partake on the coffee machine. Coffee in hand, turns to everyone and asks, “Any decisions been made on the television?” A closer look at the gentleman revealed a name tag for the car dealership. Most people didn’t really understand what he meant about the television. “Would you like the television on?” Again, most people there were quietly reading, only two were talking amongst themselves, and all of us just looked at him and shrugged, not really offering a solid decision either way. “Any arguments to not turn it on?” Some gentle mumbles of, “not really” were revealed from the group. So he walks over and turns on the news. With a new look of accomplishment he looks back to all of us and inquires, “So who here is interested in looking at some new cars while you wait?” Most people didn’t really take it seriously. One person did explain, “my car is pretty old, but it has low mileage.” She talked briefly to him about her car, but said she wasn’t really interested. “We have some great deals”, he offered. To which she gently nodded and declined.

As he turns back to refill his coffee another woman announced, “what a salesman!”, in a similar tone as if she was using it as a synonym for “gentleman”.

I looked at him and teased, “perhaps offering to refill her coffee and at least introducing yourself could have helped?” (as I noticed the woman he was speaking with had an almost empty cup of coffee next to her). “Time is money”, he said. To which I argued back, “looking at things that way will likely assist you in losing more then just that sale.” He nodded, and walked off.

He seemed to be completely disconnected from the people he was trying to sell on something. Starting with the television, if he was paying attention he would have seen that most of us were wrapped up in other things. Saying, “anyone NOT want me to turn on the television” seems almost humorous. Rarely would anyone speak up at that, in my opinion anyway… I mean who am I to tell someone that they can’t watch television? But no one was saying they wanted it on, he turned it on anyway. Then he immediately jumped on us about wanting to buy something. I didn’t even know this guy’s name yet. He didn’t earn my trust yet so what makes him think I would want to talk with him about buying something? It is no wonder why car salesman get such a bum rap.

These people weren’t cattle, and he wasn’t offering anything we needed. We all had cars. A coffee refill, and introduction with a kind smile, and a business card had a better chance at closing that sale, it would have just taken a little time.

Building a Relationship

I guess I’m a little old-school when it comes to these things. I believe business relationships are built on trust, and trust is built through reputation and word of mouth. I might not know this guy now, but I bet if he made it a habit of introducing himself to the waiting area and passing out some cards it would have been a step closer. Additionally learning peoples names that come in often for oil changes and whatnot tells me that he enjoys talking to me (even if he might not) and isn’t just trying to sell me something (even if he really is). If I just learned from the Service Manager that I was going to have to pay for a new transmission, the last thing on my mind in the waiting area might have been how much money a new car would have cost me (or hey, maybe it would have been the first).

About 6 years ago I was doing some freelance web development work. I had about 15 clients that I worked with somewhat often. I was the type that took impeccable notes about each client and kept the information in my address book about them. Everything down to the names of their children, spouse’s name, sports their kinds played, conflicts they were having… anything and everything. When I saw them I would ask about them, or just send them a quick note via email, “I hope the issue with (blank) worked out, you seemed pretty stressed.” I built a relationship with my clients. When I saw something in an article online that I thought would interest them, I would send it over. If it was in the paper – I would fax it. Not everyday, nor every week. But when I saw something that I knew would be genuinely helpful, I would send it. The trust grew. When I was then starting to work in other areas of development, they were interested in hearing what I had to say and how it might help them. I would tell them straight up if I thought something would help or not. They trusted me to help them make the right decision because they knew I valued their success in business just as much as they did, and it was true, because I honestly did.

I still do this today with business contacts using Highrise. All of my notes about my contacts go in there. Anytime I’m about to email or meet with them about something I look at my notes to see what they were up to the last time we chatted. A solid connection is made, and people typically prefer to do business with people they like and trust, rather then someone just trying to get something out of them or sell them something. The experience a client or prospect has with you is a big deal, in every interaction they have with your company, so don’t let it be the last thing you think about.

Measuring Customer Loyalty with Programs is Bullshit

I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to prefer CVS as my general drug store. Now, while any prescriptions I need filled are done at Publix, I let CVS handle the generalities. But several years ago CVS did something… they created a loyalty program. At first I didn’t mind so much, they handed me card that I was required to fill out and send it in and with that I would receive “special discounts”. I went home unpacked my purchases and there the form sat for about a week until I got tired of seeing it and threw it away. But every time I go to CVS they try to give me another one. Sometimes if I just said “no, thanks” they would covertly add it into my shopping bag to be discovered once I returned home. I’ve gotten to the point now that I say, “no thank you, I have about 6 of your cards at home and I never bring a single one with me.” Sometimes I would watch as the clerk would simply scan their own cards, a ritual I could tell they had done more then once from people not wishing to jump on the card-carrying program. Some stores held a barcode right on their registers that read, “For customers not wishing to join the program, still wishing to receive the special discounts.” The stores were doing what I often refer to as “Hacking the Interface”, they had something that they knew wasn’t working, that people didn’t want, and they found a way to easily get around the policy.

The bookstore that I once frequented (and was a member of their “discount” customer loyalty program) has changed their direction in the way they wish to represent their business and the products they offer. After a few experiences with this bookseller after their makeover I realized that my discount card didn’t mean much to me if I didn’t like going to the store anymore. I paid $10 a year for that card, but the savings seemed of little value to me when I no longer enjoyed the experience of the store. I have since started shopping at another bookstore and have thrown their discount card away.

It’s About Gradual Engagement

Customer loyalty is a funny thing, something we often confuse with customer satisfaction. But customer loyalty will never be found in a card-carrying membership program or a points system. Often these programs guarantee that I (the customer) will have to maintain my information within your system to win awards that I don’t really care about, want, or that have any weight on my desire to do business with you as a company. They just stand in my way, and are annoying.

What customers want is a long-term engaging experience. Customer loyalty is created by several gradual experiences that cause that customer to continue to want a relationship with your company. Recently I purchased some Dvorak labeled covers for both my laptop and my keyboard at the office. Having not been satisfied by a previous cover I once purchased, I went to Google to find another company. The company I came across had one of the covers I was looking for but nothing for the office. I sent them an email saying what I was looking for and received an email back in about 30 minutes telling me that they were currently developing that product and that it would be available at the end of the month. He said, “Sorry we don’t have it for you now. I’ll send you an email when it’s finished up and we’ll give you free shipping on the order.” Sure enough around the end of the month I received an email from him telling me that they were available with a link to the product. Now the email could have been computer generated, but it was personalized and had his name on it, giving me the satisfaction that this individual emailed me back as promised.

So far I’ve had two great experiences with them. 1) They apologized for not having the product I hoped they would, gave me a discount on shipping when it was going to come in; and 2) Followed through on their promise to notify me when the product was available making it convenient for me to place my order. When I receive the covers, and if they are of the quality I expect – I will most definitely use them again, as the entire experience of my interactions with them have been very personable.

So what I’m trying to say is simple, the experiences you provide will build the loyalty that you are looking for. Don’t put programs in the way of buyers, most of them don’t care and find it a pain to deal with (and a poor experience by always being asked if they have their card). In a business world where things change just as fast as the technology we use to measure them it’s time to throw away our 12 year old copies of The Loyalty Effect and start building a more permanent bridge with customers that want to do business with us… not because they have our card in their wallet, but because they prefer the experience that our company provides and would come to us even while being a member of a competitor’s program.

Thoughts on Simplicity

Of the people who know me well, I think most of them would say that if I were fanatical over anything it would be the basic act of simplicity.  It sounds a bit funny, who would want to make something more difficult, right?  But simplicity is far more difficult then just making something basic (or for that matter mediocre), it’s about a number of things.

Simplicity is about having a strong understanding of the people you are trying to assist in your desire to simplify.  Too often businesses seem to “simplify” processes for their own purpose, while making it much more difficult for their customers.  They don’t think about the benefits of simplification for those people using their products and services.  When was the last time you called the power, cable, or phone company only to be lead through a series of “press 1 now” circles thinking, “wow, this is really helpful to me”?  I can only imagine that you’ve never felt helped, but rather pushed away when reaching such a phone system.

As a programmer, I see simplicity in the foundations of our technologies.  Never have I heard from another developer, “I love this [programming] language, because it takes me so long to figure out how to solve a problem.”  Most of the developers I know select their preferred programming language because it follows a syntax their brain comprehends well and solves a problem effectively.  To them, it’s simple.

As a designer, I am reminded that simplicity is contextual.  Simplicity requires that you not forget your expert customers, allowing complexity when it might be needed.  It’s important that we consider balance in product design and in doing so we reduce the information we share with consumers to the most essential; by either its removal or by simply hiding it until it becomes essential.  Simplicity is partially the elimination of excess, as well as our effective use of emptiness and space to bring focus to the things that are important.  When was the last time you went to a website and didn’t know where to go to find what you were looking for, or spent 15 minutes trying to understand an online registration form?  It is about reducing the confusion and easing the minds of the people interacting with you.

Simplicity is about having a great understanding of the subject matter you are communicating, allowing you to speak of it concisely.  As a presenter and a writer, I find the more I speak or write about something, the less I need to say about it to share my point of vie.  Not that I know less, but simply I have a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the points I’m discussing.  Take the time to dig deeper into your area of expertise, know it from multiple angles.  It might just provide you with insight on how others view what you are communicating.

The next chance you get, think strongly about simplicity.  Whether it’s a new company policy, a new product, or maybe a new form you would like your clients to fill out.  Not just for your benefit, but for your clients, your employees, coworkers, vendors, and your family.  It just might change the way you see the world.

Genuinely Impressed By Rosenfeld Media

Let me start off my saying that no one is paying me or asking me to write any of this (or blackmailing me for that matter).  A few weeks ago I participated in Rosenfeld Media‘s UX Zeitgeist and purchased their first published book Mental Models, by Indi Young around that time as well.  Rosenfeld Media is the new kid on the block for publishing houses, but I’m a fan of books written by co-founders of Adaptive Path (Observing the User Experience, Subject to Change, The Elements of User Experience, you get the idea).

I really enjoyed everything about my interaction with this company.  During my participation in the UX Zeitgeist I had a few questions for them and received really quick responses from Lou Rosenfeld, the company’s owner.  When I ordered the book, you also receive a copy of in PDF format (at no extra charge) so you can instantly start reading while you wait for the paper version to come by mail, that’s smart.  As they were working up their plan for publishing obviously someone realized that people would actually be reading the PDF documents on the screen because you can tell they were definitely optimized for screen display.  Seriously everyone; the book is amazing.  When the mailed book came (a few business days later) I was amazed at the thickness of the cover and the quality of the print.  Amongst all this praise for Rosenfeld I have to extend my hand to Indi as well for such a quality book.  Her concepts on really getting into the heads of users are amazing, and as I continue my way through the book you can expect a full review when I am finished.  For those of you interested in the book now, Rosenfeld Media is offering a special 10% discount to you, my readers, because I told them I’d be writing about my positive experiences and enjoyment of their first book.  Just order the book from their site, and use the discount code FOKNIGHT during your order to get the discount.

Rosenfeld Media’s next book is Web Form Design by Luke W., a person familiar to most of you I’m sure.

This is definitely the publishing company to keep your eyes on if you are a designer of user experiences.

Houston, We Have A Problem

Years ago I had a college professor tell me, “…the most successful people are those that communicate effectively under conflict.” I’ve held this mantra with me over the years, and feel strongly that this phrase applies just as much to developing web applications as it does when talking to a hostile client or handling those potential PR catastrophes. Many companies put contingency plans in place in the event that something goes wrong, allowing them to explore and prepare for any eventuality of worst-case scenarios.

You will read a lot of information about how to communicate your product and branding message on the web through marketing copy, sales promotions, and advertising campaigns. But what about when something goes wrong? What happens when a visitor to your site, or a user of your application reaches a dead-end? Do you just sit back and trust that they have the patience to figure out what went wrong? You are likely going to need a lot more than just a smiling face and a call to action button; you need to get them back on track, and do it quickly. The technique is called “Contingency Design” (a term made popular by 37Signals, I believe) and it involves thinking a bit pessimistically when theorizing that your user will immediately get from “Point A” to “Point B” without running into an issue.

For years even large corporations like Microsoft, Federal Express, Target, Amtrak, Ticketmaster, and Sony have had issues in dealing with online customers when conflicts arise. Historically, managers and decision-makers have pushed off the responsibility of communicating error scenarios to programmers. An endeavor I’ve always compared to asking a gun manufacturer to handle a hostage negotiation. They may have built the tools… but in the end someone is going to get hurt. That being said, whether you are a business professional or a web application developer it’s time to think about contingency design when working on your projects, and here are a few tips to get you started on the basics.

1. Just Be Nice

Often called the “Golden Rule”, the most important thing to always remember when something goes wrong is to just be nice. Start by changing the way you look at the people that are viewing your site and stop labeling them; they aren’t customers, they aren’t a use-case persona, they aren’t statistics; they are people. People like to be happy and when something goes wrong they don’t want to be accused of causing it. Be kind, use words like “we’re sorry”, “thank you”, and “please” to revitalize their experience. Avoid taking an accusatory tone when telling the user of an error using phrases like, “you missed,” “you forgot,” or “you didn’t,” that can point blame. It’s also a good practice to stay away from all capitalized letters in your error messages. All “caps” tends to give the reader the perception that you are speaking loudly or screaming at them and can be distracting when trying to calmly inform them of an error that needs resolving.

2. Make The Problem Clear and Consistent, Then Offer a Solution

It’s tough to get through a problem when you aren’t sure what the problem is. With that in mind, it’s important to always be clear when telling the user what the error is and always show the error messages in the same fashion.

To really make some of these points easy to understand, let’s take a look at a sample login form that we might find on any various website offering specific content to a “members only” group.

Image 1: An Example Login Form

Now using the rules that we’ve set-forth, if a user accidently tries to login using an incorrect username or password a clear and concise error message might look something like this:

Image 2: An Example Login With Conflict

All of our basic rules are here. We’ve first shown the error message in a way that makes it clear a problem exists, using the red color along with an exclamation point to grab our users attention. It is then up to us to make sure that we continue using this format for any other errors. Next we stated a clear problem, the username and password information that was entered didn’t seem to match anything on file. The user can now try their information again in case they made a typo, or they can click for help which could take them to a way to recover their forgotten information. Stay away from generic error messages such as “An error occurred while processing your request,” or that discuss overly technical material like “The connection to the database DB_FINANCE has timed out,” as it is rare that your users would be able to interpret them to solve their problem.

It’s also a good idea to give the user a “Plan B” in case all else fails that gives them a direct way to receive your attention. Providing a live chat, support email, or a toll-free number is a good way to show your users that you are happy to provide them the special attention they need when a problem arises that they are unable to solve on their own.

3. It’s a Brand, So Use It!

If you currently have a branded product or service that customers purchase from you, let the brand be used consistently throughout the web address to allow for easy guessing. This can assist your more tech-savvy users in finding the products or services they are looking for. Some great examples of this would be:

1. http://www.adobe.com/photoshop forwards users to the page to read more about Photoshop as well as purchase it. This works with the majority of their products.
2. http://www.microsoft.com/windows forwards users to all things having to do with versions of Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
3. http://www.apple.com/itunes takes the users to information and download instructions about Apple’s popular iTunes product.

One important thing to remember is to plan for people to incorrectly type the case of your product names. The iTunes product from Apple, Inc. capitalizes the T and lowercases the i when branding it’s product. However going to http://www.apple.com/itunes or http://www.apple.com/iTunes will take me to the same place. Apple, Inc. fails however to do this properly with their iPhone product (as of this writing). Spelling it exactly as the brand identifies with http://www.apple.com/iPhone will bring the user to an error, while http://www.apple.com/iphone brings the user to the correct page.

Essentially, help your users find their way easier by consistently allowing products to be seen by guessing the web address, it allows continued branding from the marketing end as well as being more efficiently pulled from the users visual memory when remembering the page they were previously visiting at your site. Lastly, don’t punish the user for using all lowercase or not spelling the product name exactly as you do, try to make sure all your site paths are not case sensitive.

4. Speak Their Language and Prepare for Typos

As the community of online users continues to increase their trust in commerce websites it becomes more important to get potential buyers to the products they are interested in. Unfortunately, the Internet has one major disadvantage to it’s brick-n-mortar retail store cousin, and that’s the ability to say, “I’m looking for a black hoodie with a picture of Time Square on it,” to a store employee offering assistance.

Online stores have search systems that allow you to type in keywords to make your search, however these search systems have a fundamental flaw; they aren’t human and are programmed to understand a product vocabulary as it is interpreted by the products vendor. Most of these searches will look through the name of the product and it’s description. If a product titled, “Black Sweatshirt with Hood” was available I might never know if I searched for “hoodie” the typical slang for such apparel.

So what do you do? When developing an online store it’s important to plan for administratively entered “meta data” keywords to describe the products that are also searched for when a user enters a word or two within your search box. This way when you create a new product, you can add its title, description, and some additional keywords related to it. Enter the slang, or commonly misspelled words within this area of your site allowing for more users to find the correct product they are looking for even if their search is flawed.

It’s important to mention too, however that planning for typos shouldn’t end at product searches. You should plan for common misspellings wherever possible, including the web address itself. As I recommended in my previous tip, it is important to continue brand and product names through the web address, and those too can contain spelling errors. For those of you more technical types, several products exist that allow for spell checking address paths on a web address (warning: some technical verbiage is coming). For sites being hosted on a Windows server running IIS consider looking into URLSpellcheck as for sites running Linux or UNIX based operating systems and Apache 1.3 or later, enable mod_speling (yes, there is only one “l”, it’s meant to be ironic) and use the CheckSpelling directive of “on.” Both of those products have their own documentation and own companies that support them, so it’s important that you research to judge the pros and cons of these various products and find the product that best fits your needs before jumping into a solution. Spell checking the web address takes a little bit of technical know-how, if you aren’t a technical person yourself you may want to contact your hosting company to look into options that might be available to you.

One last suggestion when it comes to planning for spelling errors. Have you ever been rushed going to a website only to find that you’ve entered only two w’s (such as ww. instead of www.)? Well, you’re not the only one. Top online retailer, Amazon, has planned for situations just like this. If any of their users attempt to go to http://ww.amazon.com by accident, they will quickly find themselves pointed to the right spot and redirected without a single sign that something went wrong. This of course is another option to consider when running a website and more information should be available to you by talking with your hosting company.

5. Create Results, Not Dead-Ends

No one wants to work for nothing, so don’t make your users do it either. If a user isn’t able to select an option on a search form because of another selection on the form, don’t make it an option. The last thing your users want to do is fill out a search form only to be told that have made an “invalid selection.” So, plain and simple, if they can’t do anything with it – it shouldn’t be there. Period.

It’s important to know however that this concept of creating results goes beyond just hiding things they can’t do. It’s important to give them as much ability to do business with you as possible. If the customer searches for a product but finds the product out of stock, don’t hide it in this case. Show them when you expect to have more in stock and allow them to sign up to receive a notification when that product has become available. You may even consider accepting pre-orders for the item that will be in stock shortly.

So in short, customers like the ability to communicate and buy the product they are interested in now. It’s hard enough to get a customer to press that “buy” button so there is no reason to stand in their way once the decision has been made. Always do what you can to minimize dead-end warnings or those “sorry, not in stock – please go to my competitor” scenarios.

To Err Is Human So Learn to Forgive Yourself

More then anything it’s important to know that you are not perfect. Even large companies have a hard time grasping their users’ behavior. A Lead Designer of Netflix, Inc. (the popular online movie rental outlet) has been quoted saying, “Predictions color our thinking. So, we continually make things up as we go along, keeping what works and throwing away what doesn’t. We’ve found that about 90% of it doesn’t work.”

Now all of us don’t have the resources that Netflix, Inc. has, but it is an important quote to remember when considering features that you might want to add to your website, don’t be upset if you don’t get it right the first few times. Test. Get Feedback. Rework. Test. Rinse. Repeat. Succeed. You get the idea.

Wrapping It Up

Contingency design, behavioral design, and other forms of user experience design are not always easy to grasp, but I hope I’ve been able to give you several basic tips to get you started. The key is always very simple, be on the side of your users, consider basic human behavioral needs, and your bottom line will grow from there.

As always, I’d love to hear the experiences you’ve had with your users when you’ve tested their behavior, used contingency design, or acted in favor of your user when developing a site feature – feel free to leave me a comment.

SEO Through Blog Feeds? Oh God Please…

So during the Web 2.0 conference I was exposed to continuing babel on the idea that feed syndication and blog marketing in general is yet the next one trick pony to fill all the needs a corporation might have due to unfocused marketing dollars. Here’s the general mistake with this logic… You see, yes blogs are syndicated but they are only “favored” and read often when they actually reach a level of communication the reader wishes to participate in. Blogs don’t become popular because the keywords that are included within them are presented in mass. They become popular because they represent a level of expertise and communicate clearly with skill. Even if you view briefly the blog of Robert Scoble, Technical Evangelist for Microsoft (and commonly quoted in a sick attempt to further poison the marketing industry into thinking RSS will save their jobs) you notice that rarely is a Microsoft product actually discussed on his blog. Rather he widely discusses the process and features of other companies and services. Why? It’s simple – to show expertise. To show that he isn’t trying to just sell a topic of focus.

It’s important that we look at all phases and features that come from the Internet as basic forms of human interaction. Think about it. I once bought a car from a local dealership in town… and throughout the life of that car, on holidays, my birthday, and the various days that ended with “y” I would receive a “Hey! Enjoying your car? Come buy another one!” It was extremely annoying, and when thinking about buying a new car I went elsewhere. Now, a few years ago I bought a house. After I bought the house I received friendly reminders from my Real Estate Agent on tax benefits, important maintenance tips for the house and all sorts of helpful things that didn’t push me to buy something directly, only a gentle mention through the sticker on the envelope of “We Love Referrals”. So what did this do? Must I really explain?

Think about it. When my Real Estate Agent would send me information it became almost a subconscious thought that this person cared about my wellbeing, they were being informative and helpful. A level of trust was built. When you have brand identity and brand trust, you have customer loyalty. I still to this day refer her to everyone I know, and several members of my family have bought property with her.

Now looking at customer communication in such a grassroots way we see that marketing is still about people, and that people aren’t stupid. If you treat something like a billboard, they are going to notice it as such. Just as people use banner blocking software and anti-spam software. It’s only going to be a matter of time until there is a browser toolbar with a “blog quality” meter to inform the visitor of your intent to be informative or snakeoil them.

Now, I’m not referring to corporate blogging in general here – I think corporate blogging can be a great thing.  Microsoft’s Channel9 is a great place for developers as well as Microsoft’s IEBlog kept everyone up-to-date during the development of IE7.  I’m talking about blogging and mass syndication as a way to continue the act of just spreading keywords throughout the net because they now are in your blog and able to be syndicated to the masses and show up on various pages everywhere.

It’s time to wake up people! You want to get popular? Be good at what you do, help the community at large and your level of expertise will be recognized and appreciated and thus your blog will continue to move upwards in the ranks.

But hey, this is just how I see it, I don’t have an MBA from a fancy college, nor do I have the word “Marketing” in my title. I am simply human, and thus a consumer.

Web 2.0: Day 2 Recap – Sessions

Of course I am recapping here and reviewing most of my notes now that I am home. I still wanted to share what I had experiences so I’m posting this information a little late. Day 3 and 4 will be coming as well.

The New Hybrid Designer

This was a panel discussion that included Kelly Goto, Jeremy Keith, and Chris Messina. Unfortunately it become more of an introduction to the Design related track that really getting down the what it means to be a Hybrid Designer. Getting the designers to learn more about application design and architecture are some of the most important key points here. Using documentation such as that from Apple, their Application Design Guidelines is a great suggestion. Remembering as well that the line between design and development continues to grow thinner. Continuing to place strong consideration on “placelessness” – the idea that not only should content be separated from design but as well as context and device limitations. Chris Messina also made strong mention against applications such as Adobe’s Apollo which will end the “View Source” option, noting that many of todays developers have learned using the method of learning from someone else’s work. I was differently that person and I’m sure many of today’s beginners learned HTML are doing the same. It is important we don’t kill the growth of our community by developing applications that eradicate it’s growth.

Rich Internet Applications with Apollo

Sadly, the presentation with Mike Chambers as he tried to show the benefits of Apollo left me desiring more in general. I can’t blame Mike for it completely because the network was extremely congested and he was unable to demo many of the features of online application access. The thing that really has got me bothered by the platform in general is that, in a bad way, it feels like “half a product”. Now I’m a strong advocate of building “half a product” more then a “half ass product”. Perhaps I would lean to being more enthusiastic about this product if I felt the features planned for inclusion in their initial release was the “correct half” of the product.

If you are wanting to streamline application development to “bridge the gap” between the web and desktop platforms you need to create a way to easy deploy the single page/controller level updates to all the desktop clients. Streamlined, without interruption – with no option to not update the functionality. It would be a replica of the features you are mimicking from the web application you are converting. Not necessarily in user interface, but function and user experience.

Vulnerabilities 2.0 in Web 2.0: Next Generation Web Apps from a Hacker’s Perspective

This was an amazing conference session. Given by a partner of iSEC Partners a security research firm and pen-testing company. I’m hoping to get a copy of the slides as the presenter did tell us that they would be available. Getting into topics that were far more advanced then just simple cross-site scripting issues. Major vulnerabilities exist in all current AJAX framework implementations as well a big issue with most AJAX sites is that the functions and methods are rightly available to all visitors to the application. Having methods within your code for “MakeMeAdmin()” is ridiculous! But it still happens. Remembering as well using cross site forgery techniques are assisted because browsers will pass the cookie if it is active in the other window or tab – because cookies are shared among windows. It turns out the guys over at iSEC Partners are going to be publishing the new Hacking Exposed book in December 2007 entitled ‘Hacking Exposed: Web 2.0’.

The Arrival of Web 2.0: The State of the Union on Browser Technology

I’ll be honest and say I don’t know how much really came out of this session other then, “Browser companies are starting to work today.” People representing Opera, Mozilla, and IE were on the panel. Other then continuing to hear that Firefox 3 will offer local store so you can natively develop offline applications and that the Mozilla foundation is working on issues that exist in JavaScript as it is currently being implemented using Ajax (the previous session was of course stuck in my head at the time). That was about it on that one.