The Future of Customer Service

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“Omni Channel” Doesn’t Matter. The Customer Experience Does.

via Ecommerce Consulting http://ift.tt/1hG5xVP

March 14, 2014 by Kevin Strawbridge - Add Comment

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I will not use the “O” word.

I will not use the “O” word.

I will not use the “O” word.

After spending last week at eTail West 2014 at the wonderful JW Marriott in the Texas Hill Country just outside of San Antonio I came away really disliking the “O” word. That word is Omnichannel. Darn, I used it.

So many sessions at eTail, as well as other industry events, and vendors use that word, but really it is still just multi-channel. The focus on individual channels such as store, catalog, and internet all require specific training and different approaches. Trying to blend all of those channels into one ubiquitous channel and experience is not only short-sided, but it is also dangerous.

“Omni Channel” Doesn’t Matter. The Customer Experience Does.

Customer experience is the heart of the overall shopping process. Channel does not matter, so there is no need to give it some fancy name. What matters is that a customer gets the best possible service in each channel using the means available to the retailer to provide that service. I will use a specific case I endured recently to show how being too focused on blending the channels can actually create a horrible customer experience.

The Company

The company from which I bought my items is well-established and has conducted business across the three major channels – stores, catalog and online for many, many years. They have a strong brand in the United States and can be considered leaders in each respective channel. I am choosing not to name it due to the close-knit nature of this industry, but I am sharing the experience in order to highlight opportunities for a broader set of professionals that want to identify better practices.

The Process

I shopped this multi-channel retailer via a laptop/web experience that ultimately transcended to the store for fulfillment (I will share more on that later) and a return process that included a store.

The Transaction, Fulfillment and Delivery

Shopping on the website was relatively easy and straightforward. I was drawn to the site to purchase a gift for a family member that led to finding gifts for three family members thanks to promotions and up-sell/cross-sell options. There was a great selection in a wide variety of patterns and sizes. As I added items to my cart I was reminded that adding $XX.XX could yield the option for free shipping so I felt incentivized to add more. Along the way I noted that I had the option to “pick-up in store” so I knew the company had an integrated inventory system and multi-channel strategy. In the end I added a total of 11 items to my cart, received free shipping, had the taxes correctly calculated and my payment was processed with no issue.

Next up came the fulfillment aspect. This is where I knew that the customer experience was being overlooked for the sake of trying to “seamlessly” integrate multiple channels. As expected, I received an order summary and receipt for my items. No problem there. Next, I began receiving additional order confirmations (eight in all) with varying delivery expectations being set. Keep in mind that I was ordering gifts for a holiday. I placed my order a week before the holiday and well within what the site said should be expected.

A few days passed and I was getting anxious for delivery for the upcoming holiday. On day three I looked out on the porch and a delivery had been made – or should I say deliveries. Six boxes/envelopes were on my porch. Each was from a different store around the country. Obviously this company was utilizing stores as fulfillment centers. Their _____channel approach was certainly being utilized but at the expense of customer experience. And, at the company expense. Six of my eleven items arrived in those six boxes/envelopes (with each box big enough to hold all eleven items). My free shipping was a major cost to this enterprise.

Four more days passed, along with the holiday, and the remaining five items arrived from the internet distribution center – and one of those items was the wrong size (their error). To say I was put out is an understatement.

I ended up returning the wrong sized item to the store. There were no issues and the customer experience was actually quite good. The associate was responsive, respectful and responsible. But for that, I might not consider this retailer as a shopping destination in the future.

What Does All This Say?

I am all for smooth processes that make my life easier. But, when those processes are more geared to fulfilling some corporate directive to integrate channels without regard to the end user experience, the ultimate price will far outweigh the savings. I will admit that customer expectations can be unreasonable at times. When basic expectations are not met (e.g. Too many deliveries for a single order, missing delivery dates, incorrect items) the company needs to re-examine the strategy and the corresponding tactics. Those companies that get this will stay in contention for the customer share of wallet over the long-term.

5 Standout Examples of Content Marketing in Retail Apps

via Content Marketing Institute http://ift.tt/PFcBIl

By GRACE HENDRYX published MARCH 16, 2014

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With more and more traffic to websites coming from people who access the internet on mobile devices, it makes sense that companies would increase their use of mobile apps to get content into the hands of their target audiences. Consumers are becoming more accustomed to using apps to find the latest deals and information about products, so why not make it easy for them to find other ways to connect and engage with your brand?

Going beyond the standard functionality for making a purchase or finding a store nearby, the followingexamples of content marketing demonstrate some of the powerful ways retailers can leverage mobile apps to make customers’ lives easier — and make their shopping more time effective — while helping to build lasting customer loyalty. 

1. Lowe’s

The Lowe’s app features all of your basic functionality (like searching for products, and a store locator), it’s user friendly, and full of ideas to brighten up a home. It also provides a handy item locator to help shoppers navigate the massive showroom and hone in on exactly what they are looking to buy.

However, what sets this app apart, from a content standpoint, is its free “My Lowe’s” feature. My Lowe’s helps busy shoppers remember the details of products they have purchased before — like what size light bulbs they needed for their unique front porch lights. It takes the burden off consumers so they don’t have to recall the specs of each and every household item they shop for at Lowe’s — and it really helps the home improvement retailer lead the pack in providing customers with utility that makes lives easier.

2. Domino’s Pizza

The Domino’s App is mostly what you would expect from a pizza shop. But, the feature that makes it a more unique example of content marketing is the Domino’s Tracker. This meter shows exactly what stage your pizza order is in at any given time, So, for example, if a customer is wondering what’s taking his pizza so long to arrive, he can see whether it’s still sitting in the oven, or if the delivery is already on its way. Customers like to see what’s going on so they feel as though they have some control, and this app gives them that level of satisfaction.

3. Teavana Perfect Tea Touch

Teavana is a specialty tea shop that often occupies shop space in large malls. For tea lovers, it’s a haven of all things good, and the content on the brand’s mobile app helps to encourage these positive brand associations.

For example, the Perfect Tea Touch app has a Tea Blender feature, which allows users to select the type of tea they like and gives specific instructions on how to properly brew that specific blend to get the best flavor. The app also has a tea timer tool that tells users how long to steep their tea, sets a timer, and plays sounds it associates with that particular blend to help pass the time while their tea brews. Other features include a tea blending tool, which offers recommendations to tea lovers who like to mix various flavors together.

4. My Wendy’s

The My Wendy’s app does not provide the typical fast food app experience — for example, customers can’t use it to place orders through their phones. But there’s one particular feature that makes it a standout example of content marketing: its calorie-conscious menu builder. The app lets users set the calorie range they want their meal to fall into, and provides them with a list of items they can select from that will help them keep to their goal. The user can save a customized meal and order it in-store. The app also displays what each item looks like — as well as its full nutritional information. As consumers increasingly look for healthy options at their favorite fast food restaurants, content-focused features like these really demonstrate Wendy’s commitment to serving its customers’ needs.

5. Best Buy

What sets Best Buy’s app apart from other mega-retailers’ apps is a few of its more tech-savvy features. For example, the app has a scanner that consumers can use in the store to compare product features and read reviews of those products. Content tools like these can help make in-store decisions easier — a key benefit that may discourage shoppers from doing their research in the closest Best Buy, then going home and purchasing the product online from a competing retailer.

Conclusion

These five apps truly demonstrate brands’  increasing interest in getting their content out to customers in unique ways. Not only are they giving users reason to enjoy using the app, but they are creating a lasting customer bond. Other companies should take note, as mobile content marketing offers tremendous opportunities for them to provide information that is useful to their customers — which helps them gain customer loyalty.

UIEtips: Announcing our Favorite Articles of 2013

via UIE Brain Sparks http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/12/19/uietips-announcing-our-favorite-articles-of-2013/

By Jared Spool

December 19th, 2013

Over the past year we published more than 35 articles. Here are 6 of our favorites in no particular order:

What Makes an Experience Seem Innovative?

There are so many better things we could be doing with our time than standing in line. But if we step out of the line, we lose our opportunity to get the service we want. Who would’ve thought you could innovate around something as simple as waiting in line?

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Since customers think standing and waiting is a necessary evil without alternatives, they may not complain about it. Organizations that focus on the specific activities to resolve their perceived customer objective, may overlook the deep frustration from tool time that’s happening in the gaps between those activities.

Teams that study the entire experience look into those gaps to see from where the deep frustration emerges. Addressing that frustration, when no other product or service has done so, will look innovative to the customer.

Read the article What Makes an Experience Seem Innovative

Feedback Illuminates the Rules

In this article, Dan Saffer discusses how a good microinteraction immediately shares a result with a user. It lets them know the next steps to take or if they’re going in the right direction.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Let’s take a microinteraction appliance like a dishwasher as an example. The dishwasher process goes something like this: a user selects a setting, turns the dishwasher on, the dishwasher washes the dishes and stops. If someone opens the dishwasher midprocess, it complains. Now, if the dishwasher has a screen, each of these actions could be accompanied by a message on the screen (“Washing Dishes. 20 minutes until complete.”). If there is no screen, there might be only LEDs and sounds to convey these messages. One option might be that an LED blinks while the dishwasher is running, and a chime sounds when the washing cycle is completed.

Read the article Feedback Illuminates the Rules

Extraordinarily Radical Redesign Strategies

In this article, Jared Spool discusses how it is common for companies to completely change their website design all at once versus gradually. But it often causes havoc for the user. There’s a strong case for making your redesign practically unnoticeable and slowly releasing small aspects of it.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

It’s your most loyal customers who will hate your flip-the-switch redesign the most. Designers are quick to declare, “Users hate change.” But that’s not it at all.

Your loyal users have invested a lot over the years mastering your current design, to the point where they are fast and efficient with everything they need to do. When you change it, even with something you want to label “new and improved,” all of that investment is flushed down the drain.

Read the article Extraordinarily Radical Redesign Strategies

Meetings: The Canary in the Culture Coal Mine

We all know that a company’s culture is a key factor to its success. Culture isn’t something you can whip up or easily change, but its presences will define what is and is not possible to accomplish. In this article, Kevin Hoffman talks about understanding the effects of an organization’s culture on its processes and outcome.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The culture of a group or a project team is like water to fish: it is invisible yet everywhere, and it defines what is and is not possible to accomplish. Understanding or changing any aspect of a culture requires immense focused effort and luck.

Read the article Meetings: The Canary in the Culture Coal Mine

A Typical UX Team of One Job Description

In this article, Leah Buley discusses the various ways one can spot a UX team-of-one situation. Few UX jobs are advertised as a team-of-one gig, but there are usually telltale signs that give them away.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

To get a sense of what your colleagues do and don’t know about user experience, take them out to lunch and have a casual conversation. Consider a “Bathroom UX” campaign to promote a broader understanding of the roles and functions of user experience. Employers expect UX practitioners to be able to back up their recommendations and show their work. Employers also might expect the user experience practitioner to challenge and persuade others in the organization to adopt new approaches. UX teams of one sometimes have to be diplomatic, informed, and well-meaning meddlers.

Read the article A Typical UX Team of One Job Description

Five Prevalent Pitfalls when Prototyping

There are five common traps teams fall into with their prototyping efforts. Using prototypes is key when designing, but are you falling into some of the frequent traps with your prototyping efforts? Learn about 5 typical traps and how to prevent them.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

A great prototype can sell an idea better than a specification or other form of describing the design. Seeing the design in action and playing with it brings the underlying ideas to life.

It’s no wonder that we focus so much on what the prototype will look like and how it will work. We want to achieve that wow factor with the key decision makers and stakeholders on the project.

As important as the working prototype is, it’s not the most important outcome of a prototyping effort. What’s more important is what the team learns from the prototyping process.

Read the article Five Prevalent Pitfalls when Prototyping

UIEtips: Explore These 7 Great Podcasts from 2013

via UIE Brain Sparks http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/12/23/uietips-explore-these-7-great-podcasts-from-2013/

By Jared Spool

December 23rd, 2013

This past year we featured some fantastic podcasts from a variety of UX luminaries. It was difficult to cull the list but we managed to do just that. Here for your listening pleasure are our favorite podcasts from 2013.

Designing Microinteractions

Do you think about the ringer on your phone and the ability to turn it off? Dan Saffer uses this example to kick off his book Microinteractions. Silencing the ringer on your phone is a common feature. If that feature is clunky or hard to find, it interferes with needing to silence it quickly, in a crowded movie theater for example. These tiny interactions that surround the main functionality are integral to rounding out the entire experience.

Listen to the podcast

Lean UX: Escaping Product Requirement Hell

Assumptions tend to be the downfall of many research projects. Jeff Gothelf suggests starting with an attitude that you’re testing a hypothesis which leads to a more open discussion. The main thing is, hypotheses, just like design, can change. Being flexible and iterative in your design process encourages an environment of collaboration.

Listen to the podcast

When Responsive Design Meets the Real World

Responsive web design allows the notion of “one web” to be a reality. Designers are increasingly able to sell to their organization the idea of delivering content to multiple platforms. Putting it into practice is another story. Jason Grigsby, co-founder of Cloud Four, says that it is easier to sell the idea of responsive web design than to do it well.

Listen to the podcast

Prototyping for Mobile Designs

Building a prototype is a great way to test your design early on with users. Whether you choose to go for a high-fidelity representation, or go lo-fi with paper, you can learn a lot about the usability of your site. Often, teams are concerned with which technique or tool to use because of the litany that are available. Kelly Goto, founder of Gotomedia, suggests that the importance of the tool lies more with when you use it than why.

Listen to the podcast

Using Scenarios to Design Intuitive Experiences

Scenarios can represent the ideal picture of a user’s experience with a product or service because you can see how and when they’ll interact. However, a scenario is often missing the details of what’s going on at this moment in time and that can be a sticking point. This is where the value of the journey map emerges. Kim Goodwin has years of experience teaching teams how to create and work with personas and scenarios.

Listen to the podcast

Adapting Your Content for Mobile

Content touches all aspects of a design. Having presentation independent content allows for it to adapt to different screens and devices. Karen McGrane suggests that having the specifics of how the content will be structured in place first, allows for the freedom and flexibility to make the right design choices. Karen says that thinking about content first, over how it will appear, helps ensure you’re communicating the right message.

Listen to the podcast

Accessibility as a Design Tool

Accessibility is important, but somewhere along the way it got an undeserved reputation for being ugly, costly, and driven only by technical-compliance requirements. Making it an integral part of your design early creates something that is beautiful, inexpensive, and user experience-driven. Derek Featherstone of Simply Accessible believes that implementing accessibility into your designs will flat out make for better design.

Listen to the podcast

UIEtips: Design is the Rendering of Intent

via UIE Brain Sparks http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/12/30/uietips-design-is-the-rendering-of-intent/

BY JARED M. SPOOL

Originally published: Dec 30, 2013

In 2008, the US Customs and Border Protection agency launched the Global Entry program, which allows pre-verified, low-risk travelers to receive expedited clearance to re-enter the United States. The CBP’s Global Entry web site is where folks sign up for this service.

The Home Page for the multi-screen Global Entry Signup Process

Signing up for the Global Entry system is no simple feat. It’s a multi-screen application, with confusing requests for information and uninformative error messages when you miss something. As the first impression of the program, it sends the message that you’re entering a bureaucratic process of grand government proportions.

Contrast the design of this signup process with the We The People online petition system. Released by The White House in 2011, this is an interactive web site allowing citizens to petition to The White House’s policy experts.

A petition on The White House’s We The People

The release of We The People brought state-of-the-art web site production values, taking advantage of typography, layout, and color, along with a smart interaction design, to make it easy for visitors to sign existing petitions or add a new one. It gives the impression of welcoming citizens to participate in a process of civic engagement.

Both the Global Entry and We The People were designed by teams of government employees. Both teams wanted their constituents to engage successfully with the design. Yet the two designs approach that in a very different way.

The Global Entry sign-up process, though well meaning, is less friendly a process as interacting with We The People. Assuming each had similar resources and constraints, why would the two designs appear to be so different in interaction quality? The answer lies in the team’s intentions and how they rendered them.

A Working Definition for Design

Over the last year, we’ve started explaining design as “the rendering of intent.” The designer imagines an outcome and puts forth activities to make that outcome real.

We’ve found this definition seems to resonate with people more than any other. People can see the relationship between the intended outcome and the process that renders it.

It seems pretty clear to us that the Global Entry team had a typical intention of many government (and non-government) design teams: get the service up and running. A participant only has to sign-up once, then they are in the program. The application process is a necessary, first-step, but once it’s done, the participant will never have to deal with it again. The team’s intention was all about getting something in place.

In contrast, the We The People team wanted to showcase that a government design team can produce designs on par with the best non-government commercial teams. They chose to approach the user’s first interaction with the petition program as an opportunity to highlight how clean, easy-to-use designs play a role in the experience of interacting with the government.

Each team rendered a completely different intention. They each came to a completely different design.

There’s no technical reason why the We The People team had to end up with the design they did. It could’ve been frustrating and hard-to-understand, just like the Global Entry site or many other government web sites. Similarly, there’s no technical reason why the Global Entry site couldn’t have been designed to be easier and better looking. The only reason either team ended up with these sites is because they came to their designs with different intentions.

What Experience Do You Intend?

Once enrolled in Global Entry, travelers find it to be an awesome program. In most of the U.S.’s international airports, the Global Entry traveler only needs to walk up to one of the kiosks, put their fingers on the reader, and check a few boxes on the screen. They can skip the long lines to wait to talk to a Customs Officer, spending no more than a few minutes re-entering the country. It makes arriving from international travel almost as easy as getting off a domestic flight.

(As an added bonus, getting into the Global Entry program automatically qualifies you for the TSA’s PreCheck program. This dramatically improves the airport security experience.)

The experience of signing up on the Global Entry web site is in direct contrast to the experience once you’re using the service. While the web site is cumbersome and bureaucratic, the service is efficient and friendly.

The Global Entry team had great intentions for the overall service. And they’ve rendered it beautifully. Somehow, the web site didn’t get the same treatment.

Experiences are the journeys that people take before, during, and after coming into contact with our design. We can choose our intentions for what we want our users’ journeys to be. And when we render those intentions, we’re designing for our users’ experiences. Experience design is rendering intentions of the user’s journey.

Are You Rendering for the Behaviors You Intend?

A cryptic field label on the Global Entry site will stop the user in their tracks, and often result in a confusing error message. The user’s frustration will mount as they experiment with alternative approaches. Sometimes they’ll discover what the site really wants to know, sometimes they won’t, ending up abandoning the application process.

Was this game of guess-what-we’re-looking-for part of the design team’s intent? Probably not. In cases like these, the team is focused on a different intent: get the underlying database filled with the right data. Little attention is given to how that intention is rendered in the user interface.

What if the team had approached the design with a different intention? What if they had intended that users would get through the sign-up process without ever seeing an error message?

Designer extraordinaire, Robert Fabricant once said, “Behavior is the medium of design.” When we encounter a user’s behavior that isn’t what we’ve intended, we change the design until we see what we want.

The Global Entry team could get a different behavior than the frustration-based data entry confusion they get now. It would take a different design process and a consensus of the entire team that this is worth rendering.

Who Can Render the Intent?

An implication of this definition for design is how it changes our notion of who is a designer.

In any organization, many people share what they’d like to see as the intentions of the design. The business people have intentions with regards to how the business makes money. The technical people have intentions to best use servers, networks, and other technical resources. The legal team has intentions on how to best protect the organization from legal threats.

As these people use their influence to define the outcome of the design, they are, in effect, designing. There’s an old saying, everyone thinks they are a designer. Well, everyone who participates in the rendering of their intention is a designer, using this definition.

The notion of the academically-trained, experienced designer holding the keys to the design outcome fades with this definition. In fact, when we think about design in these terms, it becomes clear that many of the people rendering their intention don’t know they are designers. This implies the role of the experienced designer shifts from owning the design outcome to educating all the other designers on the team on how to best render their own intentions.

Having everyone on the team act as a designer is not, by itself, a bad thing. It brings a lot of power, knowledge, and experience to bear on what are often complex problems to solve. In fact, it can be a great thing when the team has the same intentions.

Does Our Process Get Us What We Intend?

With this definition of design, the process shifts its focus to two distinct activities: Having the team arrive at the same intentions and ensuring we render our intention the way we desire. The teams that produce the best designs are those with the process that separates these activities out.

User research and other design research activities are the core of what we use to make sure our team has a unified set of intentions. We discover what’s happening with our users that we didn’t intend. We look for places where we could do something that would improve the users’ experience. We look at what the competition is doing and ask what we could do that’s even better.

All this research helps us hone in on what our intentions should be. The best teams engage in research like this frequently and often discuss intentions explicitly. They explore different possibilities and arrive at something that everyone agrees matches their overall intention.

Many of our design deliverables, such as wireframes, prototypes, and style guides, are as much about getting agreement on what we intend as they are to move our intentions closer to done. But the deliverables themselves do not produce the designs. It’s having all the people on the team, from the product managers through the developers, sharing the same intention.

We need to look at our design process as a way to come to a single intention as much as it is to make that intention real in the world. And it’s with the lens of this new definition that we can see we still have much work to do before every design will be a great one.

About the Author

Jared M. Spool is the founder of User Interface Engineering. He spends his time working with the research teams at the company and helps clients understand how to solve their design problems. You can follow Jared on Twitter @jmspool.

Share Your Thoughts with Us

How do you assure your design process is a way to come to a single intention? Tell us about it at theUIE blog.

User Experience Versus Users

via UXmatters http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/12/user-experience-versus-users.php

By Paul Bryan

Published: December 23, 2013

“Recently, … it seems that user experience is increasingly playing a role in formulating designs that diametrically oppose users’ wants and needs for the sake of generating greater profits.”

The field of user experience has, from its inception, championed the notion that meeting users’ needs is the path to success for digital products. Recently, however, it seems that user experience is increasingly playing a role in formulating designs that diametrically oppose users’ wants and needs for the sake of generating greater profits.

The Growth of User Experience

By the early 1990s, the term user friendly was in common use for describing software that was easy to use. Throughout the ’90s, as more companies recognized that useful, easy-to-use Web sites led to fewer customer-service issues and greater profits, the topic of usability gained prominence. Around the year 2000, the field of user experience blossomed as more and more designers recognized that the design of digital products should focus on users’ complete experience with a product rather than paying attention only to ease of use. At each new step in this progression, meeting the needs of users was the primary goal. Over the past few years, user experience has enjoyed explosive growth, as evidenced by UX-focused LinkedIn groups with more than 60,000 members and international conferences like UXPA and UX STRAT springing up to meet UX professionals’ growing need for professional development.

Subverting Users’ Needs

“Where once the goal of user experience was to increase user satisfaction, companies are increasingly leveraging user experience in a manner that is contrary to users’ needs and, in some cases, even causing users harm.”

With great growth has come increasing sophistication in the practice of user experience, as well as in the role that user experience plays in digital product design and development. Unfortunately, not all aspects of this sophistication are positive—at least not for users. Where once the goal of user experience was to increase user satisfaction, companies are increasingly leveraging user experience in a manner that is contrary to users’ needs and, in some cases, even causing users harm.

Not long ago, I raised this issue in the UX Strategy and Planning LinkedIn group that I manage. I received some passionate responses that confirmed my suspicion that some companies are using user experience to better understand users’ needs, but then deliberately thwarting rather than meeting those needs.

Many of the comments that I received in response to this topic of discussion described Web sites that had poor usability or violated UX design principles. However, such cases have been common for decades, and they are not the focus of this column. The remainder of the responses—as well as my own research into this topic—fall into three distinct categories:

1. Not allowing users to do what they want to do
2. Impeding key task paths with forced interruptions
3. Tricking or persuading users to do something they would’t normally do

1. Not Allowing Users to Do What They Want to Do

“I love Apple products. … But their walled-garden approach to user experience has been a source of frustration to me for many years.”

This is the issue that got me to thinking about writing this column in the first place. I was working on a UX Strategy workshop that I was to give at UXPA in Shanghai—deep in thought and under the gun to complete the final presentation deck before the deadline—when the OS X Updates Available window shown in Figure 1 appeared in the upper-right corner of my screen. Unlike 99% of the other annoying pop-up windows that someone thought were a good idea, this one did’t have a close box, button, or link—or any visible way of closing it. There were two options, neither of which I wanted: Details and Restart. I discovered that the fastest way to escape from this cognitive pothole was to click the Detailsbutton, then quickly click Command-Q—all the while, silently cursing Apple.

Figure 1—OS X Updates Available window

Don’t get me wrong. I love Apple products. I own several MacBook Pros, a couple of iPads, an iPod, and a new iPhone 5s. But their walled-garden approach to user experience has been a source of frustration to me for many years. Why can’t I simply delete songs from my iPod without connecting to a computer? Why can’t I cut and paste files? No, I have to copy, change directories, paste, then return to the previous directory to delete the file. Training wheels in the OS that users can’t bypass are the Apple way.

More recently, some UX person at Apple thought it would be a good idea to remove the venerable Save As command in Lion. So now I need to go through a long chain of commands to accomplish the same thing. And I think about that UX person every time I do it and hope he or she has been fired—but not really. Apple must have realized the problems that this so-called innovation caused for users, because they’be re-enabled Save As in Mountain Lion.

Another user experience that prompted me to write this column was LinkedIn. LinkedIn is awesome! They have accomplished something amazing. Nevertheless, I get very irritated when a capability that I’be relied on for some time unaccountably disappears. All of the information that is necessary to do what I had been doing is still there. They just took out their UX surgical knife and—snip, snip—goodbye useful feature!

The UX Strategy and Planning group that I manage on LinkedIn now has a little over 8,000 members. Over the past couple of years, LinkedIn has taken away several useful group-management capabilities—presumably to create its own walled garden, so it can charge a fee for features that make the network useful. While this obviously makes sense from a shareholder perspective, it may make LinkedIn susceptible to an upstart competitor that figures out how to suck the data out of LinkedIn and return the most useful features back to its members.

One capability that I found really helpful was filtering group members by geographical region. I could tell how many people were in New York or in Europe, and this helped me in planning events like my UX STRAT Masterclass series. This capability just disappeared one day.

Members used to be able to communicate with one another without having to pay to send In Mail. I found this feature very useful for community building. But LinkedIn removed this capability, presumably to drive members out of the free zone and into their paid services.

LinkedIn has also reduced the abilities of group managers to control how content appears on the group’s main page, thwarting managers like me who curate the content carefully. They used to provide very logical displays of most-recent and most-popular comments, with Manager’s Choice items appearing at the top of the page in a carousel. However, in recent months, LinkedIn has rejiggered the formula that determines how items appear on the group’s main page—and to be honest, even though I look at it several times a day, I still don’t have any idea how the new content arrangement works, especially the Manager’s Choice feature. I imagine that they did this to push advertising slots upward in the visual hierarchy of the page, but it seems to have made the group landing page more random and less useful for getting a quick view into what’s happening in the group. Less control, more advertising. Snip, snip.

2. Impeding Key Task Paths with Forced Interruptions

“Most of the comments that I received from … group members … centered on such road blocks—that is, interstitial screens that interrupt users’ chosen path or content to display something they did’t select.”

Recently, I was sitting in Starbucks with my 14-year old daughter Carina. We were having a father-daughter work day, and both of us had our notebook computers out. For some reason, we were having a hard time getting on the free wireless network that Starbucks offers—and that I’be been using for years. It turned out that Starbucks had changed the sign-in user experience for its wireless network—from clicking a checkbox to agree to terms to watching a full-length commercial with a choice at the end to either follow the ad path further or go online, as shown in Figure 2. I finally figured out that closing the window after the commercial did’t take me online. I had to watch the entire commercial over again, then click the option to go online. I explained this to my daughter once I’d figured it out. She laughed incredulously and asked, “You’re joking right?”

Figure 2—Barrier to using Starbucks’s free Wi-Fi network

Most of the comments that I received from UX Strategy and Planning group members when I asked for input for this column centered on such road blocks—that is, interstitial screens that interrupt users’ chosen path or content to display something they did’t select. Inserting advertising into the path of free content was one of the main complaints.

Lan Guo wrote, “YouTube! Those painful commercials you have to sit through before you can skip.” Chris Mockus described the barrage of advertising that appears when watching TV or movies online: “You can pretty much watch anything for free in a browser, but have to survive a gauntlet of anti-usability, trying to get you to click an advertisement.” Michael Boyer pointed out Forbes.com as an example of content companies that display full-screen interstitial ads like that shown in Figure 3 before presenting the content that a user has selected.

Figure 3—Intrusive ad on Forbes.com

Nick Choo noted a couple of ironies in the full-screen ads: “OpenRice HK forces users to look at advertisements that cover the entire landing screen. Users have to close the ads before they can use the app. Funny, but I can’t remember any of the ads. It’s quite annoying, but … I’m still using [the app].”

Some commenters defended advertisers. Gabriel Patru wrote, “People expect ads when browsing for content. Yes, ad blindness is a behavior that is characteristic of heavy users and, most of the time, goes hand in hand with non-relevant ads. But, guys, online ads are still working. If not, they would naturally disappear.”

“It’s pretty clear … that ads are not working the vast majority of the time. The only people who don’t think that is true are the people embedded in the advertising world….”—Jared Spool

Jared Spool disagreed: “It’s pretty clear, as someone who spends a lot of time watching people use Web sites, that ads are not working the vast majority of the time. The only people who don’t think that is true are the people embedded in the advertising world—either advertisers or publishers that have decided they can survive only with advertisers.” Jared also proposed a solution: “But the smart publishers are seeing the writing on the wall and are moving away from ads. One doesn’t have to go much farther than the new designs coming out of the NY Times—like The Jockey—to see how they are moving away from pages riddled with ads, decreasing their page views and click-through revenue. I expect we’ll see more of this in the future, as business-model alternatives like metered paywalls become more prevalent.
Just because we’be done it for years doesn’t mean that everyone wants it.”

Danielle Cooley focused on other kinds of roadblocks: “I have seen a crazy rash of newsletter sign-up roadblocks lately and auto-playing videos that just has me going nuts. When did this become the new standard?” Danielle pointed out a recent roadblock with a surprisingly deceptive outcome: Clicking the close box took viewers to the promotion in the interstitial! Danielle explains, “One egregious [example] was the recent Slate debacle, where they put in a roadblock for their new online store (bad), then the X to close actually took the person to the store. Slate competitor salon.com [published] an article about it….” Figure 4 shows the offending roadblock.

Figure 4—Slate roadblock

Danielle also pointed out companies that present full-page offers to current customers who are trying to complete a task. She wrote, “This overlay appeared when I went to shutterfly.com, where I am already a customer. A sign-up form [was] the last thing I wanted to see.” Figure 5 shows the overlay.

Figure 5—Shutterfly newsletter sign-up form

Ronnie Battista took a different tack from most of the people who responded to my question: “I’ll be the first to hammer those commerce companies that either use deceptive, dark patterns or just obfuscate the process to extract primary or additional revenue in whatever form. When I have chosen to enter into a business transaction with you, to give you my money for your product or service, I expect an experience that demonstratively convinces me that I’m the center of your universe. Or, at the very least, that you’re not trying to get one over on me.

“But when it comes to anything free, it’s a completely different ballgame. As the saying goes—I’be seen this attributed to Facebook most often—“If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” I’d put it this way: The customer is king; the window-shopper is meat. Free is free. If you did’t pay for anything, you aren’t owed anything, including a good experience.”

3. Tricking or Persuading Users to Do Something They Would’t Normally Do

“Many people who responded … were disturbed by UX designs that deliberately push or even trick users into making choices that benefit the company sponsoring the experience. These so-called dark patterns … are creeping into many Web sites and mobile apps….”

Many people who responded to my discussion thread were disturbed by UX designs that deliberately push or even trick users into make choices that benefit the company sponsoring the experience. These so-called dark patterns that are creeping into many Web sites and mobile apps have become so numerous that a Web site is now dedicated to them: Dark Patterns.

Gisella Famà, Senior UX Architect at Digitas Health, complained about the RyanAir flight booking process: “Every single page, tick box, and drop down is designed to make you pay more—and pay for things you did’t really want.” Gisella wrote that RyanAir’s site design is an "…example of UX completely designed on the client’s needs, without really considering the user experience and satisfaction at the end of the journey. User experience should be the best possible solution, considering both the client’s objectives and user needs.” Antonio Starnino concurred, “The Ryanair checkout process. Dark Patterns; dark patterns everywhere.”

As an example, Gisella described the approach that RyanAir uses to offer travel insurance to its customers, shown in Figure 6: “The possibility of choosing to travel without insurance, [with] no added fee is [hidden] on purpose…. You have to scroll down in the countries options to find it.”

Figure 6—Travel insurance offer on RyanAir

But Is This Really Wrong?

“Get the stakeholder [or] client to explain the problem they are trying to solve. Once you understand their problem, you will be able to present options and explain the risk of each option. Hopefully, you can find a way to solve the core problem that won’t hurt users.”

Jessica Hall provided some concrete advice for combating requests to design dark patterns: “I’ve received a few questionable requests in the past. Luckily, most of the time, the client or stakeholder [didn’t] intend to be irresponsible; they just didn’t think it through. I have two ways of handling this that have worked for me.

1. Work the problem. Resist the urge to recoil in horror, and get the stakeholder [or] client to explain the problem they are trying to solve. Once you understand their problem, you will be able to present options and explain the risk of each option. Hopefully, you can find a way to solve the core problem that won’t hurt users.
2. Use a business frame. Frame the user problem as a business problem. Shady tactics may work in the short term, but they have disastrous consequences in the medium-to-long term. Does anyone have data on how dark patterns are hurting businesses?”

Josephine Giaimo wrote, “Of course, revenue needs to be generated. The question is how to do so effectively and as part of an overall design philosophy that does not diminish, but empowers the user.”

Doug Morrow suggested that the key is respect: “Good user experience is based on mutual trust and respect. If I go into a store and am harassed and demeaned by the staff, I will leave and not come back. If, however, staff engage me with respect and courtesy, I am not upset when they ask if I ‘want fries with that’ or offer me a credit card….” Mike Cunningham agreed with Doug, but adds: “The question that has to be answered is: long- or short-term relationship? The [long-term view] of this relationship is at stake.”

Paul McAleer notes that there are some concrete disincentives for changing the status quo of UX dark patterns: “Conjecture based on experience: These dark patterns bubble up because they have very clear perceived value—whether it’s … true or not—that is, people click banner ads [or do] not remove defaults in checkout. Coming up with other options that would cater more to a user’s needs may cost more—time, money—and that carries additional risk. Some people simply don’t have the stomach for that.”

Mateus Barreto thinks that the issue is not just our being asked to create one or two sites whose user experience works against users’ wants and needs, but rather, that it’s starting to appear in UX job descriptions. He wrote, “It’s really not just about ads. I’ve seen job descriptions from Web agencies in which UX was basically defined as conversion optimization. While a UX practitioner must take into account all stakeholders—including taking business strategy very seriously—that is an absurdly myopic vision of the profession and bodes poorly for the perception of value [that] our work brings to companies.”

Conclusion

“I don’t want to do work that makes people buy things they can’t afford, don’t want, or don’t need. … However, I don’t think it’s wrong for other UX professionals to devise clever designs that push users from free to paid services.”

I don’t want to do work that makes people buy things they can’t afford, don’t want, or don’t need. There’s plenty of opportunity for helping people to satisfy their needs and reach their goals using digital tools, and that’s where I’d rather spend my time. However, I don’t think it’s wrong for other UX professionals to devise clever designs that push users from free to paid services. It’s a risky business—in that as soon as there were an equivalent free version, people would likely to switch to that option. But it’s not wrong.

Advertising will always be with us because marketers lack the imagination to design user experiences that entertain, engage, and inform, while also building awareness of a product or service. That’s where we come in. I don’t want to design roadblocks to content, but it’s not wrong to advertise.

Deception is clearly wrong. If the intent of a design is to obscure the fact that a site is adding costly options to a purchase without a user’s making a deliberate choice to add them, I consider that an ethical breach in which UX designers should refuse to participate.

- See more at: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/12/user-experience-versus-users.php#sthash.RYzt9aQk.dpuf