Challis Hodge’s UXblog

I’ve made some startling discoveries this week and felt like I needed to share them right away. First of all it appears Web Site Design Impacts Online Sales!

“When potential buyers come from a search marketing program and land on your site, it is important to make sure they know where to go and how to get the discounts you advertised,” said Jimmy Duval, director of e-commerce products for Yahoo Small Business.

As the dust settles on this latest season’s holiday shopping data, there is yet one more issue to consider before this time next year: conversions.

Conversions!? is this a fancy new buzz word? Has anyone heard this term before?

The recent release of the Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index, a study produced by ForeSee Results and FGI Research, revealed that consumer satisfaction with most of the top 40 retail Web sites dropped over the holiday season. In fact, overall consumer satisfaction is down 4 percent from earlier in 2005.

Beyond higher holiday expectations for lower merchandise prices, the concept of designing for conversions — which refers to the percentage of site visitors who actually make an online purchase — is finding an audience with savvy online retailers. That’s because they know that while over 70 percent of e-shoppers think shopping online is easier than shopping offline, Web design played a key role in 2005 online holiday spending.

Second, it appears Bad Online Shopping Experiences Are Bad For Business!

A frustrating online shopping experience can negatively impact consumers’ opinion of a business overall, and the spillover can impact brick and mortar stores as well, according to a national consumer web survey.

Negative online shopping experiences can be bad for business, says a national consumer survey.

Allurent Inc., in a recent Web study, said 55 percent of consumers surveyed said a frustrating online shopping experience negatively impacts their overall opinion of that retailer. Nearly 33 percent said they may stop shopping at the retailer’s brick and mortar store as well.

The 2005 Holiday Shopping: Online Customer Experience Survey revealed 82 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to return to a site where they had a frustrating shopping experience. As more consumers flock to the Web to make purchases, retailers are putting more at risk.

So is it just me or did we have this knowledge ten years ago? I’m puzzled that folks are writing and researching these topics as if the last decade never happened.

Peter Merholz writes an interesting piece over on Peterme.com about lab-based usability testing. Knowing Peter as I do I find it hard to believe that he meant to write yhis as I perceived it.

Case in point: I recently finished a project where we were going to develop a product to help people remember the important dates and events in their lives. A fairly standard process would have involved prototyping of this product, and then bringing people in to “test” the prototype. What we did, however, was field research. We went into 12 homes, and saw how people currently managed their stuff. And, believe me, it’s messy and complex. One participant used: a church address book, a week-at-a-glance, a Palm-style PDA, a simple address-storing-PDA, and an Access database to manage this task. Had we brought her in to test our prototype, we could have found out all kinds of stuff about how she used this prototype in isolation and away from her tools. But we would have learned nothing about how this tool could possibly have integrated itself into his complex web.

What peter seems to be suggesting is that lab-based usability testing and field-based user research are one in the same.

In my view, we need to be in the field (in the context of use) in the early stages of problem solving. We need to understand the user in context. As we begin to formulate solutions we need to put them back in front of the user to help uis identify our successes and failures. It is precisely at this point that usability testing comes into play. Perhaps this is where Peter is suggesting we get out of the labs and into the context of work/life? If so, I think he might be on to something.

The problem described here is not unlike that which confronts scientists and doctors working to develop vaccines or medical cures. Obviously they can’t head straight out to the public making injections and observing the consequences–even though this might be the fastest path to a solution or cure. Nor can they afford to hole up in a lab iterating over years to ultimately arrive at a solution with minimal risk along the way. Their challenge is to find balance between time and safety. They must start with research, followed by lab testing, and trials on humans ultimately reaching public release in a safe and timely manner.

Using design as a medium for exploring everyday rituals from drinking tea to watching television, the British designer ONKAR SINGH KULAR has developed a series of conceptual products since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2002.
When Onkar Singh Kular designed a pair of socks he added a third one in case one got lost. Embedded in the wood of his picture frame is a spirit level to help check that it hangs in a straight line. He also created a set of mugs in each of 128 Pantone shades of brown so that each family member or co-worker can choose the mug corresponding to their favourite colour of tea. Whenever a relative or colleague makes tea for them, they will be able to tell from the colour of the mug exactly how strong it should be and how much milk to add.

This looks like a great application for restaurant tea or coffee service.

INVITATION FOR PAPER AND SESSION/PANEL SUBMISSION

International Usability Evaluation and International Ethnographic Studies sessions Usability and Internationalization Conference - HCII 2005 July 22-27, 2005 Las Vegas, USA (www.hci-international.org).

On behalf of Usability and Internationalization Conference Chair, we would like to invite you to participate in the International Usability Evaluation and International Ethnographic Studies sessions, Usability and Internationalization Conference in association with HCII 2005, which will be held in Las Vegas, NV, USA, July 22-27, 2005.

As industries expand into global markets, designers and developers are becoming more concerned with the needs of culturally diversified target users. This makes internationalization and localization one of the key concerns in their minds, and gives a new twist on how we approach usability globally.

Join experts from around the world to understand the impact of internationalization on user interface design, share experiences in designing for global markets, and understand the future trends in internationalization. This technical conference will explore the opportunities created by the latest advances in HCI and how to leverage them for global users, as well as potential pitfalls to be aware of, and problem areas that need further research. There will also be demonstrations of best practices for designing applications that can accommodate any language. Attendees benefit from the wide range of basic to advanced topics and the opportunities for dialog and idea-exchange with experts in the field. The conference features tutorials, lectures, and panel discussions that provide coverage of standards, best practices, and recent advances in the internationalization and usability of user interfaces for software applications and the Internet.

We would like to invite you to submit a paper and becoming a panel/session presenter with a topic related to:

INTERNATIONAL USABILITY EVALUATION
or
INTERNATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES

IMPORTANT DATES/TIME FRAME:

July 27, 2004 - Title of Paper/Presentation and Affiliation
End of August 2004 - Paper/Presentation Abstract
Late Fall 2004 - Full Paper

Submissions are to be sent to:

adi@the2the.com (International Usability Evaluation)
or
eny@the2the.com (International Ethnographic Studies)

Webreference interview with Lou Rosenfeld and Steve Krug on the User Experience Consulting Experience.

Mechanic is to Tire Technician
as
UX Consultant is to Usability Expert

I haven’t reviewed it and I don’t know what Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) usability guidelines were used or how they were derived. But here it is, “LIFT-Nielsen Norman Group Edition,” a new software product that allows developers to check pages for compliance with usability guidelines as they code. It works with Macromedia Dreamweaver (4.0 or MX) on both Windows and Macintosh. LIFT NN/g checks to ensure that websites are compliant with the World Wide Web Consortium’s accessibility guidelines and Section 508 guidelines. It’s Jakob Nielsen in a box!

Macromedia plans to announce a partnership Monday with Jakob Nielsen, a leading Web design guru and one of the most prominent critics of the company’s Flash software for Web animation.

“Nielsen and his consulting firm, Nielsen Norman Group, will work with Macromedia to develop guidelines for creating practical, easy-to-use Web applications with the new version of Flash, Nielsen and Macromedia executives plan to announce at Nielsen’s User Experience conference in San Francisco.”

At one point Nielsen’s position on use of graphics on the Web was 100% Bad! I wonder what would have happened if he partnered with the W3C early on to advise on how to eliminate the use of graphics on the Internet/Web.

“Consumers have a message for companies trying to figure out why the wireless Web market has failed to take off in this country: It’s the screen, stupid.”

We at HannaHodge have a message for the wireless web market. Wake up and stop implementing technology just because you can. People’s lives continue to get more complex and they simply won’t adopt digital products and services just because you build them. You have to understand your customers at the local cultural level. Just because it worked in Japan or Finland doesn’t mean the same product or service will work in the US.

Future business success depends on understanding your customers’ wants and needs and delivering solutions that meet them. Investors and shareholders will not continue to tolerate throwing technology at the wall to see if it sticks. Invest in significant user research to compliment market and secondary research. Understand the problem, the context and solve it using the appropriate technology. Then, and only then, do you need to worry about getting the screen right! Read the article here.

Which Fonts Do Children Prefer to Read Online?
Interesting study on the online font preferences of children. The sample size was relatively small, 12 participants. Interestingly they didn’t test Verdana which seems to be commonly used online. View the study at Usability News. You can also check out “Determining the Best Online Font for Older Adults” in the same issue.