Internet banking – when good experience goes bad.

“Improvement means deterioration” – Hutber’s law

This is supposed to be a case study, but as I’ve been a customer of this bank for some years, a certain amount of disappointment is bound to creep in. So, before I begin the rant, the main messages here are:

• An inconsistent user experience confuses users and may cause them to abandon their activity and seek alternatives
• Customers don’t care how your business is organised and want the different areas to behave similarly within the mental model your brand has created
• Adding greater levels of complexity may help security, but will also stop people from using your service
• Your competitor is only too happy to poach your disgruntled customers

I joined the UK’s Co-operative Bank because it has an ethical investment philosophy. Yup, I can be an armchair eco warrior and tut at all the awful things going on in the world, safe in the knowledge that my money doesn’t finance any of them.  But maintaining customers’ brand loyalty is a fickle thing when the user experience of online banking goes down the biodegradable compost toilet.

As a user experience professional, there are always irritations with websites and I just have to bite my tongue because (a) sometimes they’re not THAT bad and (b) they’re not my client. The Co-Op’s personal internet banking service has been fine – even ‘good’. But like a number of banks they’ve adopted the use of a card reader device for making online payments. If you’ve never used one it’s the size of a pocket calculator, you insert your debit card, enter your PIN, enter the code the website’s given you, and then enter the code it gives you, back into the original website. So that’s three codes, a card and a card reader. Some banks use this when a customer sets up a payment to a new recipient, but the Co-Op requires it for any payment beyond shuffling money between your own savings accounts.

What do other customers think about the card reader?

@smorgasbord Preposterous. Fails to consider context eg making a quick payment during lunch hour will require a card reader left at home.

@Profb I’ve seen said handheld from Barclays and would leave the bank if they made me use one.

@gzj I think its s**t & negates the whole point of online banking in the first place. Tell them to stop over-complicating everything!

@misslaula They suck! That is all.

Apart from breaking the user’s journey on the site to include offline devices and offline interaction, the level of total security needed before I can make a payment becomes overbearing, especially when compared with that needed to make a payment from the Co-Op’s internet business banking.

Personal: Sort code; account number; first randomly selected digit from security code; second randomly selected digit from security code; random piece of personal security information; PIN into card reader; input code into card reader;  output code from card reader. Total = 8

Business: User name; password. Total = 2.

As @smorgasbord also points out above, whereas I used to quickly do my banking wherever I was, I now need to carry the card reader around – and I’m definitely not going to use it in a client’s office. The personal result of this means I’ve missed another company’s credit card payment, been charged, ramped up more debt and probably received a black mark on my credit record.

Continuing in my online/offline theme, as the user experience becomes the brand experience, after my third phone complaint about the compulsory use of the card reader my promised 24 hour call back to hear my concerns came 48 hours later and, like the card reader,  while I was at work, so couldn’t answer and never got to speak to anyone.

If this is about creating a secure online banking environment rather than belt, braces, pegs, staples and helium balloons attached by strings to trousers in an effort to keep them up, surely the bankers are clever enough to work out a more elegant solution? Hmmm … maybe history tells us not and maybe they should employ some good user experience consultancy (I know I’ve got a few choice words for the industry).

So … Nationwide … I understand you don’t use these card readers … tell me about your online services…

The Long Dog

I firmly believe the true user’s / customer’s / audience’s / whatever’s experience is that of ‘the big picture’ – or at least that the big picture has a direct impact on a user’s experience. Just because it’s a Norwegian Blue with beautiful plumage doesn’t make up for the fact the parrot is dead. Clear as mud? Thought so.

The user experience (UX) isn’t just about websites. Working out whether the buttons are labelled correctly or the journey through the content is smooth and direct is core to interaction design (IXD) but only part of the UX big picture.

Ok. If you’re booking flights on a budget airline’s website your tolerance for mistakes or a lumpy UX is going to be much higher than for booking a week’s sojourn on The Orient Express. Why? Because you’re human and your expectations of the website performance are based on your perception of the brand. The budget airline possibly spending five times more than the luxury travel option on their website means nothing – budget airlines are acceptably rubbish while the Orient Express is luxury, sophistication and service second to none. End of story.

An agency once commissioned me to review the customer experience of the top five UK multichannel retailers – organisations who sell across multiple channels – in this case online, in-store, catalogue and phone.

I’ve often heard someone isn’t ‘comparing apples with apples’, in other words unfairly comparing different things, but that’s exactly what I was asked to do here. I might as well have been trying to compare apples with bicycles. I had no idea how to do it so I invented a way. As a starting point I used Jakob ‘self styled usability guru’ Nielsen’s ten general principles for user interface design and bent them to my will – or rather converted them to blend across all channels, applying a simple five point measurement:

1. No problems
2. Cosmetic problem only
3. Minor problem – low priority fix
4. Major problem – high priority fix
5. Catastrophic problem – imperative fix

It’s pretty dull stuff, so you can check the list out as an excel table here, but definitely worth a look if you’re trying to work out how to compare dissimilar parts of the big picture experience. The thing to understand is that while you’re only thinking about a website, your user arrives with a lot of baggage:

• The brand. Not just logos and colours – what doest the target audience expect from the brand and how do they expect to interact with it?
• Have users had experience with physical products or services? This will influence their expectations of how the site will behave
• Communications: This is huge. Understand how the audience is communicated with. How will this affect users’ entry points to the site, what they expect to find when they get there, who the comms has been targeted at and … well … just make sure comms and your work are on the same page
• Make the brand and user experience seamless
• Objectively test with real users – they’ll give you honest and surprising feedback that is correct, beyond your best and most educated guesses

The eventual report I wrote for that agency was 150 pages long (130 longer than they first imagined – but I did tell them it would be tricky) so I ‘m not going into any more detail here. Happy, as always to answer questions and reply to comments, but this little lot of heuristics should get you thinking.

Think big picture. Think … holistic experience (dude).

The Long Dog

Make it easy on yourself, save time and show the client something inexpensive. Sound good? Then lo-fi prototyping is the way to go. To be honest, “lo-fi prototyping” is a very fancy way of saying start with rough sketches before putting effort and client’s expense into beautiful high quality prototypes or wireframes.

I’m not going to teach you to suck eggs, as by this point, you should be able to use pens and paper but there are a few tricks that’ll make things work for you:

• If you can’t draw, make your concepts simple and use them as presentation aids or aide-mémoire rather than standalone documents
• If you can draw, don’t get drawn into the trap of spending just as much time producing things of true beauty that a client will want to take a red pen to (teacher style)
• Unless you’re producing a creative concept that needs lots of colour, keep it to monochrome with a few highlights – it’s quicker and clearer
• Aim for simplicity and clarity: If your sketch is getting complicated, it might be time to rethink what you’re trying to communicate, or that you might actually need to do some digitally produced pieces
• Get the client involved. If you can run a workshop where the client helps draw or modify sketches they’ll articulate more – and love you more too
• Lo-fi is quick, easy and – from a client’s perspective – cheap. Never underestimate the power of inexpensive in these financially strained times.

As well as sketches for presenting ideas, like the image on the right showing initial lo-fi andeventual funtional wireframe, I’ve also found lo-fi techniques excellent for experimenting with different interaction designs. And in English, what I mean is that if I’m trying to work out how buttons, drop downs and other ‘things that do things’ work on a webpage (before handing it over to a terribly clever techie to actually make happen), bits of paper and rough sketches do very for trying out ideas.

But…

For my favourite lo-fi design and workshop tool is Magic Whiteboard. Not one of those electronic smart boards, but flipchart sized sheets of wipe-clean plastic film that stick to just about any surface, by static. Trying to work out how to fit a lot of information into a few screens, brought about a series of sketches that I photographed and plopped onto PowerPoint to make a presentation flick book. And I can tell you, demo-ing these, with a colleague doing the page down, while I ‘clicked’ on the radio buttons and drop downs on the screens makes for quick and fun prototyping. Download the 350kb PPT and page and downin slideshow mode to see what I mean.

Now got get some of your own fat pens and get scribbling.

The Long Dog.

Part 1: In which a snowy day and poor mobile website usability result in near truancy.
Following 6^th January ‘s closure of my five year old son’s school because of bad weather, the next morning, as instructed, I checked the website of WessexFM, our local radio station, to see if the school was open or closed.

Avoiding waking the household and balancing the possibility of extra sleep against the anticipation of a bored boy bouncing off the walls while I worked, I used my phone to check their site. On a page clearly titled “School closures” I found my son’s school listed. Not to mistake yesterday’s information as today’s I checked at 07.30, 07.45, 08.00, 08.30, even 08.45 and reckoned that was pretty good responsible parental checking.

Those familiar with ‘having a Daddy look’ will not be surprised that following a late morning call from the school I checked the main website on my computer where the ‘open/closed’ status was instantly visible on the right of the screen and my son was hurriedly dispatched to school.

As you can see from the image, there’s no clue there was a status off the mobile screen to the right, so I’d taken this to mean that the school was still closed. Damn, bugger and bumhandles.End of part 1.

Bestselling author and self-styled ‘usability guru’ Jakob Nielsen wrote that the mobile web of 2009 was like the desktop web of 1998. With web enabled mobile devices becoming more available to mainstream consumers, users expect the same service from websites on their phones as they do from their desktops. When they don’t get it they’re just as likely to lend credence to the adage that “your competitor is only a back button away”.

Generation Y’ers who’ve never known life without the internet don’t see why mobile sites can’t be as good as desktop sites – after all, it’s Mum and Dad who are in offices or staying in, worrying about their children all evening, who’ve got time to spend sitting at desktops. This is the generation whose fear-mongered parents have bought their little darlings phones. While they’ve done it to offer late night taxi services to preserve their own sanity as well as their offspring’s safety, the web generation are using these devices to access web on the move (or at least from street corners and secret park-based cider dens). The time has run out for organisations to ‘get round to sorting out their websites’ and now the race is on to make sure they’re mobile accessible as well.

Back to the story…

Part 2: Where feedback is acknowledged and everyone lives happily ever after.
In attempt to keep my son and heir’s school record unblemished I emailed his teacher with the details of my mistake and the promise to contact the wicked WessexFM and tell them of their hanus crime. Which I did, fully expecting the usual silence as my complaint fell spinning into a void of corporate complaisance. I was pleasantly alarmed when the Station Manager himself emailed me this:

“I have spoken to our web team and here is their reply…………

‘We’ve had a look at this and agree it could be interpreted incorrectly on a small device and have made a few changes…

• The “Closures” page now reads “School Status”
• We’ve added a line of text to the page highlighting that the page is offering both “Open” and “Closed” information
• On the main schools status we’ve added a filter so only open/closed schools can be viewed

These updates are in place now and will hopefully make it clear for anyone using a mobile to look at the pages.’

I sincerely hope that your son doesn’t incur a truancy mark as it is clear that this was an innocent mistake.”

How quick was that!??! Checking the emails I can tell you:  Four hours. Not only did they willingly accept user feedback, but made simple changes that improved the whole user experience. It’s these little tweaks that remind me of the article “How one button cost a website $300 million”. End of Part 2.

And the morals of this story?

• Explain it’s you that messed up and your son doesn’t get into trouble with his teacher
• Mobile website usability is still poor.
• Users: Don’t trust sites browsed on your mobiles unless you know you’re using the proper mobile version.
• Designers and developers: Make sure you use ‘liquid layouts’  so that they expand and contract to fill the size of the user’s browser; don’t depend on mobile device’s scroll bars to appear (they don’t always); detect if users are accessing the site through a mobile and present the information appropriately.
• User test and amend your work – Repeat until it works properly.
• And lastly … a round of applause for WessexFM, for listening to a concerned father / listener / user and being smart and agile enough to make changes to support your website’s users. Bravo!

The (mobile) Long Dog

“Expert opinion comes highly priced and chiefly ignored” – The Long Dog 2009

On and off, I’ve been freelancing for a decade. In that time I’ve had some great clients and recruiters … and some not so great. So here are some observations and tips from my world.

Getting the gig – standing out from the recruiting hopefuls crowd.
Recruiters see hundreds of CVs (résumés) a week, so why are you special? Sadly most recruiters don’t care if you live or die (unless you can make them money). They also copy/paste your details into a database and whoever’s CV meets whatever they’re searching for gets the gig. Just like Google. Best bit of job application advice I got was from Nick at Zebrapeople – apply SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to my CV. What are the words and phrases recruiters searching for? ‘Experienced and accomplished consultant’? Or ‘IA,  UXD, interaction designer with 5 years experience’ / “Internal communications professional specialising in intranet and online communications”?

I’ve also asked previous clients to provide recommendations on my Linked In profile. When I send my CV to new recruiter or client, I also send a separate document with these recommendations copy/pasted in. Know what? They read them ever time and don’t have to be bothered to click on links to websites.

Expectations: How much should you lie to your clients?
‘Not at all’ is the simple answer.  Get found out – you get fired and a bullet hole in your reputation. “Under promise and over achieve” is a maxim I’ve often heard. People are constantly surprised by your ability to cough up the goods faster than was imagined. It works fine. Until, that is, some smart arse promises more and still delivers. And yes, I’ve been that smart arse. What did it get me? Extensions to a contract that lasted nearly 18 months. Nice.

Just be realistic, make sure you can deliver what you promise, actually deliver it and when it’s needed put some extra work in. But make sure your client realises this. When I was 20 I worked in a department store, on the management training scheme *snore*. I was a little too modest (no, really) and my manager / mentor would say “When you’ve done something  good tell me! If you don’t tell me, someone else will show me what they’ve done and why should I think you’re any better?”. Doesn’t mean show off, just make sure people realise when you’ve done something good for them and they’ll appreciate it.

Win battles, don’t fight wars.
If you’re a freelancer or consultant, you’re not the Director in charge. You’re paid to provide expert knowledge and to argue the case if necessary. If your client chooses to ignore your advice because they know better (and a lot think they do), then you’ll have to decided whether to fight your corner or let them send in the Light Brigade and see what happens. I’ve had to present my feeling on a  real shocker of a project. I wrote a polite, but honest one page report which was presented to the board, considered and then ignored. I wasn’t happy, but there’s a point where your opinion becomes a problem. May I refer you to the recent sacking of drugs advisor to the UK government because of his unpopular opinion? Ok … so … find the balance between your integrity and your desire for the continuation of employment and don’t let pride get in the way.  Or move on – that’s the joy of freelancing.

Be nice: People like nice people … and re-employ them
I had an odd conversation with a colleague once who angrily complained that “it seems to be the people who are all smiles and ‘nicey nicey’ who get listened to round here”. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that despite his academic qualifications and that he’d run his own 2 man agency, he was aggressive in meetings and no one was listening to what he said because they were too busy worrying about him.

We all like nice people so, without being fake, be nice. It’ll make it easier for you to communicate with your client and if something goes bad, they’ll see you as a human being, not just a resource. Being nice – much underrated. Just think: Who would you prefer to be working with?

The rest? Work it out for yourself – that’s why you get write “experienced” on your applciations.

The Long Dog

From the fairy tales of our earliest years to the soap operas, newspapers and box office hits of our maturity, we humans love stories. But it’s not just about adventure and a happy ending. Stories are a medium through which we communicate and mentally store information in a handy recall framework of associated items.

“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact”. Robert McKee, screenwriter.

It’s easy to dismiss storytelling as something for kids and I wouldn’t recommend starting your corporate presentation with ‘Once upon a time there was a brave little CEO…” but as a technique for engaging audiences and conveying information it’s as good today as it was thousands of years ago.

The fact stories follow a narrative, building up layers of information and associated items (first this happened, then as a result that happened) helps us create a linear mnemonic – one that photographic memory performers use to connect and remember huge lists of seemingly unconnected items.

Used as a communication tool, stories and storytelling allow us to lay out a message in a clearly accessible form that we’re all familiar with.

“Rapport is created between the storyteller and the audience. They feel that they are actively involved, rather than just passively listening”, Lindsey Warnes Carroll, comedian and story teller.

Our brains and basic cultures have changed little since the days of hearing the news, learning about the latest religion/King/invaders and keeping in touch with our community through stories. In fact, traditional storytelling is enjoying a renaissance with storytelling festivals like Beyond the Border, held in the grounds of a cliff-top Welsh castle, on the increase.  And now there are even companies like The Story Tellers who “help business leaders engage their people in strategy, vision, values and change”.

But you don’t have to be a pro who’s spent years learning the art – we tell stories all the time: “Have you heard? She was with HIM last night at the bar and then…”.  Engaging stakeholders, communicating the progress of a project, concepts for design or delivering an unpalatable message, we all engage with this medium without thinking – it’s how we’re taught as children, how we consume news and entertainment: it’s our common culture as a species.

Some principles:

• Beginning THEN middle THEN end. Build up to the ‘big issue’ from the beginnings so your audience can start with simple concepts and add the detail – like Lego.
• Make sure the end has a real end. A joke without a punchline doesn’t work. Make sure your story builds to the main point, deliver that point, then finish or move to a new and different thread. Unless you’re very good, don’t try to carry several threads at once – people will get lost.
• Use a narrative to plan your presentation material (yes, I do mean PowerPoint slides amongst other things).
• Make sure you include details if you’re introducing new ideas. Don’t be afraid to stop the narrative and explain. E.g. ‘for those of you who don’t know what social networking is…’, or, ‘And the sword he held was carved with sigils and signs of a dark and unnatural nature…’, depending on your subject matter and audience.
• Stories can be spoken, written, pictorial or use just about any medium for their production. The importance is in the structure, building narrative and communication of the message.
• Experiment with stories that don’t yet have an ending and allow or use the audience to discover and create as a collaborative exercise. Remember those ‘choose your own adventure’ books? On the internet, a user’s journey through a website doesn’t always follow a prescriptive path, but is … wait for it … hypertextual.
• Enjoy the telling of the story and your audience will enjoy the story too – no matter how potentially dry your subject – believe me, I’m delivered some stats stories in my time that could have bored people into an early grave, without improving the engagement through storytelling.

“And they all lived happily ever after. The End.”

The Long Dog.

In the old days, just having a website was enough. Anyone other than your local pottery or cleaners of Oriental rugs who didn’t have a website was missing out. But these days, don’t sites have to try a little harder to get our attention?

A colleague was recently concerned that her organisation wanted to use PDFs instead of html pages for their website as “they are easier to maintain”. If this doesn’t shock you to the core please, please, PLEASE keep reading. If it does shock you, then read on in the smug knowledge that you’re already enlightened. Simply having a website doesn’t mean you’ve arrived / communicated / sold / answered or whatever it is your website’s supposed to be doing.

Facebook and MySpace aren’t the be all and end all, but they demonstrate how non-professionals create web pages, upload videos and images, create links and indulge in a bit of viral marketing. So why doesn’t every web site? Static text copy and a nice piccie in the top right really isn’t cutting it any more.  Regardless of organisations’ budgets, when users visit a site they expect the best. Any less is seen as failure and competitors are only a back button away.

SEO consultancy Fresh Egg’s Lee Colbran used the example of someone putting together flat-packed furniture. When the paper instructions aren’t any good, people could check the website. What they’d really benefit from is a ‘how to’ video. Wouldn’t we all? But wouldn’t it also offer some really high value, sticky content for customers?

Apart from nearly exploding about my PDF beleaguered colleague, Neontribe’s Harry Harrold told me that “we build video howtos into all our website bids now – written documentation is just too dull to be useful.”  Jay Ball, Creative Director of advertising agency Banner has also found that video in online ads gets way more responses than any other online media.

People like to be engaged – don’t disappoint them with shoddy budget content.

As well video, there are Flash animations, interactive Ajax pages, polls, user generated content, live chat and everything else that creates a rich user experience that’ll beat the pants of ‘text and piccie in the top right’.

Talking of pants, one of the best examples of rich content is Knicker Picler’s dressing room who use recorded videos of models who ‘cat walk’ lingerie outfits you pick. No, it’s not ‘adult’, but it might not be suitable for everyone to view at work. But it is really smart and shows how far rich interactions can go.

@haydens30 however has a point, “SEO needs one page/one subject to be effective, dynamic content and personalisation may not get the Google Juice they need”. There’s also your audience to consider.

User Experience practitioner Karen Stanton suggests”…older people don’t need rich ux. They need information as easily, as accessible as possible. [It also] depends where they’re being accessed, broadband speeds, internet cafes, libraries etc…”.

So again, here we are back at the inescapable conclusion that we must design for our users. Relying on ‘easy’ only answers short term budget issues. Use rich content to answer your users’ needs not the IT or Finance department’s needs.

Now … about those new pants…

The Long Dog.

Social media frontierswoman, PR pro and MD of PR agency thebluedoor, Abigail Harrison gives us some solid practical advice from the pointy end of using social media in a business context. Just don’t call her Bernard.

LD: Abi? Abigail? What should I call you?
AH: Abigail or @AbigailH would be just fine
LD: You just can’t help yourself, can you.

LD: You work in PR – what are the top 3 three things individuals can get from using social media?
AH: (1) It facilitates conversations with ‘influencer’ audiences about things they care about, (2) Ensures individuals stay ahead of the curve as digital tools evolve and networks develop, (3) Helps test ideas and develop thinking – people sometimes forget social media is great at delivering excellent results, it’s a brilliant research tool.

LD: Tell us about your organisation and what you do – yup, this is the chance to plug your biz
AH: Ahh music to my ears! thebluedoor is a PR agency. Our ’sweet spot’ is understanding the relevant digital tools – what they do or don’t do, and how they can work for different companies, brands and campaigns. Digital hasn’t changed the nuts and bolts of what PR is.

LD: Continental or ‘Full English’?
AH: Neither really – I love a pink grapefruit or a bowl of porridge.

LD: What got you interested in online social networking?
AH: I’ve been involved in online for a while, and worked on the PR for one of the largest dotcom IPOs in 2000 – StepStone, the online recruitment site. It’s a fascinating world which allows us all to work creatively with some brilliant practitioners.

LD: Isn’t this all a bit … well … geeky?
AH: Well, yes and no. Part of the problem is language. We do ourselves no favours hiding behind walls of geek-speak. It’s vital we make digital approachable and normalised. That said, it is crucial we understand the geekiness behind it all – and once you start to understand it, there’s a beautiful, measurable logic about the digital world.

LD: What are your top social sites for work?
AH: It has to be Twitter – the digital rock-star of the PR and online world. I have a separate screen on my desk with TweetDeck running – through this Twitter application we discover breaking news, respond to requests for help and interact with the multiple social communities using it. [LD: That is sooo 'geek chic']

LD: And top sites for play?
AH: It isn’t strictly a social site, but I couldn’t live without BBC iPlayer. It’s wonderful – great for catching up on the world and business.

LD: Pint of beer or glass or wine?
AH: Glass of wine – it’s been a long time since I had a pint!

LD: Favourite online social success story?
AH: The work that we have recently done for SocialSafe has been a real high point for me. Key to cracking online is to identify the ‘influencer’ blogs and sites. We successfully pitched a story to Mashable, and the ensuing traffic (meaningful rather than drive-by) and knock-on pick-up was phenomenal!

LD: Favourite online social disaster story?
AH: Thankfully I don’t have one. But I did send a new business pitch, addressed to ‘Mike’ but was actually ‘Mark’. Naturally he was upset – but we agreed as penance I’d be ‘Bernard’ for time-immemorial.

LD: So … Bernard … advice for someone starting out with social networking?
AH: Get your hands dirty and jump in.  It’s the only way to learn. Follow people on Twitter who use practice – it’s a great way to understand what and how people are using the tools. A key challenges is staying on top of developments, so keep reading. And of course don’t lose sight of the world outside the digital bubble.  

LD: Let’s say I’m a business who’s ’social curious’ – what are the top benefits and risks?
AH: Benefits:

• just taking a step towards understanding the digital world opens up a world of opportunity and possibility
• digital is a real-time barometer about how your audience, customers, stakeholders feel about you – not knowing is a bit like sticking your fingers in your ears and not looking, because it is happening anyway and isn’t going away anytime soon
• engaging online is a great way of qualifying leads and researching potential customers

Risks:

•  the major risk is letting the excitement of online get in the way of rational objective consideration – just because it’s shiny and powerful, it’s vital to understand the medium to ensure it fits in your overall business strategy
• also if you haven’t conducted the due diligence of understanding your current online footprint before you start experimenting you risk tripping over quite quickly and publically

LD: Thanks, Abigail. Want to come to my free social media event in London? Go on – it’s going to combine theatre, art and business skills and there’s a glass of wine in it for you?
AH: Go on then.

• More on Abigail / @AbigailH / Bernard (so many profiles, so little time) on thebluedoor website.

Soon after I joined  one particualt company, their intranet was benchmarked by the Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF). They conducted a number of usability tests, measuring ‘task completion’:  a number of commonly performed tasks (find the company org chart, download a particular form, find the contact details of a particular department etc), using employees to see, firstly, if they could complete the task and, secondly, how many attempts it took. The intranet in question was benchmarked 36th out of 36 FTSE/Fortune 100 and public sector equivalent organisations. Not good.

Over the next 12 months, while a long running IT acquisition project lumbered on, I redesigned the intranet publisher training, created a community of practice for these publishers and run two conferences for them, a governance structure had been put in place and I had spent a lot of time cleaning up and deleting content and whole sections of the intranet that were out of date, duplicated or, in my opinion, substandard in terms of usability or brand (it’s amazing how departments suddenly find resource to clean up their sections of the intranet when you tell them they’ve got a month, or you’re archiving the whole section to disc).

Now … while this all seemed good and there was a generally positive feeling things were getting better, I wanted to give some proof. The IBF’s next annual measurement of efficiency / effectiveness of task completion now put the intranet at 8^th out of 36 FTSE companies. Also, these usability metrics, matched against the traffic reports for how much time was being spent on the intranet suddenly gave me some real figures to show, in terms of what time employees were spending on the intranet was productive time.

The result showed a saving of 73 man years of intranet time or £8m/£13m in avoided salary costs for paying people to use the intranet and fail – check out the figures for yourself. 

While this demonstrates a definite and positive reclamation of wasted employee time, avoided cost is an intangible benefit and questions like ’so how much headcount can we lose?’ don’t really work. The point here is that each employee was wasting time each day on the intranet (never mind the additional time wasted calling some else to find the answer and have them look into the issue). This is reclaimed time for them to use on the work they’re employed to do. It’s like having a leaking water pipe. If you leave the holes, you lose water; if you plug the holes the pipe can’t carry more water than it was supposed to, but it does work to capacity.

And if employees aren’t working to capacity already, then you’ve bigger management and workload issues to worry about.

Back to the numbers, £8m/$13m is a considerably larger sum than I cost (no, really, it is) or was spent on the improvments, so not a bad little ROI methinks.

The Long Dog

In the Lord of the Rings, Sauron (baddie) tries to hunt down the hobbit Frodo Baggins (goody). Despite dispatching nine undead warrior-kings, armed with magic swords and mounted on dragons, they fail to find the diminutive bumpkin, travelling on foot on first trip outside his village, with only his gardener for protection.

Why?

Apart from making a very short story where Evil triumphs over Good, it was because Sauron depended on assumptions: that people would always use the features of his product – a magic ring, conveying invisibility and all round magical artefact to be used by the wearer’s to bring about world-changing events. But Frodo didn’t want to use the ring (much).

The same can be said of websites and intranets:  features sound great and they cost money so they’re poured in, papering over the cracks of uncertain design; vanity content waffles about the extent of the fabulous products and welcome messages with grinning, gurning director’s portraits make grinning, gurning directors feel warm and fluffy.

Result is users can’t find the things they need, content and pages begin to spread to cover all possibilities and your competitor’s site is only a back button away.

Another example of assumptions (outside Middle Earth) comes from a supermarket chain who wanted to sell more baby products. The chain assumed the demographic was young women, full-time mums, shopping during the day time and thought of moving baby products near whatever was selling to women. After some research they actually found the main buyers of nappies (diapers) were men, aged 25 – 35, on their way home from work. Change of thinking? Hell yeah – the nappies / diapers were moved nearer to the alcohol, and beer sales sky rocketed. Clever business people … gullible Daddies.

Before you build your website based on weeks of sniping between marketing and IT, while the graphic designer doodles on paper and wonders about iPods, do these things…

• Remember Columbo gets the murderer by asking questions, not by telling his boss he’ll grab the first dodgy looking guy
• Find out about current and target users (these may be different groups)
• Find the middle point between business objectives and user needs: objectives definitely won’t be met if users’ needs aren’t
• Find a way to get out of doing things because they’re the director’s ideas (medicine that works is based on science – the rest is just pot pouri and placebo water)
• Don’t start with big design ideas or funky tech solutions, go back to the basics of what you’re trying to do and for who and work up from there
• Try out your ideas while they’re still on paper before developing beautiful and expensive failures
• Don’t always try to think outside the box … people need and like boxes
• World-conquering Lords of ultimate Evil should hire fewer magical henchmen and spend the gold pieces saved on hobbit-centred research
• Never … never assume you’re right

The Long Dog