Create An Amazing Experience

When to Build a Mobile App

James Burke — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 03:56:12 +0000

The SXSW panel on Extending Your Brand had some great insights. One that is totally worth sharing are 3 points of criteria for building a mobile app by Shiv Singh – VP of Social for Razorfish.

The panel was also attended by Rob Girling from Artefact and Adrian Ho from Zuess Jones. They covered a lot of topics, but essentially discussed how brand marketers use apps (i.e. iPhone, Android, Facebook, etc). The panel gave examples of ones they like and ones they do not like. The bad focused on those that emulate traditional advertisements using a mobile medium (i.e. Mercedes AMG iPhone application). These apps are typically used once, mostly consist of a bucket of links, and offer no social or location-based hooks. On the other hand, good apps, operate in the opposite fashion.

During the panel, Shiv Singh discussed 3-points of criteria he uses for deciding whether an app is appropriate or not:

1. There is a passionate audience for the app
2. It will have useful content and/or high utility
3. The content changes frequently

The framework is simple and has general applicability. While not necessarily a comprehensive tool, I can very much see using this criteria for a quick qualification of ideas.

High Fidelity Prototyping

James Burke — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:14:22 +0000

Critical parts of user-centered design, such as prototyping and usability testing, are often misunderstood and may appear to increase the cost of a Web project. But these design methods actually have their legitimacy in cost effective development. Though they add a few percent to the development expenses up-front, they can reduce the cost of making changes due to unanticipated client and user requirements by 10 to 100 times.

Prototyping can save you both time and money because it’s a fast and inexpensive way to convey behaviors, what a requirement specification fails to do. Since prototypes can visualize the product’s workings to the client, you can deal with the shortcomings and misconceptions that tend to appear as the site, tablet or mobile app takes form.

The full benefits of prototyping include:

Prototypes allow us to show fast results to the client
Prototyping legalizes experimentation and many revisions because it’s inexpensive to alter
Prototypes are easy to grasp because they simulate how the final site, tablet or mobile app will work
They can work as a common reference, and bring a disparate team together
Users, developers and the clients will focus on content, structure and functionality, and will not be distracted by the details of graphic design
Prototypes make it possible to get a formal approval of the design from both programmers and the client before you proceed to the development stage
They make it possible to start usability testing at an early stage in the development process

User Stories

James Burke — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 03:50:52 +0000

Successful online experiences enable users (i.e. customers, site visitors, etc.) to accomplish their goals. But oftentimes, in the design process, keeping users’ goals top-of-mind is no easy task.

To overcome this hurtle there is a simple yet effective exercise that ends with what we call a User Story Index. By the name alone you can derive two important facts about the exercise: it is about users (or site visitors) and what they want to accomplish when visiting a Website.

To create a User Story Index with our clients, we begin with a User Story Workshop to gain agreement on:

1. Who are their users (or in other words site visitors)?
2. What are their goals?
3. How can we (the IA/UX team) help users achieve these goals?

Within the workshop, client teams are created based on important user segments (i.e. customers versus prospects) and presented with pre-defined user statements (i.e. I want to find a store in my town) along with several “wild cards.” Teams are challenged to “walk in their users shoes” and over a series of several rounds make trade-off decisions to create a final set of 5-7 goals.

This set then becomes the driver for making subsequent decisions on features (i.e. a store finder) and functions, which are done using a similar process as above.

At the conclusion, teams have agreed on top user goals, how they are prioritized, and what features or functions might be necessary to support those goals. Now, all teams have a consistent set of user guidance to operate within.

So you are probably asking yourself, okay, what’s the big deal? The big deal is simplification. In the end, our clients have a clearer understanding of how to map their business objectives to their customers’ needs to design a user interface that answers the age old question every customer wants the chance to answer, “How can we help you today?”

Blog Up

James Burke — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:56:35 +0000

Implementing a blog doesn’t have to be over whelming, or even make you break a sweat. Here’s how.

Step 1. Go Window Shopping

WordPress, with it’s robust features and abundance of widgets and plugins, can give your blog great features and save you the time and money in the process. Is your company public? Use the stock widget. Are you looking to connect to Facebook? Use Facebook Connect. Do you want to have users follow and friend you on Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter? Use the Social Share Widget. Do you want users to be able to find a location? Use google maps. Need your site to go mobile? Check out WPtouch to transform your WP site to an iphone, android, you name it application. What about SEO? Try All in One SEO pack. I could go on….and on….

Step 2. Harness the power of WP

WordPress has many features that enable you to build a more robust blog, but you have to know how to use them. This is where understanding the technology can lead to better utilization of it to meet your needs. Even by simply understanding the variety of post-types you can have (blog, event, jobs) you can use WP to create a whole host of dynamic content. Use categories to help organize information into a logical navigation structure on the front-end. Once you know what you can do, create your architecture with functionality in mind: Google maps on Contact Us page; Stock Quote widget to enhance your investor page. Moving on to step 3…

Step 3. Architect a User Interface that showcases your functionality

Organize the components of your blog and place them where the user will expect to find them. For Search functionality my mouse is in the top right area before my eyes are. Tags Clouds/Lists, Category lists and any functional tools in areas where users can access them easily. Make your site “Widget-Ready” so you can add a widget without calling up your design team.

Step 4. Create a design that shows that “Walkin’ Talkin’ Personality”

Is your Company Personality Fun? Serious? Geeky? Extreme? Apply those design elements that you probably restricted just a little bit elsewhere on your site (go on, admit it) and use your blog to jump overboard. Your users will love it. Here, they get to know the real you.

Step 5. Ready, Set, Build! Implementation & Testing

You’ve outlined what Plugins and features you are going to implement, you’ve created your architecture around these features, you took a chance on your design to make it reflect your personality, now all that’s left to do is build it! Luckily, a WordPress blog can be up and running in no time. If you have an existing WordPress blog you can export/import content into your new site in a matter of minutes. If you are new to WordPress, it’s very user-friendly and you won’t even need a “for dummies” book. Create/Edit/Stylize content with ease. Upload images and stylize them too if you want. Are you accepting comments? Turn them on. Really, it doesn’t get any easier than this tool. All that’s left to do next is open up the hosting gates and go live!

Footer Widget

James Burke — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:15:29 +0000

Socialize with us on Twitter

Header widget

James Burke — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:52:35 +0000

Socialize with us

Web Content Management (WPM)

Shena — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:48:51 +0000

Implementing a web content management (WPM) solution doesn’t have to be over whelming, or even make you break a sweat. Here’s how.

Step 1. Go Window Shopping

Step 2. Harness the power of WP

Step 3. Architect a User Interface that showcases your functionality

Step 4. Create a design that shows that “Walkin’ Talkin’ Personality”

Step 5. Ready, Set, Build! Implementation & Testing

Customer Experience Strategies

James Burke — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:13:31 +0000

If there is one important discussion we continue to have with our prospects and clients, it’s that delivering amazing cross-channel customer experiences takes new capabilities.

Why is the delivery of the Customer Experience (CX) such an important part of a brand’s success? Simply put…technology. As Scott Brinker points out in his excellent post Agencies and the marketing technologist revolution, digital is winning (see slide 5). Companies are beginning to tune their strategic thinking towards ways that increase the perceived value of their brand, increase lead gen and customer acquisition and decrease support needs – all through digital means. Customer Experience strategy and tactics (both outward and inward facing) allow corporations to have more touch points that are relationship driven and ultimately define the brand.

Companies need to use digital channels to create conversations with their customers, employees, and partners. Almost as important, a strategy for empowering employees to use digital channels needs to be in place.

At Consensus we think about the heuristic needs of the Customer Experience through a strategic approach that includes four important dimensions:

- Dialog
- Relevance
- Liquidity
- Consistency

We are tuning digital channels to support fundamental brand needs. That is the higher mission of successful companies.

Whether you are an agency executive, brand manager, or IT director…if you are not thinking about how to digitize your experiences you will quickly fall behind. The Customer Experience will always be important, as well as a source of competitive advantage.