Author Archive

Experience Toggles (aka Just Another Crazy Idea)

Posted on: April 16th, 2010 by Justin

Recently while browsing some of my favorite news sites I came across the redesigned Reuters.com and noticed an interesting feature: the “Now View”. It allows the user to toggle how the news is presented based on preset options. For example, if the site visitor is interested in viewing headlines based on location, there’s the “Newsmap View”. If he is more interested in photography he can choose to view the same headlines, but with photography serving as the lead content. Same concept can be applied to the “Video View” and “Headline View”. This isn’t revolutionary functionality by any means, but the underlying concept — presenting a website differently based upon a user’s mindset and preference — can be extended further and offers several intriguing possibilities.

Imagine visiting ESPN.com and being able to choose a “Team View” from a header-based toggle, where you’ve already set your favorite teams in your account profile. Suddenly, the entire website shifts to be about your teams. The site structure remains the same in this instance, but the content, and maybe even navigation, changes to only cover topics and teams you wish to read about. Or if you visit a news website and you’re really only interested in the Middle East at that very moment, you could choose “Middle East” as an “experience toggle” which would shift the content of the entire site to meet that mindset and content need. The site visitor in turn feels engaged and fully in control of the experience, leading to increased overall satisfaction (in theory). In a way, the site visitor is creating a customized magazine just for himself.

“Uh, why not just click on ‘Middle East’ in the navigation in that last example?”, you ask. I’m not a fan of your tone, but excellent question. The value here, at least in my view, is that this would eliminate a lot of informational and visual noise. The website becomes laser-focused, completely subservient to the user’s mindset and goals, and hides any content not related to the user’s current aim. It’s not dissimilar to a news website’s mobile experience versus its desktop counterpart — you get just the facts on the mobile platform, clear of distraction. With the desktop version you get the facts, but you also get a ton of other content that you may or may not find interesting. The content switch could be handled dynamically, and switching back to a standard view for passive exploration would be as simple as a click.

There are obviously a lot of holes in this idea, and it’s not something I’ve put a ton of thought into just yet, but any way to provide the site visitor more control over the on-site experience and increase engagement is worth further discussion. Would love to hear your thoughts!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the First Release

Posted on: March 10th, 2010 by Justin

Something has been bothering me for days now—I simply can’t remember where I read or heard the following quote:

"Your first release isn’t your product, it’s simply a way to trick your customers into talking to you."

Or some variation thereof. It has stuck with me due to its inherent truth. It sums up so succinctly what I try to explain to not only clients, but also internally to myself as I’m meticulously iterating concepts for both personal and client projects. The core of user experience design is to create amazing, incredibly easy and streamlined experiences out of the gate, but the reality in today’s economy is that budgets may not be available for extensive up-front user/market research and analysis. And even up front research pales in comparison to real users interacting with real websites or applications—issues will always be raised and new feature requests made no matter how extensive the initial discovery/planning phase. Time and money could be burned creating what is meant to be the Next Big Thing, only for it to flop and be off target since initial understanding of the target audience was off.  And that understanding could be off not only because assumptions were incorrect, but also because people can rarely articulate innovation before they see it. No potential customer told Steve Jobs the specs for the iPhone before it was built. It’s the nature of the web and technology, nothing is ever set in stone, so it is essential to embrace and plan for change.

Understanding this fluid environment is the first step in getting over First Release Anxiety, the feeling that your site or app may not be received warmly or could even hurt your brand. How can you provide an optimal experience for your customers unless the lines of communication with them are fully open? This isn’t to say that the first release should be made haphazardly, or without extensive up front design thinking and effort. On the contrary, those things are essential. But to continually re-think everything, pick and prod until deadlines are long gone and buried, is usually a waste of effort and funds. Don’t be afraid to get something out there, engage your customers and the next release will be far more on target than originally imagined.

Oh, if anyone can help me remember the source of the above quote, please chime in. Want to give credit where its due!