Bureau West

I got back from the World Future Society conference a week ago, and my mind is still spinning!  For me, attending this conference meant stretching beyond my comfort zone, and I’m glad I did.  The presentations and topics brought up at the conference were fascinating.

One of the themes that emerged from several presentations: robotics and 3D printing will reduce the need for people to work.  This brought up several questions and concerns:

• If there’s less need for work (i.e., fewer jobs), how will most people make a living?
• Will they even need to make a living, or will it be possible for everyone to have food and basic necessities for free?
• And if that’s the case, what will people do with all their free time?

The big question regarding this and many of the other forecasts is: how do we get from here to there?  For example, will we arrive at a way for everyone to be provided for easily, or will there be mass rioting in the streets?  For most future predictions, there are both utopian and dystopian versions of how to get there.

Speaking of utopian vs. dystopian, my favorite presentation was by Brian David Johnson, who works as a futurist at Intel, but is also working on a personal project about the future of the American Dream.  He said that “science and technology have progressed to the point where what we build is only constrained by the limits of our own imaginations.”  So if we can have a vision for the future, then the rest is all just engineering.  I found the idea that the future can be as positive or as negative as we envision it to be very inspiring.  But then, Johnson and I have something in common: we’re both optimists!

The future predictions made me feel even more strongly about the importance of understanding human emotions and I have added to my presentation about how understanding customer emotions can increase company profits.  I’d be happy to give the presentation – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

I gave a presentation last week at the User Experience Professionals Association’s conference, together with Abby Leafe, about how we can get a better understanding of users’ overall experience by going beyond usability research in the lab and conducting ethnographic research in people’s actual environment (“Out of the Lab and Into the Wild! Mobile Ethnography for Richer UX Insights”).

While I was at the conference, I was drawn to several presentations that showed that companies can be more successful when they consider customers’ emotional state as they design products and services.  And interestingly, the presentations weren’t talking about products we traditionally consider emotional, but rather tax preparation software and website data security!

Companies are looking at each of the steps in their customers’ interactions with them (the “customer journey”) and finding ways to create a lasting positive impression rather than a neutral or negative impression.

For example, Turbotax tax preparation software now asks users how they feel about doing their taxes.  If the user answers “not so good,” the software says “we get it.  The tax code is pretty crazy.  But we’re used to rolling up our sleeves and making taxes less, well, taxing.”  They encourage the user and humanize the software at the same time.

Another example: consider the steps involved in taking a taxi.  The last step in the process is paying the driver, which can include some difficulties like figuring out how much to tip, or the driver claiming his credit card machine doesn’t work, etc.  Uber came along and has delighted customers by removing that step from the process: the payment is automatically charged to your credit card on file.  You just thank the driver and get out of the car.

At Symantec, researchers asked company executives to describe the steps in their customers’ “journey” and also to rate the customer experience at each step as positive, neutral or negative.  Then they conducted research with customers and asked the same questions.  They found discrepancies between executives’ views and customers’ experiences: there were areas where the company was doing better than they thought and didn’t need to improve and other problem areas that executives were unaware of.

Getting the buy-in of a company’s senior leadership is crucial in order redesign the user experience to delight customers.  In many cases, it requires an “internal marketing” effort to persuade them of its importance.  I’m willing to help: I’ve developed a presentation showing how understanding customer emotions increases company profits.  I’d be happy to give the presentation – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “Out of the Lab and Into the Wild! Mobile Ethnography for Richer UX Insights,” Abby Leafe and Jay Zaltzman, UXPA 2015; “Principles of Emotional Design,” Garron Engstrom and Jake Maynard, UXPA 2015; “Mapping, ”Shima Kazerooni, UXPA 2015; “Create a Customer-Driven Culture that Inspires a Large Organization,” Dawn Nidy and Kristy Avgerinos, UXPA 2015

We’re frequently called upon to come up with creative ideas, whether in focus groups or in workshops with clients.  In these types of brainstorming sessions, we need to separate the process into two separate parts: first, generating lots of ideas, including crazy ones; and then, narrowing down those ideas based on reality.  We do that, because people tend to censor themselves and don’t even mention ideas they don’t think are feasible.  But one person’s wild idea might spark another person to think of a variation on the idea that could actually work!

We use a variety of techniques to get people to turn off their internal censors and come up with great ideas.  I thought I knew them all, until I read “Stir It Up! Recipes for Robust Insights & Red Hot Ideas” by my fellow researcher Laurie Tema-Lyn.  The book is full of great techniques.  Here is one of the techniques in the book that Laurie has allowed me to share with you:

Get Fired!

Sometimes it’s really hard to get a team to be speculative and creative.  Perhaps this kind of activity is very different from the way they typically work, or their industry is extremely conservative, so that lateral thinking exercises are a struggle.  Here’s one that always seems to break through the resistance. It requires a little “drama” to pull off, and you, the facilitator, have to believe in your heart that you will get good results. You can use this with client or consumer teams on any task for which you are seeking ideas.

How to Do It:

“Now I want to give you permission to come up with some really novel… (solutions, or whatever you are working toward). For the next few minutes I’d like you to give me all those wild and crazy ideas that you never thought you could say out loud.  They are the ‘get fired’ ideas or the notions that are ‘illegal, immoral or fattening’ (that usually gets a laugh!) The only caveat is that there has to be something in the idea that if it could be implemented, really would help (solve the problem…etc.)

Let’s get these ideas up quickly, without censoring.  No one outside this room ever has to know about these ideas.”

Keep the pace up with your energy and movement. Try to get at least one ‘Get Fired’ idea from each person. If the team is reticent, model an idea just to get them started. After a few minutes, call a ‘Stop!’ and go to the next phase.

“Great, and now let’s take these ideas and see where they might lead.  I’d like each of you to select any one idea that you like and write it on your own pads, even if you can’t imagine how you might implement it. Then huddle with a partner and talk through what you have, tossing ideas back and forth like ping-pong. See if you can come up with at least one idea that came from the ‘Get Fired’, that is more feasible.”

Listen in as people are talking and give them a couple of minutes to start making connections, then capture those “next generation” ideas on flip charts.

Tip: Before you leave this activity, you just might want to tear up the ‘Get Fired’ list and not put them in the final meeting notes.  I’ve worked with some pharmaceutical and financial clients who were very uncomfortable if these raw notes were ever disseminated outside the room.

Notice how the exercise has two parts: first, generating wild ideas, and second, tossing ideas back and forth with a partner.  That’s a great way to get a wild idea to develop into a feasible one.

Do you need to come up with creative ideas?  Just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Source: “Stir It Up! Recipes for Robust Insights & Red Hot Ideas,”Laurie Tema-Lyn, Practical Imagination Enterprises

Mary Meeker’s respected Internet Trends report was delivered last week.  One area of focus was mobile internet usage on smartphones.  Mobile internet users worldwide increased 24% from 2013 to 2014, to a total of 2.1 billion users.  And Americans are spending almost 3 hours a day on their smartphones!

With those numbers, companies are looking for the most effective ways to advertise on mobile devices.  They should avoid the temptation to copy their TV ads on mobile platforms.  For effective mobile advertising, consider the following guidelines:

• Use native ad formats, such as Facebook’s suggested posts or Twitter’s promoted tweets.

• Ads should be short and simple. Take the context into account: mobile users are looking at a smaller screen and will scroll past your ad if they don’t immediately understand the ad’s message.

• Use portrait orientation for video. Most users won’t bother to rotate their phones to view video in landscape orientation.

• Don’t “overproduce” video ads. When an ad is viewed on a mobile device, a slick ad looks very different than the surrounding content and is more likely to be ignored.  Simpler, more direct ads are perceived as more authentic.

Want to figure out the best way to connect to your customers?  Call me at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “Internet Trends 2015,” KPCB, May 27, 2015; “Apple’s ‘1984’ TV Commercial Holds Lessons For Today’s Mobile Video Ads,” AdExchanger, June 1, 2015; “5 Mobile Advertising Best Practices,” iMedia Connection, March 10, 2015; “6 Creative Best Practices for Mobile Page Post Ads,” Business 2 Community, May 27, 2015