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A design and usability blog - news, opinion and tips from the increasingly important world of user-centred design.
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Achievable innovation - a small steps approach to improving services. »
19 July 2010
The need for innovation is more urgent now than ever. Yet the appetite for change is at a very low ebb. Why is this?
Those of us in working at the nexus of digital strategy/innovation/service design find it hard to accept that maintaining systems that deliver poor value and substandard experience for all that use them should prevail. We see opportunity in change. We see a better way where service providers and users both gain from the value they create together. But mention service innovation or user experience in most board rooms, marketing departments and brand communications teams and you'll probably get a slightly bemused look.
Despite this, many conversations we have had with businesses and public organisations in recent months centre around doing more for less. It is clear that prolonged under investment and a squeeze on spending is driving many businesses into a make do and mend way of working. This cannot be sustained over the medium term, and most know it.
These dynamics present a frustrating reality. There is a clear need for service innovation in the market and a willing, talented network of design thinkers ready to help. And yet the supply side and the demand side seem unable to find each other.
People are hard wired for consistency
Radical innovation is taking place, mostly at the margins, and gently creeping into the mainstream. Social innovation and web based services are leading the way. But for existing and established businesses and brands, radical innovation, be it in service design, business technology or communication, is hard to do. It takes effort. It is made harder by the fact that people, by and large, don't like change. And if the people aren't with you, disproportionate responsibility for driving change falls on just a few.
To make this a less onerous prospect, we have focused more recent conversations on achievable innovation. This makes it easier on teams who are under a lot of pressure to really do more with less and not be paralysed by the true scale of change required.
'The only thing harder than starting something new, is stopping something old' - Russell Ackoff
Change - in bite size chunks
Achievable innovation is a small steps approach that enables people to make smaller changes that lead to new understanding. The comfort and confidence gained from this approach leads, in turn, to a readiness to tackle the next issue in another small step. Seeing value being created in manageable phases provides assurance and a transfer of knowledge that enables them to do more for themselves.
This may seem very Big Society. Whatever your view on that might be, some of it's tenets do seem to create the space for social innovators, digital mavericks and service designers to be heard. Public and corporate sector businesses would do well to tune in to what's being achieved by this burgeoning community of change agents. Some feel there is only a 6 month window for real change to begin. Beyond which the window will close, business as usual will limp on and the opportunity will have been missed.
Despite this urgent need, many leaders are retrenching rather than engaging. They are choosing to persevere with broken, outmoded and inappropriate systems and processes in the hope that they can hang on long enough to reach a point where investing in innovation seems like a good idea. The thing is, customers and staff don't stand still, so by the time that day comes, it is likely too be to late.
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5 top tips for getting value from your web strategy »
09 July 2010
Following on from the BBC story about the £105m website, we give some tips to make sure you're not getting ripped off by big technology.
1. Content - first, not last
The importance of content, and the effort required to create it, is nearly always underestimated. We suggest you start thinking about the content your users will need and who will provide it as early as you can. Plan for it, resource it properly, and leave plenty of time to create it.
2. Code - does it work on everything?
These days your site should work on any device and in any browser. (OK, maybe not IE6 but that's another story). Some would say think mobile first. At the very least make sure your agency creates code that is clean, accessible and Web Standards compliant. If it isn't you're storing up trouble for the future.
3. User research - allow enough time for discovery
What your users will tell you, if you take the time to ask, will probably surprise and enlighten you. Allow their insight to influence your direction. Make use of their ideas to deliver a better, more usable and useful product. They'll thank you and respect you for it.
4. Planning & strategy - taking the bull by the horns
Now is great time to re-conceive your business in digital terms. How would you design your business if you were starting from scratch? What services can you deliver online? What new ways can build trust and loyalty? What efficiencies can you gain by giving people the best digital tools?
5. Content again - set it free
You know your audience. You know what they're into and what they want from you. You know where they congregate online. Now you need to push your content out so that they can discover and share it. Don't store it up for a brochure or annual report - if it's good stuff set it free.
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How are things for you? »
18 June 2010
Most of the people we work with are facing big changes. Rather than batten down the hatches, this is the ideal opportunity to innovate.
As business considers the challenges that lie ahead it can, with the right advice and help, discover, trial, and adopt new web based tools that increase workflow, improve customer engagement and drive down costs. These new tools, coming in from the edge to the mainstream, can deliver huge downstream benefits and help make change exciting rather than onerous, and free up people to do more with less.
Now is the time to innovate
Economic pressure, a new Government agenda and a general change in the wind are forcing many organisations to rethink how they do things. As the digital infrastructure around us becomes ever more sophisticated, people are finding new ways to design and deliver services in more agile, efficient and user friendly ways. This is an era of innovation, driven by those that have the vision and guile to make things happen. Many of them responding a social, rather than business need.
The signal we are getting from the people we work with is very clear - with so much technology around, how do we know we are making the right choices? It's a valid point. Keeping up with the pace of digital business is beyond many. But technology isn't really the issue. There's a lot of it around and it's getting smarter everyday. It's what people do with that really matters. And that's where it gets interesting.
In our research work we talk with people about their experiences of using technologies business and consumer technologies. The insights we gain into their needs, frustrations, requirements and capabilities are accumulating in our research knowledge bank. Certain themes recur: (ease of) access, (fair) value, (good) usability, relevance and (quality) service. Compare this desire with the experience most of us have of using existing technology. It's generally the polar opposite.
Fat technology - or light and fast
Many organisations are tied in knots by technology that is no longer fit for purpose. Bloated, over-specified enterprise systems, conceived in a different era, and with little involvement of the poor folk who have to use them every day. It's not easy for a business to uncouple from such systems, but if a strategic decision to do so is not taken, frustrated staff simply work around it in any case.
They generally seek out and recommend to others, web based tools and applications that enable them to work in newer, smarter ways. These tools tend to be easier to use than the systems specified by their employer. By working around complicated and cumbersome IT systems they become freer, more connected and more productive.
Employers should not try to crack down on this and force their people back behind the firewall. Instead, they should empower their people to work in the way that best suits them. Encourage this user led innovation and go with it. Enterprises that embrace this shift away from IT specification enjoy many benefits. Staff are happier, productivity increases and costs are reduced.
People are choosing their own preferred tools
The emergence of web based tools that can be adopted by even large enterprises is part of a wider shift from ownership of technology to subscription. It also marks a shift towards people self selecting the technology they find most useful. What this tells us is that people are taking technology into their own hands and completely redesigning the way they work.
This is another step change in the evolution of the web that's being driven by people, not technology. Many enterprises however, adhering to the top down rather than bottom up change approach are too inflexible to grasp the opportunity. This is unsurprising, and will continue until a move away from IT is common place.
Much of the real innovation in people's hands now happens on the edge, and is often a response to a social rather than business need. In trying to meet or improve a social need, these new tools can reveal new and exciting benefits and even entirely new business models. Tools such as Patient Opinion and MyPolice are bringing service providers and the public closer together and delivering improvements and efficiencies that weren't possible by any other means. School of Everything is revolutionising learning and has the power to make massive savings for Local Authorities. And the king of edge innovations - Twitter - which started out as side project - proves that small tools that aim to do one thing brilliantly can be much more effective than a big one that does many things badly.
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Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, lays out his thoughts on Flash and why Apple won't allow it on the iPhone, iPad and iPod »
29 April 2010
Jobs talks up HTML5, CSS and Javascript, and weighs in for video encoding standard H.264.
A very rational and reasoned rebuff to Adobe in this news story from Apple.
Well worth a few minutes.
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The importance of saying thanks! »
19 March 2010
A new report from Snow Valley takes an in-depth look at this overlooked, but increasingly important, page on every internet retailers' website.
Internet retailing is a touch business and getting gets ever more competitive. Understanding your users, and how important your 'Thank you' page is can make a big difference to the user experience, and your bottom line.
What this shows is that retailers have little or no interest in the user experience at this crucial post sale moment.Compare the complete lack of design and customer thinking with the effort put into store design.
This link shows you 135 different thank you pages. There's a lot of room for improvement. Thank you, Snow Valley, for sharing.
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FTSE 100 companies ignore Twitter at your peril »
09 March 2010
Whatever you may understand, or care, about social media micro blogging service Twitter, some of your customers and your clients are undoubtedly tuned in.
Twitter's influence on customer services is difficult to measure but what is clear is that it is having an impact and more enlightened business are beginning to use Twitter as another channel to engage with their customers.
Research from Virgin Business (@vmbusiness) suggests that FTSE 100 companies are not the quickest to respond to the opportunities that social media offers business.
Here's the story from Management Today and IT Pro.
And here's an anecdote of our own...
This week we've been organising some of our sites and services hosted on an older server that we wanted to decommission. Calls and messages to the small ISP had proved unsuccessful So one of our developers tweeted about the quality of service. To his surprise he received an almost instant response from the ISP in question.
Twitter was listening.
