Blog
News, insight and tips from the social web.
The Hoop blog covers the evolving digital landscape, social media, mobile communications, content marketing and also includes 5 top finds and Fish on Friday. Feel free to make comments.
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What’s the responsive plan for the BBC? »
A look at the potential I see in the responsive design for the BBC News mobile website. For me their focus on content and reading is right, but now I'm wondering if desktop is missing out.
Today Chris Russell wrote up the justification behind BBC News' switch to responsive design for their mobile site. They've taken the mobile website (m.bbc.co.uk/news) and adapted it so that it now deals with many more device sizes, from desktop right down to smartphone sized screens. The techniques they've used relate to responsive web design, the benefits of which we've covered before.
However is "mobile" really the right place to be targeting this effort? The design of the new site is beautifully simple and brilliant for reading, but describing this as a "mobile" site (supposedly as opposed to "desktop") seems to be assuming too much about the context in which it will be used. I appreciate you haven't forced your mobile visitors to the mobile version (OK apart from here) they can still see the standard view, but what about changing the naming convention (the positioning) of this new site?
[The responsive mobile BBC News homepage]
Top priority for context in web design has to be the site visitor's objectives, not the device they use. Labeling a simplified version of your website as the "mobile" view assumes that mobile visitors don't want to perform complex activities. Research from all over the web (including some startling stats from sites we've built) suggests the world is quickly going mobile. Assuming they don't want to take their complex activities with them is quite a stretch.
The Opportunity
Rather than complain that you're doing it wrong, I think you have the perfect opportunity. Do you remember Facebook Lite? Do you use Instapaper or Read it Later? Have you seen the Apple Safari Reader? Each of these tools has a different purpose, but the overall effect is roughly the same, a light view of the content with many of the extras (adverts and other trivia) stripped out. If I'm reading anything on the web, Instapaper is my preferred view. Forget about the distractions I want to focus on the content.
This new site uses the technology behind responsive web design, but with a twist. Traditionally (what tradition there is on the web) responsive web design requires one web page i.e. www.bbc.co.uk/news responding to many devices. However, in this first iteration you've chosen to effectively take a copy of the page and put it here m.bbc.co.uk/news/ (Note: for non‐geeks, the "www" and "m" are the bits that make the difference). What if, as I've found myself choosing to do, I can switch between the "mobile" and standard views, not dependent on the context of my device but the context of me? This strikes me as rather more appropriate with such a content heavy site where reading is such a core activity.
The feeling of focus I had when reading a "mobile" site story was the same I have when using Instapaper. In fact I may well find myself reading on links beginning with "http://m.bbc…" even if I'm on the desktop. Just my own small experience suggests you have the beginnings of a site feature with Instapaper‐like clarity, but without the overhead of your visitor having to be enough of a geek to embed the aforementioned services into their lives. So why not rename what you call a mobile view? I like what you're doing, I just think your signposting is a little off.
Categories: Insight
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How are things for you? »
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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Tags: Business strategy, Digital strategy, User centred thinking
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Digital Britain - 10 points to ponder »
The digital economy is the most dynamic sector in the world and as the global recession bites, it is essential to nurture those parts of the economy that can generate growth potential and jobs.
Their words, not ours
The statement above is cut straight from the content of Digital Britain, the interim report from the DCMS on Britain’s digital future. It makes interesting reading and has implications for us all. To save you time, we’ve pulled out 10 top passages and published them below.
1. Ready
British consumers have a huge appetite for new digital services, with high levels of take-up of new networks and devices. This in turn creates a market environment which unlocks new commercial possibilities and encourages innovation in new content, services and applications.
2. Sitting ducks
These changes (in consumer habits) are challenging the economics of intermediaries of all kinds and more traditional types of content companies – publishers, the music industry, the newspaper industry and broadcasters – in particular.
3. New rules
When there is very widespread (contrarian) behaviour and social acceptability of such behaviour that is at odds with the rules, then the rules, the business models that the rules have underpinned and the behaviour itself may all need to change.
4. Reach
In the UK today over nine in ten households can get first generation broadband. Six in ten households have today already adopted it, a higher percentage than most other major economies.
5. Broadband everywhere
Several other countries are now moving to a universal service commitment for broadband. America, France, Australia and Finland have all announced plans for a universal guarantee.
6. Untapped potential
In the UK, an estimated 17 million people over the age of 15 are not using computers and the Internet. We need to build the awareness of the benefits of internet technology to enhance the life chances of all. Otherwise inequality in the use and application of digital technologies is potentially a significant new driver of social exclusion in the 21st century, which risks accelerating existing social divides and creating new ones.
7. User experience
We (the Govt) commit to ensure that public services online are designed for ease of use by the widest range of citizens, taking advantage of the widespread uptake of broadband to offer an improved customer experience and encourage the shift to online channels in delivery and service support.
8. Like, hello!
This country has the potential to become a leader. All the evidence is that effective deployment, understanding and use of digital technologies are crucial to every business’s competitiveness. For some it is transforming.
9. Bottom up
The simple message at the core of this interim report is that we cannot afford to treat education and training for digital technologies as just another ‘vertical’ subject area. It underpins everything we do in the 21st Century. Successful, emerging economies have already embraced this message. We must do likewise.
10. The Googlies
(We) need effectively to engage an entire generation growing up with the internet, multi-media formats and broadband. This starts with inspiring and innovative programmes and initiatives to engage a new generation of students and attract them into technology-inspired and creative careers.
Join the debate
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The game’s up »
Traditional advertising is missing a trick - that more and more purchasing decisions are based on the customer's online experience.
And when that online experience doesn't measure up, as is so often the case, it doesn't matter how creative the idea or how extensive the media spend, people are just not going to buy.
Wrong message
Now, before we buy almost anything, we seek out comparisons in performance, price, customer service and after sales support. This change in behaviour affects every business, brand, product or service. It also calls into question the advertising business model. How does it add value online exactly?
Customers have a choice
Sitting between seeing an advert and making a purchase is the online experience. And it's an experience that often doesn't meet expectations. However memorable or stimulating a TV commercial or a magazine spread might be, consumers increasingly make their decisions to purchase based on their online experience, on the product detail available, on the belief and confidence the website gives them in the brand and of course, the word of other customers.
Switching over
Companies that fail to grasp the importance of the online experience for their customers and that don't invest in content or integrate their communications, will soon find those customers have deserted them and gone where they will be valued.
Disappointment is no basis for business
We've all been there. You see an advert, find the website but then you can't find the information you want. Where are the decent product shots? Why is the product description only five words long. No dimensions? Colours? What about finish and material?
Worse still when you Google the product you find a site where somebody has posted a message saying, "Don't buy this, it's rubbish".
So even where the advertising effort hits home and the desire to buy is highly stimulated, if the online experience lets users down then that's the advertising budget blown, game over.
New game
The advertising industry doesn't want to hear that their efforts will eventually be directed towards promoting the internet. But that's where we're heading. And when this day comes, top of the pile of customer needs will not be brand or price, but user experience. Online, in use, after sales and support.
Online shoppers have a huge choice, they can immediately find and see what the competition have to offer and, if the experience is better, then it really is game over.
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Help website users make contact »
Frustration over hard to find contact information shows that business credibility is undermined by the simplest of omissions.
People told us in a user survey that they can't always find basic information such as contact details. The negative experience of poor communications channels shows that perhaps it does pay to keep in touch.
Here's what they said...
"Contact details not prominent enough on first page, over complex layout."
"Sites that do not encourage phone calls but expect you to be content to email - that really really annoys me."
"Again, response time to queries is important particularly if I'm last-minute shopping."
"Failure to provide easily accessible contact details, in particular a telephone number."
"Not being able to easily find contact details. There should be a clear link to this on every page so wherever you are on the site you don't have to navigate back to the start to find it."
"Response times to queries is a big one for me, and where images are concerned slow loading."
"Response times to queries should obviously be as fast as possible. It must be clear that I am waiting for something to be processed."
"Response time to queries."
"Response times, accessibility to communication methods with website owners, trust."
"Response time to queries are very important - even if you can't help the customer this time, be honest and say so, they may come back again especially if they felt you gave them good service last time."
"I like to be able to find contact details easily."
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Tags: What irritates you
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Make e-commerce easy »
Where the online shopping experience lets your customers down, it will cost your business, as our user research illustrates.
No interpretation needed
Focusing your efforts on the user journey can deliver huge returns. From our user research comments the implications are clear.
What they said...
"Poor search facilities, buggy websites, baskets which don't keep your stuff in them, poor performance."
"Shopping basket options are good so not having these can be irritating. I might want to change my mind at the checkout when I realise how much I've spent!"
"The slot for filling in a credit card number usually doesn't tell you whether or not to include gaps - and it sometimes matters. It's irritating to guess one way or the other and then have to adjust it when it doesn't work."
"Having to register fairly early in the process. I sometimes abandon websites because I don't want to get that involved at that stage of my enquiries."
"Too much jargon. Websites that dont clearly state how to return an item or when the item will be delivered."
"Getting to the last part of a payment and the system falls over! Sites that ask me for the same info every time I visit - even though I am a regular. Slow/no response to email queries. Not knowing where the company is - ie: need the reassurance that there are real people behind it."
"Losing data when a transaction didn't work, having to type an address rather than a look up a postcode, that sort of thing."
"I think a confirmation page for the order that you can print and a confirmation e-mail are required - I want an acknowledgement that they have received an order sent from them."
"I want to be able to go back and review/change my order without losing all the details I have put in."
"Needing to refresh the page, having to login, having to supply too many personal details or create a password or username."
"When it takes you more than one attempt to complete your details - fields missing not marked as essential - feeling I am filling in information that is not essential for the financial transaction but for marketing purposes. I never bother using upper case on online forms and would expect the site to put it automatically on the postage label."
"Hate it when instructions on delivery address vs registered credit card address is not clear - you get to end of form and have to start again."
"We hate having to create an account with identifier and password just to find out what someone is selling."
"Anything that slows down the choosing process."
"Slowness, technical problems ie: going though all the entering of my details then get an error."
"I don't like music or sound effects on commerce sites except to confirm a click has been made."
Categories:
Tags: What irritates you
