Stick to your knitting

My mother-in-law is an incredible knitter. She's forever dropping off a new jumper or hat for my little son. They look great and get far more positive feedback than anything we've bought him in Mothercare or Next.

However, my mother-in-law is not good with computers. She's also not good at fixing things, mowing the lawn and accents. She should stick to her knitting.

Many website owners could learn from my mother-in-law.

They try to do too much, too soon. What probably starts as a clear, single-minded proposition, soon degrades as the very real pressures of making money mount. Perhaps it is an effort to keep investors happy by wrangling revenue out of every inch of a site? Perhaps it is about being blinded by the plethora of features available, rather than stopping to concentrate on the few features that will make the difference. Whatever it is, bolting on additional revenue-generating features or fashionable technology, can often be to the detriment of the whole.

All the big successes on the Internet started with a clear, simple proposition.

• Google = "organising the worlds information"
• Blogger = "helping people have their own voice on the web"
• YouTube = "the premier destination for you to watch and share original videos"
• Twitter = "Twitter asks “what’s happening” and makes the answer spread across the globe to millions, immediately"
• Facebook = "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life."

I'm trying to bear this in mind on all the projects I work on. On more agile projects its too easy to get caught up in what we could do. I'm sure everyone at some stage has browsed some of the best sites out there, cherry-picking features to include on their own site. The result though is almost inevitably a mess. A mess that users don't know how to use, and businesses struggle to make money from.

My mother-in-law is far more multi-faceted than most websites, and aside from knitting she is also a great teacher and hostess. When she tries doing something and turns out to not be very good at it, she stops.

I wish more websites were like my mother-in-law.

Cinema e-tickets

This is so simple, yet it pleased and surprised me.  Not bad for a Friday afternoon.

We planned on visiting the cinema on Friday evening to see INVICTUS.  We had planned on going last Friday evening as well, but when the film was sold out when we arrived.  This week we thought we'd book it in advance.

I rang the cinema to book tickets, and the process was super smooth.  As soon as I got off the phone, there was an email in my inbox confirming my purchase.  I had not expected this (I don't think I've ever had an email confirmation when booking tickets on the phone before - normally you just turn up with the credit card you used to book, and pick up your tickets in the cinema).  I was quite impressed (clearly, I'm just easily impressed).

Also, the confirmation email had one of those weird square barcodes on.  It turned out my email was also my ticket - the usher scans this at the screen entrance, and voila.  No queues.  Brilliant.

Oh, and INVICTUS was pretty good too.

Mice, mice, baby.

Alright stop, collaborate and listen.

Catching mice is a good experience. Last week, my American Idol viewing pleasure was interrupted by a small field mouse scuttling past behind the TV. My initial frustration at the little rodent soon gave way to a rush of excitement, anticipation and competitiveness.

I've never been into fishing, but after spending a weekend catching mice, I've got a better idea of the appeal of such sports:

1. The strategy around placing the trap (a humane one, of course)
2. The nuances of bait choice (genre and size)
3. The waiting... oooh, the thrill of the waiting
4. The anticipation every time you stop to check the trap, and then
5. The exhilaration when you see the trap door down and the little fella scuttling around inside.

There can be few household chores that are more fun.

Augmented reality for online shopping

Today our Lead Flash Developer sent round an augmented reality prototype: you turn on your webcam, it recognises your face and puts a pair of cartoon glasses on you.  As you move around, the glasses stay on you – it looks like you’re wearing the glasses.

 Also today we discovered a site, as a result of reading Figaro Digital, called Knicker Picker.  You choose a model that most closely resembles you – they range from a size 6 to 14 – select the underwear you like the look of and your chosen model models it for you.

So, imagine augmented reality for clothes shopping?  There is always a risk, when you buy clothes online, that the item won’t fit, or won’t look right.  Imagine being able to ‘try something on’ anywhere?  It would just make clothes shopping so much easier.  No crowds.  No queues.  And hopefully no having to send things back.

Clearly, others are thinking along the same lines.  Take MixMatchMe.  It’s like playing with paper dolls.  There is a model on the right hand side of the screen.  You select items of clothing from the left, and they appear on the model on the right.  Genius.  You can preview your outfit before you buy it.  But the model is superskinny.  And there is only one model.

Augmented reality functionality, of a kind, is already available on Glasses Direct.  They have a feature on their site called ‘Video mirror’ – fire up your webcam, the software finds your face and you can “try on” their most popular glasses styles.

The future's bright.  The future's augmented reality.  Or is it?

Bottom lines

I love innocent drinks. I love the drinks themselves and everything the brand stands for. Few companies deliver such a consistent and compelling brand experience. They manage to do what most FMCG brands can only dream of, simply by being real.

Now they've asked their customers to write clever lines to go on the bottom of their bottles.

Conventionally, packaging would be the exclusive domain of the agency contracted to design it. Battles would be fought over exact colour pallettes, layouts, copy, promotions and legal requirements. After space had been allocated for bar codes and nutritional information - members of the marketing team would haggle over the remaining space.

Innocent however, take a different view.

They have identified an area of packaging that no-one has considered before.
They have worked out that the best messages are often subtle messages.
They have worked out that making a customer smile more important than anything else.
They have let their consumers own the brand.

As a big advocate, I've obviously submitted my idea already. And here it is:

"I see you, baby!"

No doubt, it will be short-listed next week and immortalised in biodegradable plastic soon therafter. I'll keep you posted.

What's more important: 'sign in' or 'sign up'?

You sign in to sites more often than you sign up for sites.  So, what would you expect to be most prominent on the home page of sites requiring you to have an account?  The sign in part, surely?

Not necessarily, it would appear.  Take the popular professional networking site Linkedin – the most prominent element on their home page is ‘Join Linkedin Today’.  But you only need to join, or sign up once.  You will probably want to update your profile or check your messages or carry out any number of other tasks that you can only carry out if you’re signed in, much more often.  Where is ‘Sign in’?  It forms part of the main navigation at the top of the page – it doesn’t exactly stand out, or make it easy for users to sign in quickly.

 

Similarly, on Twitter, prominence is shared between the ‘Search’ feature and ‘Sign up now’.  Sign in is less prominent, at the top of the page, and you can’t fill your details in directly on this page – you need to click ‘Sign in’ to see the sign in fields.

Compare this to Facebook.  The sign up area still has more prominence that the sign in fields, but the big difference here is that you can enter your sign in details directly on this page.

And then you have the webmail providers.  Their sign in tends to have more prominence than their ‘sign up’.

But there might still be room for improvement.  Take Ymail (Yahoo’s webmail).  Whilst you are able to sign in directly from the home page, it is lower down the page than the ‘Sign up’ message, and it appears to have prominence on the page because of other strong elements on the page e.g. the ‘benefits’ information about Ymail.

 

There is less going on, on Google Mail’s homepage, which probably helps make the sign in area clearer and more prominent on the page (even if the ‘benefits’ of Google Mail do take up more space on the page).

Similarly, Hotmail’s sign in area is clear and prominent – perhaps more so than Google Mail’s.  It is given equal prominence to the ‘benefits’ of Hotmail content.

A user's experience on your site will be strongly influenced by how easy or difficult they perceive a task to be.  By making it easy for the majority of users to carry out the popular tasks on your site, you are one step closer to providing a great user experience for all users.

My account: I just want to be able to log in

I recently signed up for an airmiles credit card – you know the type: you buy things and for every pound you spend, you get a mile or so back.

How many miles do I have?  And where can I fly to with my miles?  A fairly common task you might argue?  And therefore, fairly easy to do?  Not so.

I fell at the first hurdle – logging in to my account.  You can enter either your email address or your membership number.  I had never received a membership number, and as I had never been to the site before I didn’t think they would have a record of my email address.

I tried my email address anyway, as I had applied for the credit card online and had used my email address on the application.  It didn’t work.

I sent a message to my credit card provider via their online messaging system to request my membership number.  When I have used online messaging systems previously (e.g. on www.ebay.co.uk) I have received a message in my email inbox when my message has been replied to.  Not here.  I had to keep logging back into my credit card account to check for new messages.  They were not quick with their replies either – it took a good 4-5 days before I got a reply.

But, I digress.  I just want to find out how many miles I have, and where they can take me.  In fact, I’d be pretty happy right now if I could just log in to my account.

Back to my airmiles provider.  I now had a membership number, which I typed into the ‘Membership number/email address’ box.  I tried one of my passwords (yes, yes, I know I should have unique passwords for every account… but seriously?) and was presented with the ‘Forgotten your password?’ page, with a message highlighted in pink “You do not have an email address registered to your account, please contact us via one of the email addresses above detailing your membership number so we can resolve this.”  BUT THERE IS NO EMAIL ADDRESS ON THIS PAGE!!!  And why do I have to email you to register an email address?  Why can’t I just validate it online?

So, I’ve hit a dead end.  I can’t log in to my account.  And how do I find out what email address I should use to register my email address?  After a few clicks, I end up back on the login page, and notice a ‘I don’t have a password’ link.  Clicking on this and I finally see some email addresses.  Yes, multiple email addresses.  Just give me one email address.  Don’t make me think about which one is correct.

More than 7 days later I have still not received a reply from my chosen airmiles company.  Perhaps these credit cards aren’t so beneficial after all.  But it isn’t the credit card provider’s fault – they provide me with an airmiles balance.  I just can’t find out what I can do with these, or how I use them.  Or log in to my account to see that they are actually being recorded in the proper place.

Online returns: it doesn’t have to be a black hole

Buying things online can be a risk.  What if you change your mind?  Or the product doesn’t quite match your expectations?  Your heart sinks.  There are so many obstacles standing in the way of you getting your money back, or getting the product you really want!  You have to trek to the post office, stand in a long queue, and then you have the reputation of the Royal Mail to contend with – is the package actually going to get back to the right place?

So often, when you buy a product online and you have to return it, you get little, if any feedback throughout the returns process.  You constantly have to check your bank account to see if the refund has been made, or you have to contact the seller to see if they have received the item you have sent to them.  This simply adds to your levels of frustration with the company (especially if you’re returning an item which is faulty, or not what you expected from their description in the first place).

I recently had to return some spare parts for my Hoover vacuum cleaner.  Whilst not flawless, I had a comparably good experience on www.espares.com.  In-between buying the parts and receiving them, I actually decided to purchase an entirely new vacuum cleaner (it’s a long story, but essentially the aforementioned Hoover emitted a distinct burning smell accompanied by sparks whenever it was first turned on).

On the confirmation email that I received from espares.com when I ordered the parts, I noticed that you had 14 days to return items and there was a handy link to the ‘Refunds and Returns guide’.  I followed this link, and arrived on a Hoover branded page with information all about returns.  I discovered that, in order to return an item, you need a ‘returns authorisation’.

I didn’t have a this ‘returns authorisation’, so I phoned the customer service number given on this page, explained my situation to the friendly man on the other end of the phone and was given a ‘returns authorisation’ number along with instructions of where to post the items.  The process so far had been hassle free, and I was a happy customer.

Espares.com didn’t stop there though.  I logged into my email account a few minutes after the call, and there was an email confirming our conversation including the vital ‘returns number’ and details of where to send the package.  I felt reassured that they were now expecting my return package, and that I had all the information I needed to complete the return.

A couple of days later, I received another email from espares.com confirming that they had received the returned parts, and on the same day I received another email saying that they had refunded the transaction.

This may seem like a lot of emails, but they were impeccably timed.  Receiving feedback throughout the returns process reassured me that my refund was being handled quickly and efficiently, which in turn gave me confidence in espares.com.