User Experience and Corporate Decision Making

As @c2austin pointed out yesterday, Fast Company's Twitter stream recently rehashed an ongoing debate about website user experience design in large corporations and the potential havoc having too many departments involved in the design process can have. The Fast Company article, which you can read in its entirety here, describes how a peeved designer wrote an open letter to American Airlines blasting such a high-profile company for having a website that is incredibly difficult from a usability standpoint. He wrote:

If I was running a company with the distinction and history of American Airlines, I would be embarrassed--no ashamed--to have a Web site with a customer experience as terrible as the one you have now...Your Web site is abusive to your customers, it is limiting your revenue possibilities, and it is permanently destroying the brand and image of your company in the mind of every visitor.

To prove his point, he even donated some time and offered up a solution, seen here as compared to the original:

His open letter actually received a response from a member of the user experience team at American Airlines explaining that, unfortunately, it's not their lack of abilities, but rather the sheer size of the company and numerous corporate layers and that inhibit them from delivering a positive user experience.

Sad. But true. It highlights a problem that we wrestle with often when clients come to us to deliver a new interactive experience for their business: Too many cooks in the kitchen. While at times we understand the need for more than one party within a company to be responsible for making design decisions, we also feel strongly that the best designs come from a clear, singular vision. This vision, combined with a solid understanding of user wants/needs, and an interactive design team adept at creating the best possible solution will always result in a stronger end product than anything that comes from design by committee.

by Garret Ohm

(2) - Post a comment Email Garret Ohm

Help Haiti

We've been watching the developments over in Haiti in light of this week's tragic earthquake and have been compelled to do our part to help in any way we can. You can see a full list of organizations you can help support HERE, but we wanted to highlight a few creative ways we found that folks are raising money and awareness for the cause. One one the best was the Red Cross's use of mobile giving, which to date has raised over $10,000,000 in increments of $10. Within hours of the disaster, the Red Cross had set up a system whereby donors could text the word "Haiti" to 90999 and a donation of $10 would automatically be given to Haitian relief efforts. The technology made the process seamless and the word spread like wildfire through social media channels as well as in traditional media.

One of the other more creative support mechanisms I've seen was passed along by our friends at BFFB. It's a website called Avatar for Haiti, and it's based on the premise of donating the price you'd pay to go see the film (again) in theaters to relief efforts instead (UNICEF). It's not that they're encouraging people not to see Avatar. They're just saying that if you've already seen it and are thinking about going again, maybe you can donate that money instead--and they're giving you an easy, seamless way to do it. Pretty creative, and impressive that they responded so quickly with the idea and the development of the site!

by Garret Ohm

(1) - Post a comment Email Garret Ohm

Your Tire’s All Flat and Junk

This is a little piece of fun that came about spontaneously. John Sutter is an avid tinkerer of the open source sound editor Audacity. He has made thousands of sound files on his computer, which he somehow knows well enough to play in a matter of seconds, if the right situation presents itself around the office. Well, this time John made a house-esque remix of some sound clips from the wildly popular (and rather funny) Geico Pothole commercial. I thought his creation was hilarious and wanted to take it a step further by mapping the vocal track of the song to the pothole, so it would appear to actually be saying the words. Take a look below:

more...

by Aaron Waldon

(1) - Post a comment Email Aaron Waldon

Is this the future of magazines?

I'm going to be short on the commentary and let the video I found do the talking, but could this be the future of magazine publishing?

We're torn on this. On one hand, we have a deep-seated love and respect for print as a medium. After all, it's where we started back in 1987. That said there's something about holding a tangible printed piece in your hand that the digital media just can't convey. On the other hand, we're a full-service marketing firm with a serious command of interactive media and we love exploring ways that we can use new technologies to communicate our clients' brands (and hey, who knows, maybe yours someday...).

Is it possible to be both a little sad and positively thrilled at the same time? That's where we are right now.

by Garret Ohm

(1) - Post a comment Email Garret Ohm

Inspiration: IdeaStorm

We've talked in the past about how important social and interactive media can be for not only pushing your brand's message out to the masses, but perhaps even more importantly as a tool to LISTEN. Comcast helped to pioneer this idea with the Twitter account @ComcastCares, which allowed them to identify users with problems, concerns or questions and address them immediately. Since then, multitudes of corporate Twitter accounts have been established hoping to use this open medium as a way to have more of a two-way conversation with their public, including companies like Dell, Zappos, JetBlue and Honda.

Dell recently took the idea of using interactive and social media even further by creating an online effort allowing customers to contribute their ideas for how to improve Dell products and services. The effort is branded Dell IdeaStorm and is centered around a website at ideastorm.com, but also includes a Twitter account (@IdeaStorm) and presumably a PR push and support in other Dell promotional materials as well, not to mention Dell's countless other Twitter accounts. The IdeaStorm website gives customers an easy way to contribute their ideas and voice any feedback or frustrations they might have, but also allows them to promote and demote the ideas that others have contributed that they feel strongly about.

The key here is that today's consumers want to have a voice. In order to have a successful brand (particularly consumer-facing) it's crucial to allow consumers to take ownership of that brand. Dell does a great job with this branded, integrated effort because it both allows customers to have their voices heard, but also acts as a vehicle for Dell to learn what consumers want. The knowledge they are able to take from this will not only help them in new product development, but it will help them create a successful, consumer-focused brand.

Shameless plug: There's a good chance a similar strategy could be taken with your brand. Interested in the possibilities of using interactive and social media to better communicate with your consumers? The Sutter Group would love to show you the possibilities. Contact me at garret[at]sutter-group[dot]com or on Twitter at @SutterGroup.

by Garret Ohm

Post a comment Email Garret Ohm