Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

Florian Geiger found a great article by Robert Fabricant on the future rules of engagment in terms of design. For years, UCD (User-centered design) has been the staple of every experience planner, information architect and interaction designer. In the light of the current crisis, Robert asks some tough questions, pushing to innovate in the experience planning and design areas and challenges the very basics of contemporary design practice.

We have been operating under the assumption that the primary challenge is to convince businesses to focus on fulfilling user needs with higher quality products, with more meaningful experiences? But what if the ‘users’ themselves are the problem?

In his article, Robert discusses new dimensions of social value that currently are not considered in the design process. After web2.0 it would be easy to agree that this is more than necessary. I agree with him that the holy grail of experience design cannot just be a quotient of user tasks completed and pain points eliminated on the single user journey to a successful transaction. Moving from the individual to the collective brings with it a focus on joy points derived from social value. Hence, as Robert call out, we have to plan and design for scial systems from the get-go. But how?

But engaging with communities is fundamentally different. We are not merely substituting one center (the user) for another (the group). With communities, the means of engagement and influence exist across the participants not within a single person. Value is created and shared dynamically through cooperative activities that are not often apparent from the outside. They emerge from within.

Yes, and it isn’t new. Old-school discplines such as PR have understood that engaging communities is driven by an inside force. While a rational decision making process of an individual (or a single user) is usually based on only one’s own black or white processing of the experience, dealing with a community means being part of a phenomen where everyone has a different experience, even if they are at the same time and place. Hence local relevance and offering a communual benefit, even if is not black and white is always part of a social force. Grassroot movements are good example of this. He continues…

As much as we can look at the external symbols of communities (such as status and reputation) we cannot appreciate the nuance of social behavior without participating. Certainly not to the degree that is needed to support effective design solutions.

To learn more about his techniques on how to design from “the inside out”, check the rest of the article here.

This should be interesting not just to experience planners.

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South Korean car giant Hyundai launched an interactive microsite through San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to promote the new-look Genesis Coupe.

Pro racing driver Rhys Millen hurls the car around a test track and the users can experience a white knuckle test-drive by switching between multiple camera angles, taking screenshots to store in an online gallery. An editing facility enables users to drag and drop clips into sequence to make a personalised film.

Hyundai also introduced its Assurance purchase promise: ‘Buy any new Hyundai and if in the next year, you lose your income, we’ll let you return it’.

See in www.edityourown.com

in: Contagious Magazine, nº18

It’s a really cool user-experience

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Someone just asked me: “Hey, you wanna blog about a really bad user experience?” and I said: “Not really.” But after I saw this, I couldn’t help it, because missed brand engagement opportunities make me mad.

This is a Microsite for Geberit, makers of Bathroom applicances. They are trying to introduce the Japanese way of, you know, cleaning up after you are done with your business. Any creative would have had a field day with this briefing. Instead, what this brand ended up with is a stale, boring, marketing-speechy, product website that is neither engaging nor credible. No pun intended, but this looks too watered down to make this something people would want to send on to others.

Compare this to the Philips Shave Everywhere campaign. Personal grooming for men: also not an easy topic for brands to dare make engaging. Brand managers at Philips could have argued that the concept for the site http://www.shaveeverywhere.com/ was way too racy or impromper. They didn’t, and they won lots of awards, and more importantly: the site became viral. Geberit missed the chance to make this a fun, engaging experience. And don’t come to me with: oh yeah, but the target audience is older and more conservative. Conservative people are folders or crumplers, too. That’s an insight for you, right there. What a shame.

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Google launched their SearchWiki last week, and caused quite a stir in the blogging community.  It’s not really a wiki (as comments left are not editable), but it allows for unprecedented user control over search results.

Users can leave comments on websites returned as search results (and therefore on the Brands themselves) and move search results up or down in the list as they wish.  As initially launched the results and functions were only available to signed-in users.

Watch Google’s description here.

It was discontinued a few days later, but the implications are very interesting from a marketer’s perspective.

In the short time it was active, spammers added links to their websites to other, more popular addresses, the posted comments could not be edited (again, not very wiki-like) and users found that they could not  opt-out of viewing the searchwiki results along with the content that they requested.  (Several of these behaviors were not called out in the Google description of the function.)

The points for marketers are clear.  Perhaps this experiment did not succeed, but a form of it is likely to make a return.  Users will (and some say must) continue to gain control over their digital experience, and create their own experiences.  Given this cultural fuel, how will marketers participate?  Search engine optimization must evolve to include real reasons for users to include an organically presented result. Sponsored search links may radically decrease in terms of effectiveness.  Those that do not take an active stance on managing their own reputations online will continue to be at the mercy of (possibly) vocal minorities, and their silence can equal guilt in the mind of the digital shopper/surfer.  Below is an example of a possible future entry (from www.readwriteweb.com):

I don’t think this is the last we’ll hear about this kind of user empowerment.  And marketers will have to stop thinking about search results as ads and start making them Acts.

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We recently completed a multi-market user experience / usability test for one of our clients. Many hours of planning and organization, as well a design and prototype developments went into this, as this was a test for a major european roll-out, and a lot of design assumptions had to be verified.

However, there are so many smaller projects in which, due to timing and budget, usability is never really tested. Sure, for a lot of things you can rely on the empirical knowledge of a senior user experience planner, but really observing people and their behavior with your end product, always shows that you can optimize the experience. Sometimes, you even find critical issues, no matter how well you thought it through.

Therefore, the question for anyone charged with the planning of experiences always is: how do we get user experience testing set up without being on the client’s agenda or in his budget? We usually fall back onto informal testing rounds and rapid prototype development with the designers making changes as planners generate insights and recommendations. We also developed small modules on how accomplish quick turnarounds on such issues as screening and recruiting and developed special agreements with our testing partners. However, we never formalized it as a process.

Today, I came across a great article by Paul Nuschke of Boxes and Arrows and his approach to the problem. Definitely a good read for all the Experience Planners out there.

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Despite the season we invite you to a lovely outdoor experience. OK, it’s only a digital one, but www.welcomebackspring.com isn’t just interesting for someone who’s into gardening, but also for anyone who’s into great brand and user experiences. It provides joy of use by combining general information on gardening with concrete product offerings. The overall mood is very relaxed, what mirrors a real garden experience. The best part is that you can meet with some virtual hobby gardeners, what gives the site its personal touch.

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