Various business and self-help books talk about success driven traits and behaviors. They will often praise the advantages of having good communication skills, the value of innovation, the benefits of assertiveness and even the importance of being earnest.

They are all mostly right, but they usually forget a more basic trait that is at the core of any successful project I’ve been involved with in the past 20 years: Happiness.

You should never underestimate the power of being cheerful. As an user experience expert, I learned in the course of my career that human beings are driven by what they feel and believe (perceptions & expectations) a lot more often than they are by rational thinking. So much so that, in almost any situation one faces, you can achieve more with a smile and a cheerful attitude than what any amount of reasoning could provide.

But you may ask: how this post relates to User Experience Design?
Well… It doesn’t!! At least not directly. Nonetheless, happy groups are proven to deliver better results and happy users have more goodwill towards the systems they are using. The first improves the chances of the second having a better user experience and the second will more readily recognize the efforts of the first, making them feel more rewarded and, thus, making everyone happier. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Actually, being happy is so effective in facilitating change that it is linked to numerous “ripple effects” scenarios that eventually produced massive cultural shifts (see here a very entertaining presentation on “Creating Cultural Change” by John Rauser). Genuinely happy people can change other people’s behavior and, if persistent enough, this change can ripple outward until a tipping point is reached and, suddenly, an entire organization or society will change before your eyes. (for more on the subject see “The Tipping Point”, by Malcolm Gladwell)

Here’s how you do it:

1. Start by being sincerely happy (in fact, you need to be relentlessly and unashamedly joyful)
2. Have fun with what you do (even if no one else gets it) and invite others to join in
3. Keep trying new things (and be optimistic about their outcome)
4. Be contagious (with laughs please, not the flu…) :)
5. Be persistent (don’t be influenced by other people’s grumpiness)

For me, in particular, being happy is more than just a state of mind, it is an essential tool in my day-to-day work. User Experience Design is intrinsically dependent on one being capable of transforming a bad experience into a good one and it’s amazing how hard this task can be when you are not glad to begin with…

So, the next time you have a difficult UX Project ahead of you, don’t worry... Be happy!

Everything changes all the time; it’s just the nature of our modern world.  The real problem is not how fast things change but how out-of-control we usually feel for not knowing where all these changes will eventually lead. We are all afraid of missing the boat for the next big thing.

Social Media, Netbooks, multi-touch devices, mobiles, streams, waves, web2.0, cloud computing, the Wii and motion detection, not to even mention all the new startups with crazy ideas bringing even more new ways to see and use the internet.  As an early adopter of technology of all kinds, I know more than 90% of those new ideas will be dead in less than a year, but any single one that survives will change how we experience the internet in ways that we cannot even try to predict.

Why does that matter?

Because even though we cannot keep up with technological evolution, we can (and MUST) keep up with users’ expectations and that will give us an insight on developing behaviors.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine (@ginidietrich) wrote a blog post on the “Death of the Corporate Web site” based on another post from Mashable (Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant?) that created a lot of debate. All of this got me thinking that the key point here is not whether Corporate websites are going to die or not, but how they will need to evolve to catch-up with these new developing user behaviors and expectations.

What WILL change?

1. Information Streams – In the next few years, users’ online behavior will quickly shift from “surfing pages in a website” to “surfing streams of interconnected information.”

It might look like it is the same thing, but it changes drastically how users experience the web and navigate through sites. Traditional information architectures, that guide users through your site’s in an orderly fashion (sequential) will not be capable of predicting or controlling the user’s navigation. Users will come from anywhere and land anywhere in your site.  All pages will be landing pages and will have to fully support the user’s objective, lead them to a call-to-action and, probably, be customized to tell a consistent story every time.

A site will become more than just a collection of pages under a URL. It will encompass every digital manifestation of your brand and services wherever they reside in cyberspace (Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, posts, comments, reviews and maybe even emails if Google has its way with the new “Wave”).  With this behavioral shift, Homepages may lose most, if not all, of their importance.

2. Multi-Touch – Touch-screen wireless devices (including netbooks and tablets) will change the way people interface with the computer, which eventually will change the way people interface with websites.

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, I bet that at least once you accidentally tried to repeat the same gestures/finger movements on a regular phone from a friend out of habit.  After playing a Wii game, you certainly have the sensation being a bit “limited” when you have to use a regular joystick.  The reason for that is simple: whenever you find an easier or more natural way of doing something you adapt to it almost immediately and going back to the old ways is like trying to unlearn how to walk… You just can’t.

In the following years, more and more devices will be touch-sensitive and there are already companies trying to adapt the iPhone “experience” for netbooks, tablets, laptops and even desktops.  Soon, the way we interface with a webpage or navigate through a site will be impacted by the use of such devices and systems.   Users will get used to these experiences and will demand sites to act in a similar way.

3. Augmented Reality – Augmented Reality (or Enhanced Reality) will eventually eliminate the need of physical devices or accessories and the internet will be more ethereal than ever (a real web of dispersed information).

This is not science fiction. A couple of years from now we will be taking pictures by looking at things, receive detailed information about objects (and people) directly from the internet while we handle them, all without looking at a computer or cell-phone screen. There are ongoing studies on how to use the internet to “enhance” our perception of the world around us without the need of physical equipment or accessories.  A group at MIT even created an amazing prototype using readily available materials under $350. When the internet is no longer something you see through a display in some device, today’s website will be seen as just a collection of information about an entity without full context to what you are doing at the moment. At this point, the concept of a website in the way we experience today will become a distant memory of how we did things in the past.

Ok, Now What?

If you ask me how this new website structure or concept will look like in the near (or not so near) future, I’m not certain I know the answer. There are only 3 things I can say for sure:

1. Your customer experience (or at least your user experience) will be fast, ephemeral and dispersed.  People will be (they are already) assaulted by information from all directions presented to them in quick bursts and ever smaller chunks. People will suffer more and more from information overload and the capability of capturing and retaining one specific message will decrease (there are even studies showing how the new generation brains are adapting to handle the speed of the digital life). To stand-out from their stream of information, you will need to have a consistent digital strategy, comprehensive understanding of all your customer touchpoints, strong branding and, above all, be able to CONNECT and ENGAGE with your customers on a personal level.  It is the ultimate one-to-one relationship for mass-consumption.
2. What you see today as your website will become just an end, not the means.  People will get there to consume and convert, not to browse, since its navigation will have no boundaries. It will require a more flexible information architecture where every piece of information (or page for lack of a better term now) can stand alone when pushed into an information stream and still lead the user to other in-context information and call-to-action.
3. No matter how traditional your customers are they will be affected by changes around them at some point and won’t be able to tell you before it happens, because they won’t see it coming themselves.  Survey and Market Researches are useless to predict behavioral shifts because these behavior changes occur on an unconscious level and users only start to rationalize how much their needs and expectations changed a long time after it’s happened. This is why innovative companies like Apple avoid asking their users for what they want in a product; instead they observe their behavior to understand what they need without knowing and only ask their opinion after the product is almost ready to market (e.g., the iPhone).  If you don’t adapt to your users’ future needs and behaviors, your digital strategy is doomed.

——–

So traditional websites (like most corporate sites) WILL die… we just won’t notice!  They will be replaced with something new and better suited for this different perspective and expectation. We will look at them and believe they have adapted and evolved.

Maybe that’s all the same thing anyway…

But the real question here is: will you keep up with times and allow your digital strategy to evolve or will you hang on to what you know today until everything around you has changed? Are you going to keep up with the times or forever chase your own tail while trying to keep up with the Joneses?

It’s totally up to you[r users].

 In a recent post,  The “ART” of Being Genuine,  Kathryn Jennex (aka @northernchick) generated a very passionate discussion about what it is to be “genuine.”

It is a great post and I recommend reading it with all its comments but, apart from the insight on human relationships and perception, the post really got me thinking about how the urge to be genuine can affect some companies and their brands.

Like any individuals, companies and brands also fail sometimes at trying too hard to be original or genuine without actually trying to understand WHOM they are trying to reach.  They usually forget that being “genuine” has nothing to do with how you want to project yourself and everything to do with other people’s expectation of how you ought to be.  Our perceptions (and choices) are distorted by so many unconscious inferences and feelings that it is impossible to ascertain one’s true aspect behind all these irrational filters.

So, what should a company do to become genuine? I’d say NOTHING.  You either ARE or ARE NOT genuine already in your niche.  Trying to be genuine beats the purpose of being genuine.  By trying to be something different than what you are now you get farther away from your true self and thus become less “genuine.” Also, the attempt to change (at least in that context) is just a lame attempt to reach outside your own niche.  If that’s not what your company is really about, all you will achieve is to disengage your loyal customers and look fake to your prospects.

The only real way to reach outside your current niche is to EVOLVE beyond what your company may represent to them today. By listening to your current customers and addressing new needs, your company can improve on its core and become more than it was before, WITHOUT losing its originality.  If that happens, you will be genuine to both current and prospect customers, even when each group is seeing a different aspect of your brand.

The customers are the ones judging how genuine we really are.  In the end, it is all about the Customer Experience.

See original post at Vox Inc - Customerspective Blog
Follow Luis on Twitter at www.twitter.com/luiserpa

I don’t know anyone who would want to be wrong. 

Our culture is wired with a deep, primal need to always be right, which leads us to deceive ourselves into believing we actually are always right, which again leads us to believe that everyone else is wrong.   (Wait… WHAT??!?)

Normally, one would think this is just another eccentricity of human nature and actually a pretty good defense mechanism in a competitive world (it takes a lot of confidence and determination to be successful, to win), but when it comes to Customer Experience, being right won’t necessarily do much good for you.

You see, at the root of most customer experience problems you’ll often find two opposite sides, both believing their view of the issue is the right one. The problem here is perspective. Anyone in customer service is fundamentally wrong in thinking that service has anything to do with whether or not the customer is right.  (In fact, as customers we are often wrong, but that’s not the issue!)

The important thing to understand is that the customer’s feelings are always right!

It doesn’t matter why they’re angry, irritated, frustrated or upset, just that they feel that way.  Your job, as a representative of your company is to acknowledge those feelings and do whatever you’re empowered to do in order to make them feel better. Focusing on trivial details, like who did or said what, is irrelevant. The only things you should consider are: “what can I do to help this person?” and “what can I do to make sure nobody else will feel that way?”  This perspective will not only resolve the immediate problem but make your job easier in the future.

Some of the best examples of GOOD customer service come from situations where someone was honestly willing to discard his original perspective.  In my experience, a good customer service professional always assumes he could be wrong while listening to consumer complaints. Not fighting to be right is the only safe way to achieve true empathy.

Put yourself entirely in the customer’s shoes, and consider the problem from their perspective instead of your own.

I know some of you will say that this could be bad for business, or that it is imprudent or risky to think others are always right, but let’s consider this for a minute:

Always thinking you may be wrong:

• Eliminates the pressure to compete or to “win” the debate as a way to successfully resolve the situation
• Allows you to be less defensive and more open to what the customer says
• Removes emotional attachment you can better listen to the problem and understand how it affects the customer
• Actually helps to find a solution that will please the customer
• Gives the customer a sense of being victorious, successful and confident about engaging your brand/company again in the future
• Makes loyal customers happy and make happy customers loyal (note:Happy customers won’t bad-mouth your company to friends and may in fact praise you on your conflict resolution skills!)

Needing to always be right:

• Automaticallyescalates the conflict by upping the stakes of winning or losing
• Makes both sides defensive and unwilling to actually hear the other side’s perspective
• Inflames strong emotions and irrational behaviors that have nothing to do with the real problem being discussed (like wanting to fight just to feel justified and complain to everyone about the terrible experience you had with that company)
• Masks the underlying causes of the situation, making it even harder for the company to discover potential problems that will soon affect profitability
• Makes a resolution only achievable by defeating one party and rendering both sides frustrated
• Extends the length of the conflict,wasting more of the company time and manpower.
• Makes upset customers more frustrated, even after getting what they wanted. They will spread the word about the terrible experience they had to endure!

So, my suggestion to all of you is: When it comes to handling your customers’ experience, strive to be wrong.  It’s good for your business. It’s good for your customers’ experience, and it’s good for your success.

If nobody wins, then nobody loses. And that’s really how everyone wins.

Am I right?

See original post at Vox Inc - Customerspective Blog

It’s interesting how you can find Customer Experience wisdom in the strangest places. The message I got for this post came in fact from a novel I was reading yesterday (The Dark Tower III, by Stephen King).

In it, two of the main characters were discussing odd human reactions to certain situations when making decisions. 

The dialogue went more or less like this:

That got me thinking immediately on how similar this dialogue could be to any number of companies receiving complains on their Customer Experiences:

The moral of the story here is that nobody should guess Customer Behavior based on what customers “bitch about” when they speak to you.  What you are hearing is how they see and rationalize YOUR problem and not what motivated theirs. Customers are irrational and they don’t really care about what drives them to do something, they just do it.

Real behavioral knowledge comes from observing your customers and understanding their basic fears and motivations. Without a sincere effort to understand Customer Behavior, what you think would be a solution for their grumble might exacerbate the exact problem you are trying to solve.

So it doesn’t matter how many features (doors) you put in front of your customer.  If they don’t know what they are there for and you are not trying to address their real motivations (fear of what’s on the other side), you will end up watching your customer bouncing off the walls, refusing to use the doors and still blame YOU for a lousy customer experience. 

And guess what?  They are absolutely right… 

See original post at Vox Inc – Customerspective Blog

Everyone has been talking about how Obama’s campaign used the power of Social Networks and the Internet.  There’s also been a lot of buzz around how the same concepts and innovations could be used to improve the effectiveness of his presidency and turn it into a truly participative democracy.

The expectations around what the Transition Team will do is very high, but bit by bit they’ve been testing new concepts and ideas, showing again that they DO get what Web 2.0 is all aboutand that there’s definitely a plan to use it as a major tool for change.

First they virtually invited citizens to participate in Transition Team’s meetings with the Your Seat at the Table policy and now they are raising the stakes even more with the new Citizen’s Briefing Book initiative.

The Citizen Briefing Book is basically an online forum for citizens to send ideas and, at the same time, discuss and rate these ideas.  The best ideas (based on rates and comments) will rise to the top of the list and will be printed in the Briefing Book that President Barrack Obama gets from his experts and advisors for his analysis. (See also the technology behind it)

Both mentioned initiatives have very simple concepts and are based on examples of Social Media, CrowdSourcing and Social Bookmarking already available online in sites like Amazon, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon and several others. So the ideas may not be totally new, but the scale and possible impact to the whole society is immense.

Just as a social experiment, these efforts will certainly bring new findings on users’ behavior and crowd psychology that will help companies understand and improve their online customer experience and, above all, will represent an invaluable potential for change.

See original post at Vox Inc – Customerspective Blog

Pew study predicts that most people will be accessing the Internet via mobile/wireless devices (phones, smart-phones, portable computers, etc) by 2020.

The study also has some interesting analysis on the evolution of Privacy, Property Law, Social Tolerance, User Interface Design and the mingling of personal and work time.

See more about the study here

[UPDATE - 03-0302009]: Another research from technology firm In-Stat projects that smartphones will be mainstream by 2013, which would bring the earlier prediction from PEW a good 5 years earlier, at least.

In the midst of the economic crisis, while most banks are trying to keep attracting customers by offering higher interest savings and money market accounts, one bank (PNC) is thriving by focusing on delivering a unique online customer experience, specifically designed to target the generation Y (people aged 18 to 34, according to PNC demographics).

PNC created a product called Virtual Wallet that boldly discards all usual conventions from the banking industry, such as checking or savings accounts, and offers 3 types of accounts (dubbed “Spend,” “Reserve” and “Growth”) combined in a single solution.  They focused on two simple concepts:

• Twentysomethings consider bank sites clunky, and they typically don’t know how to manage their money (’We need help helping ourselves’)
• The Gen Y really understands how to take advantage of online resources.

The solution takes advantage of concepts borrowed from other online services, games, social networks and even e-Commerce sites with features like Wish-List, Financial Calendar, Money Bar, Danger Days and “Punch the Pig.”   That strategy is luring 130 new customers a day (20,000+ Virtual Wallet customers since July) to an account that otherwise could hardly compete with more aggressive banks in terms of paid returns. 

Defying conventions and betting on exceptional experience can cost a lot initially (PNC expects the project to cost about 15 Million overall), but the ROI is unquestionable: PNC estimates to break even 1 year faster than a similar investment on a new brick-and-mortar branch would have.

From that example (plus everything that we preach here at Vox), I can get 3 great lessons to any company in any industry:

1.  Don’t be afraid to defy conventions!  Know your customers, understand what they what and what they need and create NEW experiences that fit their expectations
2.  Test your concepts with real customers, watch how they react and behave and adjust your solutions accordingly
3. The best strategy in times of crisis is still to offer a truly great customer experience.  Marketing gimmicks and discounts can only go so far as… well, superficial wins…

 So… What strategy will your company follow to get over this crisis?

 See more about it in this article from BusinessWeek or in this blog post from Customer Experience Matters.

It’s already evident that successful enterprises are a result of carefully planned and researched strategies. Without understanding how your customers think, you will never be able to really get them to engage with your site, service or product.  

Now, what most forget is that it is too easy to THINK you know your customers and assume their tastes and needs.  It’s even more dangerous to label your target with an ill-conceived or over-generalized persona, like “Soccer Moms” or “High Executives.”

See the example of Blackberry users, recognized all over as “Stressed Executives” and “Workaholics.”  It was an interesting surprise to see that more than 400,000 of them already downloaded the new Blackberry MySpace application, and that they collectively updated their “mood and status” more than 2 million times during the first week of use alone.  Who would have guessed that a MySpace application would have found its record of downloads on the Blackberry platform?  Well, it seems that someone at MySpace did and I would risk saying that whoever thought of it had some real research to support her decision or this idea would have faced too many “Are you kidding?” reactions to be green-lighted.

Not all customers are equal.  People can have drastically different behaviors depending on their personality, life-style, work and even geography. You cannot risk confining them into simplified personas without taking enough time to understand them first.

Knowing your customers means testing, trying and observing their behavior.  Avoid oversimplifying or judging them by the use of labels, and, above all, never ever EVER be afraid of contesting your own assumptions.

See original post at Vox Inc – Customerspective Blog

It’s official!  The new generation’s brains REALLY ARE wired to better handle the speed of the digital life (Read the Research).

Problems generated by this change aside (and despite how amazed we can be sometimes with these kids’ feats - see video below), the fact is that people’s way of thinking have adapted to instantly process huge amounts of information and make “go/no-go” actions almost unconscious (such as scanning several links in a Google results page and immediately deciding which ones to click and which ones to ignore).

The effect is strikingly similar to something commonly observed on robotic applications and the study of behavior-based artificial Intelligence, where decisions and reactions are based on many different behavior-based processes all working at the same time and linked in particular ways.  This is called Reactive Reasoning, because it involves actions triggered by reacting to the environment rather than deliberation or cognitive assessment. Basically, it is acting without planning.

The practical aspect of knowledge for your business is that users are even less capable now of rationalizing and explaining why they do what they do, deeming satisfaction surveys and traditional customer interviews even more misleading.  This should reinforce a company’s concerns about understanding the subtle factors that can and will affect their users’ online experience and push their strategies towards more customer-centric designs, achieved through real behavioral and cognitive user tests. 

See original post at Vox Inc.