|
I
was asked recently by a client to detail, for senior management,
exactly what features we had incorporated into our design to differentiate
our new product from the competition. I couldn't answer the question
immediately and let it pass without comment. The reason for this
was simple. It's an Industrial Age question that requires an Industrial
Age answer. It just isn't so easy to differentiate with features
when you are designing an Information Age appliance using the very
latest in User Centered Design techniques. However, communication
with and education of senior management is an important part of
all IT related work, so the question had to be answered and it was,
with a Usability study!
The
trouble with the Web world is that it is so new. If you're working
in the wireless web world of PDAs and WAP phones then it is even
newer. To the army of 20 something developers this represents no
challenge. It is cool new technology and they take to it like ducks
do to water. For management though it is often a different story.
As the saying goes, "You cannot teach an old dog new tricks".
For senior management in larger companies, they grew up in the later
part of the Industrial Age, the electronic and automated mass production
period. They worked their way through years of promotions to reach
senior positions during this period. They understand the territory
of production figures, raw materials, added value of assembly, sales
and distribution channels, and best of all marketing by features
through broadcast media.
The
Industrial Age Dinosaur at the Top
Let
us make no mistake, these senior managers are smart guys but it
is hard for them to adapt to the paradigm shift which has and is
taking place in the economy. In the Information Age new rules apply.
Distribution channels are becoming ubiquitous and almost free e.g.
uidesign.net pays almost nothing to distribute this e-zine
to 4000 readers every month. Marketing is moving away from a broadcast/push
paradigm to a narrowcasting/pull metaphor. Vertical Portals such
as John Rhodes' Webword.com are
prime examples. People interested in the web and usability visit
John's site of their own volition. By building a highly focused
market niche audience such as Webword, you can tightly target marketing
activities. This is narrowcasting.
Information
Age appliances are all about offering a better fitting product to
a narrower market. By understanding individuals better, we can better
tailor a product offering to their needs. Often a general product
can be personalized, thus the market is broader but the end effect
is narrow. With Information Age Appliances, less is more, because
less features are better targeted at a narrower audience. The unnecessary
features are omitted.
To
a senior manager who has come up through the late Industrial Age
knowing that "more is more" and that broadcasting "more"
message is how to sell product and how to build market share, the
web and wireless world of selling "less" by narrowcasting,
is an alien and hostile environment. Proponents of Information Appliances
and "less is more" design such as uidesign.net
are not yet fully understood by these senior people.
In
the Industrial Age, a rust belt executive could ask his design team,
"So what are we doing in the new model that beats out the competition?"
The design team can reply, "Well Sir, in the new model we have
the automatic retractable mirrors. Great for those narrow European
garages. We think that we have a 12 month advantage on the competition
and the mirror retracting will look really cool in the TV commercial!"
So
imagine the rust belt dinosaur's emotional response to the Information
Age designer who replies, "Well Sir, we identified that the
market is not homogeneous and in fact could be split out into at
least 20 Persona definitions. So we have produced 20 different versions
of the new vehicle targeted at these people. Only 3 versions actually
have the retractable mirrors which of course are new for 2001. The
reason for this is simple, most of our customer base live in apartments
and use a communal garage. They don't need retractable mirrors.
So if you look at our new model for the downtown young executive
with a girlfriend, an apartment but no kids, pets or commitments,
we are offering a feature list with just 10 key and compelling features."
"And what is the competition doing? How many features do they
have?". "Well 43 actually but ...."
This
message just doesn't cut ice with Industrial Age guys who understand
manufacturing industry. Manufacturing after all does not lend itself
easily to personalization features and producing 20 or 200 versions
of the same product in order to target narrower and narrower markets.
Broadcast media does not lend itself well to selling to narrower
and narrower markets.
So
what does a designer do with this problem?
The
"Less is More" Information Appliance
As
Laura Arlov detailed in her recent
interview, when you are designing an Information Age appliance,
particularly a wireless PDA or WAP Phone application, you really
have to focus your effort and concentrate on taking things out rather
than putting them in.
Any
idiot can produce a web page which is full of links and packed with
features and content. However, the more and more you add, the harder
and harder it becomes to find a specific link or a specific piece
of information. With small screen devices such as phones and PDAs
this problem is multiplied many times over. In order to deliver
a usable, useful Information Appliance, you simply have to understand
your target Users and you have to focus on delivering the necessary,
compelling features which meet their needs. Anything else is simply
getting in the way. With a wireless device, you don't have to put
much in, before something is getting in the way. With wireless devices,
a lot less is more!
If
you take a purely Industrial Age view of such a product, you will
want to market the differentiating features. You will want to produce
a checklist of features and show that your new product has one or
more boxes ticked which the competition cannot offer. This is the
traditional way of marketing manufactured products. However, with
the Information Appliance the message is different. The message
is hard to communicate. The product has less features because it
has what you need and won't confuse you with what you don't need.
The problem for the marketing people is defining, "don't need".
A persuasive marketeer from the competition can always persuade
you that you "need" something. In the Industrial Age this
didn't matter because the revenue was made at the point of sale.
Little regard was given to the after market effects. So manufacturer
simply added more and more features. They didn't care whether people
really needed them, they would simply persuade them that they did,
in order to make the sale.
Usability
is directly related to Usage which is directly related to Revenue
In
the Information Age, we seldom expect to make revenue from selling
the appliance. Telephone operators will give you equipment for almost
no cost, because they want you to make phone calls. They make their
revenue through usage. In the telecoms business there are two models
for revenue growth. They are really simple: sell more phone lines,
grow the subscriber base; make existing subscribers use the phone
more. Information Appliances are all about encouraging usage. Wireless
carriers make their revenue from encouraging usage of internet enabled
phones and PDAs.
Let
us make no mistake that usability and usage are directly related.
The harder something is to use, the less people will use it. In
fact a bad experience with a service may encourage a User never
to try again. So the operator can claim to have a large number of
subscribers but if usage is low then they really aren't making money
and the large subscriber base is essentially useless.
Usability
Studies are the Answer
So
all the rules have changed. You cannot differentiate on features
(or more accurately, quantity of features) and you cannot offer
a product which is so poorly focused that it will appeal to a mass
audience. Alan Cooper
(and others) have shown that a bland product will fail to impress
compared to a highly targeted product. Information Appliances need
to be designed for highly targeted audiences. However, you still
need some way of easily communicating to a senior manager who may
just have recently escaped from the dinosaur park in the rust belt.
Numbers are generally what communicate best in the fast paced, low
attention span world of the executive. Numbers of features won't
deliver what you need. You will only look bad. However, numbers
from a Usability Study can be the answer.
The
great advantage of the web world is its speed and the ease of access
to material. If you want to see what your competitor is doing, you
simply hit their URL. In the web world of short product cycles and
quick time to market, the developer is rarely more than 3 months
ahead of the current offering at the website. So, it is fair to
say that what the competition has on show is not far behind the
state-of-their-art.
To
get the figures you need, you will have to conduct formal studies.
These will need to be task based studies. Why Task Based? Well the
answer to this is simple. Usage of devices is related to usability
but it is also related to delivering real value by helping a User
to achieve her goal. Tasks are what a User does in order to deliver
a goal. So select a series of tasks for the target Users or product
audience and test them. Test them against your own design and test
them against your competitors'.
What
you need is a positive result that shows your product is easier
to use. This shouldn't be difficult if you have been following a
User Centered Design process using all the latest techniques described
or reviewed at uidesign.net. Finally, collate your figures
and present to management.
So
you can prove that your design is differentiated. It is differentiated
by ease of use, and delivery of relevant functionality when and
where the User needs it. As Alan
Cooper said, "The issue is not complexity", the issue
is Appropriateness. Show management that your design is more appropriate
to the target audience then let them worry how to market that to
an Information Age audience.
|
