Told my daughter I was soon travelling to China. She asked for a Panda bear...

Me: "Do you mean a real one? Because they are kind of big and, between you and me, smelly".
Eva: "No silly, another one like you gave me, only maybe bigger and squishier to go with all my stuffed animals". (Editorial Note: China = Panda bears to 5 year-olds, but at least she's pragmatic. Kind of like Savannah).
Me: "Oh, OK."

Admission: Grimaces were harmed in the filming of this movie.

Posted via email from John Hutchings

Get your chicken (sh*t) together

Co-teaching a course with Jeff Nelson and the topic discussed was User Experience and Form design. Used a personal example about how not to do forms.
++++
Flashback to after Christmas. I was still craving some bird and stuffing. Swiss Chalet, I thought. Online ordering? Cool. And then it went downhill in a hurry.

User goal = me, chicken. When ordering by phone, expect to give up the following:

1. (First) name
2. Order
3. Address
4. Phone # (for follow up)
5. Payment information
   

Here's what went down...

Step 1: Phone number. Seems reasonable, but two things: 1). There is no 'status and visibility'. In other words, how many hoops do I have to jump through to get my dinner; 2). Why just phone number on this page? Are you geo-locating me?








Step 2: Personal Information. Why do I need to create a profile? Why do you need to know if I'm a Mr. or Ms. and what my last name is (obviously for marketing purposes)? Which fields are mandatory vs. optional? Love this line: "Please note: The address field is optional. If you leave it blank, Delivery will not be available unless you compete your profile". Understand the over 18 legal requirement (PIPEDA compliance), but you're still adding to the user experience burden.








Step 3: Error handling. So, I screwed up. Quelle surprise. It's not apparent how I messed until after submit. Inline contextual help and visual indicators might have assisted. Oh, and they reset the Password settings.








Step 4: I've told you all about myself in good faith and I'm still nowhere near accomplishing my goal. When do I get to select my meal? What's next? Postal code. Hmmm. Could they not have asked this a little bit earlier for localization (and, as you'll see availability)?








Step 5: What the heck does this error message mean? No context, nothing. After all that, you want me to call?








So, I called them, thus breaking the online customer experience to move to another channel. After another 10 minutes, we discover that I can't have their chicken - outside delivery area. Wow.

Lessons learned:

1. Obviously, don't buy their chicken online
2. Before you design a form, think about user goals and paths
3. To paraphrase Luke Wroblewski: "A raindrop never thinks that it's responsible for the flood". Don't let other departments from within dictate the customer's experience. By asking marketing and sales questions, as well legal stuff, you incrementally degrade user delight

All I wanted was chicken and stuffing...

'Our capacity to do good for others in need.' #Haiti.

"We can be a great people, we wish to be. We only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, our capacity for good.."

I'm not sure why this popped into my head, but it seemed appropriate. I'm thankful to my work family (@criticalmass) for matching donations for #Haiti relief efforts. My donation has been quadrupled and I am hopeful that it all gets to the right people, soon.

Posted via email from John Hutchings

Major cull of 'Smores' and 'B1tches' complete:

Had to be done. Noise to signal was driving me nuts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler

Posted via email from John Hutchings

After a long day...'I'm wondering', and snoozing to a sonic electric blanket, courtesy of the 'Diggers'.

Welcome to a 90's country-rock electric blanket. A compilation of one of my all-time (old-time?) favourite bands.

Posted via email from John Hutchings

Unfriending Mr. Harper

An article in the Economist 'tsktsk'ing' Steven Harper for dissolving Parliament, combined with the fashion in which his counterpart to the South totally groks Social Web, prompted a thought.

It's not fair to compare site traffic, but how about public sentiment using survey tools? An EKOS poll revealed that 63% of Canadians agree that 'shutting down Parliament was undemocratic'. Oops.

Anectdotal but more damning, a Social Web example of tribes - for and against.

The official Stephen Harper: 29K fans and hasn't been updated since before Christmas - I assume his peeps are 'taking a break'.






Compared to 'Canadians against Proroguing Parliament': Started just over a week ago, >95K supporters. A powerful online petition.






Not listening to your constituents infers that you don't care, or are so disconnected that you don't know how. Either way, 'official' signal amongst considerable noise speaks volumes.

Get back to work already.

Cartesian Content Management - Step ladder required.

Working on a global CMS project and was able to sneak a little of my past into a presentation to illustrate a point...

Content may look elegant on the surface, but once you dive into the user's experience to search and share, frustration abounds.

Having explored and studied this library: (http://www.bookofkells.ie/old-library/), antiquated information mangement systems still work, they just take too much time to figure out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system

Make it work for your users, not the other way around. Please, no step ladders to reach for the Z axis.

Posted via email from John Hutchings

Social Media 'Landscape' c. 2007

Found this today on Twitter as part of a larger collection: http://econsultancy.com/blog/5126-eight-cool-social-media-infographics My, how things have changed.

Posted via email from Hutch's posterous