I just saw this article in my Twitter feed and it really illustrates the issue of what happens when executives come up with an answer and then try to validate it without really asking the right questions.

Ignore the customer experience, lose a billion dollars (Walmart case study)

The article states that Walmart asked customers in a survey if they wanted the Walmart stores to be less cluttered. This is such a common question and gets asked in all kinds of scenarios from stores to websites. How many times have I heard in a usability study that something looks too cluttered? Hundreds. The trick though, as Walmart found out, that that doesn’t mean anything should be removed. Walmart’s error was assuming removing something means less cluttered. The term “cluttered” has come too mean too much stuff, but does it mean really too much stuff or the appearance of too much stuff? If you had the same amount of stuff in a 9,000 square foot house and then had it in a 400 square foot studio apartment, would if feel like too much stuff in both scenarios? What if Space Bags were involved?  What if the stuff were diamonds? What if the stuff was chocolate?  The questions can go on and on, but the point is you can’t just ask “Is this cluttered?” because unless they are looking at some minimalist design, customers will answer yes, but that isn’t what they mean.

To find out what they mean, you have to watch what they do and ask a lot more questions, repeatedly. Or you could go through an exercise like Walmart has, but I wouldn’t suggest it.

It seems like every couple of months or so a firestorm breaks out when one of the gurus of the Web industry tweets or blogs something controversial. The latest is Ryan Carson’s tweet and blog post, ‘UX Professional’ isn’t a Real Job which has spawned The pollution of UX and I’m sure a couple of hundred tweets and other posts.

In my opinion, the discussion is just about semantics. When I started my career in the Web world people that built Web sites were called Web Designers or Webmasters and these days that role is usually fragmented into information architects, interaction designers, visual designers, usability researchers, content strategists and so on. Does that mean an information architect can’t make graphics or a visual designer can’t conduct a usability test? No, but it means that someone who is truly gifted that can create a beautiful graphic may not have the skill set to talk to strangers and interview them well. Same goes for the information architect who couldn’t draw to save their lives. The Web world is made up of individuals and all have their strengths and weaknesses and it is a new industry as well which just makes titles and job descriptions that much more ambiguous. I see user research and interaction design as the brains of a user experience design and the visual design as its soul. They all contribute to the overall user experience,but in different ways. Is it possible that there are rock stars out there that can perform all of these function at the utmost level? Maybe, but I haven’t encountered them yet.

One of the comparisons that has been tossed around a lot is comparing UX designers with being a chef. As Top Chef proves though, most chefs can’t make pastry, thus pastry chefs. Baking is a much more exact type of cooking and needs a very different skill set than say a fry cook. Same goes with the comparison to the medical profession. If you have a cold, you can go to a general practitioner, but if you needed brain surgery who would you go to?  

The Web is a big place and there are many different types of sites out there. The bigger, more interactive sites need these specialists. A simple content site that just shows content with no interaction can get away with one person doing it all from graphics creation to development. Are all of these people called the same thing? It really just depends on the company.

It’s all about titles really. They keep changing as the industry evolves and people outside of it start learning and appreciating our contributions more. Your skill set and what you can bring to a Web site is the most important thing, not matter what you call yourself.

I just hope the next trend in titles has the word superstar in it.

Do you you know of any businesses in your neighborhood that you pass regularly and nothing seems to be going on there? You never see anyone going in or coming out? You might have even gone in once just out of curiosity and the staff ignored you and obviously didn’t care if you bought anything or not. Many times you just assume they are front for some illicit crime family or it is a business to keep some annoying wife or son or brother-in-law busy.

The Internet equivalent for those kind of stores can be found as well. Sites that obviously don’t care how long it takes to load or how easy it is to find something or if it hasn’t been updated since 2008. They don’t care about your experience, they are just there and they just can’t be bothered. This is the experience currently being offered up by talbots.com.

My biggest complaint against talbots.com is how long the home page navigation takes to load. Like a lot of its competitors, they have the beauty shot taking up most of the space and you have to rely on the navigation bars to get anywhere you really want to go. Well, talbots.com makes you look at the beauty shot in suspended animation for up to 20 – 30 seconds before you go anywhere else. I’m on a high speed connection and I have tried to access the page on T1 lines, high speed DSL, different computers and browsers and it is all the same. Once can and do click on the top navigation it can take anywhere from 5 – 25 seconds to load the page.

They are also in dire need of a card sorting exercise. “Apparel” to Talbots means female sizes 2 – 20. Then there are Petites, Woman, Woman Petites, Shoes and Accessories, Outfits, Pearls of Wisdom???? and Sale. Aren’t the petites and woman sizes considered apparel as well? Apparel is defined as clothing after all. Pearls of Wisdom though, that is a new one. This is their attempt to do something, but I’m not sure what. With titles like What’s New, What’s Next, Style Advice and Sharing your stories they are all over the place trying to do ten things at once and doing them all poorly. Sharing stories asks you to share your worst Valentines Day or what you are reading this summer. I guess this is their attempt and encouraging people to stay on the site longer and return more often, but they could just accomplish that by not making me wait 20 seconds every time I click on something.

My next complaint involves their Shopping Cart or Shopping Bag (they reference both of them interchangeably) and the lack of a cue that something is really there after I select it.

Before Item Goes in Cart

After Item Goes in Cart

Can you tell the difference? No messaging came up, no pop-up, no nothing easily discernible. How do I know I was successful? I have to look to the top right corner under shopping bag.

Shipping Page

Once you make it to checkout, you can sign into your account. Your e-mail and password is not enough though, you must answer a security question as well. After you jump through that hoop, you get to the shipping information where you fill in your information and then you are asked if this address should be saved to your account or be considered your primary address. Don’t do it! It will put you in an endless loop where you check yes and then hit continue and the page keeps refreshing over and over again with no error messages. What is worse is if your browser window height isn’t greater than 944 pixels, you will never see the billing information bar below and you will be stuck in no man’s land.

It is easy to forget there are people out there that aren’t on the Internet 18 hours of every day. Since I’m practically in a technology bubble, it is always mystifying to me when I talk to someone who can’t upload an image to Flickr or has trouble sending e-mails with a link inside. When you work on the Web though, these are the people you are working to help.

If you ever need a reminder of this read the Read Write Web article Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login. People who had Googled “Facebook Login” got to this page and thought it was Facebook and the comments are filled with angry and confused people. Now, who would have ever thought that by titling an article in an online magazine with the words “Facebook” and “Login” would drive so much traffic of users wanting to get to their Facebook page? And why after landing on this page did they not realize that it was an article and not the Facebook home page? These are our users.

Another reminder would be this “man in the street” interviews Google conducting asking people in Times Square if they knew what a browser is….

The challenge is designing for the Web that caters to the novices (as much as humanly possible) as well as our “expert” users. The real point is that we can never assume anything and people in the web design/technology world can never put ourselves in their shoes.

OmniGraffle on iPad

How Design recently posted a list of apps made for designers, Top 10 iOS Apps for Designers . The one I was the most interested in was the OmniGraffle app for the iPad which would allow you to create wireframes and flow charts on the go and then transfer them over to your computer later. Now, this really wouldn’t work for me personally because I don’t own an iPad or a Mac or use one at work so I’ll keep bringing my laptop with me everywhere.

The other one I like (and has a great title) is What the Font which allows you to snap pictures of a font you’re not sure about and the app will identify it for you. It is the Shazam for fonts.

One of my biggest frustrations with Microsoft Expression Blend has been that it has so much potential as a great tool, but still relies too much on XAML to create some of the more cool interactions which is bad news for the designers out there. Most the forums and books I’ve seen can’t seem to explain things without showing you XAML. There are a few folks out there that are really trying to show you how to use Blend including Victor Gaudioso and Katrien De Graeve.

Now all herald the arrival of the Microsoft Design Toolbox, http://www.microsoft.com/design/toolbox/. Ta da! You can create your own avatar (they need a few more choices). You can take “classes” and receive badges and see how others are doing under their “people” section. All in all it is well designed and actually is showing me something besides a lot of code, so thank you Microsoft for helping out the designers.