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5 Key Insights from the Strategic Growth Forum

Monday, November 28th, 2011


Recently, I had the honor of being selected as one of Ernst & Young’s 2011 Entrepreneurial Winning Women. The Award offered the opportunity to attend the Strategic Growth Forum (SGF) in Palm Springs, where more than 2,300 of the world’s top CEOs and other business leaders gathered to:

    • Master strategies for company growth
    • Learn the ins and outs of doing business in emerging markets
    • Learn critical success factors for mergers, acquisitions and IPOs

I was blown away by the quality of the programing, the ease of networking during the conference, and the resources invested in the event by E&Y. One attendee mentioned that the event budget was around $13 million. Incredible!

From the 5 days of panels, speakers, Q&As and presentations, I took away 5 key insights:

    1. We all have blind spots.

    Francis Ford Coppola commented that even the most forward-thinking companies can be blind to opportunities sitting right before their eyes. IBM invented a copy machine but couldn’t convince executives it was necessary. Similarly Xerox invented the PC but didn’t see the full future potential. Coppola noted that generally people are conservative, and when you do something differently, people see you as an oddball. However, “The things they fire you for when you are young are the same things you find yourself getting a lifetime achievement award for when you are old.” I wondered, what does this say about opportunities for us to move user experience forward? Are we missing obvious opportunities right before our eyes?

    2. Customers now own brands, too.

    In the old days, we saw brand mainly as a marketing and advertising effort. With the digital age, we saw that the online user experience became an extension of a company’s brand. Now, with social media, people have become owners of brands as well. Harley-Davidson riders are starting to do advertising for the company. Oreo cookies have 23 million Facebook fans constantly engaged in dialogue. Because of the strong role of consumers, there is less margin for a company to veer off brand message. Claudia Poccia, President and CEO of Curwitch Products said customers “shape the brand, personalize it and engage with it in real time. This relationship . . . must be totally authentic and transparent – because the experience can all change on a moment’s notice.”

    3. Pharma 3.0: Patient Outcomes & Digital Devices

    Healthcare and Pharma 3.0 involves an extreme focus on ensuring that patients have positive outcomes from their prescriptions and programs. As a result, companies are investing more in technologies and devices that allow them to drive compliance and monitor patient progress. One technology that has taken off is the smartphone app. Between 2006 and 2009, 11% of Pharma 3.0 initiatives were smartphone apps. In 2010, the segment exploded, and 41% were smartphone apps. The user experience of digital home devices and apps will be critical to compliance. Can diabetes patients effectively monitor their blood glucose and transmit results to their doctors? What will be the most effective way to communicate feedback from devices? How can smartphone apps best be integrated with patients’ lives to drive adherence? UX research in this space will be the key to successful patient outcomes.

    4. CEOs Get That Best Insights Come from Customers.

    Across various Q&A sessions and panels, I was thrilled to hear that leading CEOs truly understand their best insights come from talking directly with their customers. The CEO of 1-800 Flowers, Jim McCann, commented that their customers actually developed their best-selling product. Michael Dell stated, “The best insights come from customers, even if they want something new but can’t imagine what.”

    5. Speaking Skills Don’t Tell the Whole Story.

    I always had the impression that former President George W. Bush might have been lower on the intelligence scale due to his lackluster performance as a speaker. As President, he often looked like a deer caught in the headlights and made numerous verbal missteps. After listening to his fireside chat at SGF, I realized I’d completely judged him unfairly. In conversation with James Turly, Chairman & CEO of Ernst & Young, Bush was poised, confident, witty, charming, self-effacing, and entirely more knowledgeable on world affairs and the office of the President than I’d previously credited him. Lesson learned: personalities can change a great deal when someone takes the mike.

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FedEx Walks the UX Walk

Friday, November 18th, 2011


For the third year in a row, FedEx invited AnswerLab to participate in their World Usability Day event. And, it IS an event. FedEx’s Digital User Experience Team organizes a day-long conference as a forum for sharing ideas, best practices and networking opportunities with user experience leaders from FedEx, other leading companies such as Microsoft, Adobe, Hilton and ServiceMaster, and UX partners. There were approximately 250 of us gathered to highlight the importance of user experience’s impact on business results and to collaborate on creating the best possible experiences for FedEx customers.

The event really nailed some key areas of opportunity available to companies focused on creating superior B2B and consumer digital experiences:

• Customers are more likely to have a first digital interaction with a brand on a mobile or social platform.

• Users adopt new products or services when doing so results in experiences that make their lives better.

• Every touch point you have with customers is a key moment in your brand’s story. Even the way you handle the experience of a customer leaving is impactful, both in the likelihood of their return and their social impact via word of mouth on future customers.

AnswerLab led an interactive session on best practices for uncovering user insights across mobile platforms with ethnographic research (studying users’ natural environments and their mobile behavior within the context of these various environments). We enjoyed the opportunity to share our mobile expertise and best practices with hundreds of UX practitioners in this educational forum. We’re looking forward to next year and more World Usability Day events.

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Mobile User Insights

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

AnswerLab has been at the forefront of mobile user experience research since 2005, when we helped Yahoo! develop their first mobile web site.  With the launch of the iPhone 4S and voice-activated mobile experiences, we are confronting another game-changing way we engage with our mobile devices.  It seems like an opportune time to reflect on the insights we have developed this past year over the hundreds of hours we have spent with mobile and tablet users for clients in the retail, online search, IT, and financial services industries.

Here are some of the key insights into the mobile user that we’ve discovered:

  • First Impressions Count… A LOT: Users’ first experience with a mobile application has a strong impact on their brand perception and interest in further engagement; a poor first experience with a mobile application can cause brand aversion and an increase in consideration among competitors’ offerings.
  • Security:  Mobile users express more concerns about security while making purchases on their mobile phones than on their computers.  They want assurance that their billing and shipping information would be securely handled.   Users comfort level is increased when viewing a secure login “lock” icon or messaging regarding security of the site.
  • Efficiency (time) is key – With the possibility of a dropped signal, incoming phone call, or other interruptions while out in the world, users need to be able to quickly complete their task.  For example, when making purchases, users appreciate the ability to quickly checkout using previously saved billing/shipping information.  They expect a simpler checkout on a mobile phone without extraneous content as well.
  • Ease of Use: Pinch and zoom can be fun, but it’s better to just make the elements easily clickable on the small mobile screen – users will tire of having to pinch and zoom every time they want to click a link or select a button.  And keep in mind that mobile “conventions” are still gaining awareness and users need help figuring them out.  Don’t assume they’ll “just know.”  Conventions that span the general web and mobile have a good level of awareness, but emerging conventions for mobile specifically can be really confounding for even more experienced users if they aren’t obviously discoverable and understandable.  Of course, testing helps with this.

Leverage what AnswerLab’s Mobile UX Research Team already has learned about the mobile user for your next project.  We can focus on answering the hard questions about developing digital initiatives specifically for the mobile space.  Contact us to learn how we have helped clients increase app discoverability, design mobile sites, and develop cross-platform mobile strategies.

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Looking Beyond Usability to Assess the UX of Mobile Games

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

Currently, more than half a billion people worldwide are playing computer and videogames at least an hour a day (Jane McGonigal). Due to the growing number of wireless subscribers in emerging markets, the mobile gaming market is predicted to reach $18 billion by 2014, according to a study by Pyramid Research.  Sure, this is great for game developers, but it’s also relevant for brands looking to leverage gaming elements in their digital content.

The powerful elements driving player engagement in a game – such as progress bars, status upgrades and badges – can also engage and reward consumers in non-gaming situations. For instance, LinkedIn’s progress completion bar encourages its members to address the information gaps and complete their profiles.

Understanding the user experience of gaming uncovers ways to make the best use of gaming elements that have the potential to drive adoption and engagement of products beyond “gaming.” It also highlights how to evaluate digital experiences that are not simply about measuring usability.

Last week, AnswerLab’s Sal Becerra had the opportunity to co-present with Electronic Arts’ Laura Smith at the BayCHI monthly meeting.  They shared a case study about evaluating mobile games:  How Research Plays: The UX of Mobile Gaming.

The case study describes how AnswerLab partnered with EA to research their first mobile app development experience. EA’s goal was to be the #1 downloaded free game in the iTunes app store. They set a high bar for themselves and met it – with reviews of 4 out of 5 stars – through the development and implementation of a UX strategy.

EA charged AnswerLab with meeting the following research goals:

  • Create a UX framework the EA mobile gaming team could incorporate into their agile development process
  • Establish benchmark metrics for future development
  • Assess and measure the user experience of EA’s mobile games.

AnswerLab delivered some key “playability” learnings from the study:

  • Fun is about keeping players in the flow. It’s that balance between challenge and boredom.
  • Challenges are good!  When you’re making a casual game, the game itself needs to be challenging.  The players don’t want to feel like they have mastered or finished it, but at the same time it needs to be easy to understand the games objective and use the interface controls.
  • Surprising or unclear game key elements can be delightful.

Interested in more of the details? Do you need ideas about how to evaluate a user experience that goes beyond “usability?”  The full presentation is available here: PowerPoint presentation

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What marketers can learn from Ben and Jerry’s Schweddy Balls

Friday, September 23rd, 2011


When I learned that Ben and Jerry launched a new flavor called Schweddy Balls, it put a smile on my face. I appreciated that the brand provided me with an unexpected and fun memory of a classic Saturday Night Live skit. Here’s a brand that knows how to have some fun, even if they risked offending a few people along the way.

And of course they did. “One Million Moms,” an organization affiliated with the American Family Association, says it’s offended by the ice cream’s “vulgar flavor” and in response they’re organizing a boycott. As a marketing and user experience professional I admire the boldness of Ben and Jerry’s management in connecting with their core audience. Connecting with a core audience often comes at the expense of alienating others.

The company made a number of comments to the press, but my favorite was this: “Our fans get the humor.” Ben and Jerry’s is now owned by a British-Dutch Unilever conglomerate, but boy are they good at reinforcing the brand equity that was established in the early days.

What can we learn from Ben and Jerry’s Schweddy (ahem) Balls? A brand needs to form a close personal connection with customers. This has always been the case, but is more so in this era of social media. Shallow, in-personal connections won’t stand up in the long-run to competition. Often deep connections are formed precisely because other groups are alienated. We don’t always admit it, but we form friendships largely because friends like the same things we do, and they dislike the same things we dislike.

Ben and Jerry’s is a company that was started by two Vermont hippies wearing tie-die. They were irreverent from the beginning. They were buying from sustainable farms 20 years before “sustainable” became a P.R. buzzword. With their innovative and in-your-face “What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?” campaign they took on the huge Pillsbury Company when it tried to enforce exclusive distribution (and won). The company has established a reputation for doing things differently, for having fun and being irreverent. Releasing controversial ice cream flavors taps squarely into that brand equity.

Based on years of research, Marketing author and Kellogg professor Philip Kotler boils success in marketing down to two rules, which are basic but tough to implement:

    1) Clearly differentiate your brand’s positioning
    2) Get closer to your target customers by adding superior value

This much-talked-about new flavor release allowed the company to further differentiate itself and get closer to their core customers. Nice work Ben and Jerry.

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