I have had unpleasant or inconvenient experiences, such as having to go to the electric company with an ID to have the bill transferred to my name and setting up auto payment on my gas bill to have it say “pending” almost a month after I requested it.

(So do I pay the bill by check this time and possibly have a duplicate payment taken from my account or do I wait and have a “late payment” notice go on my credit rating.)

Life is increasingly complex and confusing!

Still, I am thankful to have a place to live, a job, enough to eat, clean water, an internet connection in my home and even little things, such as a washer and dryer in my kitchen instead of a damp old basement and a garage with an automatic opener. WHAT LUXURY!

While I focus on trying to make things easier for people in my work, I struggle with things in my own daily life. What worries me is that if things are difficult for me they probably are just a difficult or more so for others.

Improving how things work makes them more efficient, and less frustrating. It also is something that we should be thankful for.

If you encounter a process that is easy, a web site that is easy to use, or even something that works well AND is attractive: take a minute to say THANK YOU.

Someone put time and thought into making your life easier and more pleasant.

World Usability Day Logo

This “holiday” promotes making things easier for people to use, from products, to web sites, to even things in your environment.

The local Usability Professional Association group has prepared an interesting day of speakers and discussion.

The theme for this year’s event is sustainability and you will see this topic represented in everything from the discussions and speakers to our choices for lunch!!

Held at IUPUI for easy access, this is a good opportunity to meet people from many different Indiana business who are advocates for a more usable and sustainable world.

Check out the event page  on SmallerIndiana for more information or go to http://www.bsu.edu/forms/cics/wudreg09/ to register.

The $35 registration includes:

• lunch
• and a one year membership in the Indiana Usability Professionals Association Chapter.

I can’t wait to see you there!

DISCLAIMER: I do have an interest in this event.

Not only am I a member of the organization sponsoring it, I will be presenting on how psychology has helped persuade people to preserve the environment.

When you have a web site that includes your email address, you can get flooded with requests for assistance with a million dollars from Nigeria or to “shop here” for drugs or lingerie.

Even a good junk mail filter won’t catch everything and it may catch things that you want. You should also scan the junk mail regularly for legitimate and wanted messages that occasionally get caught.

I can see where a service that would catch spam would be a benefit.

Sometimes it can become a barrier to interaction with a customer.

The Incident:

I sent a message requesting information about a product to a businessman I met at a networking event and received the following

I use Boxbe to protect my email address. While I did receive your email about “FW: my message subject”, you are not currently on my email Guest List. I’ll be more likely to see your email and future messages if you are on my priority Guest List.

Click here to be put directly on my Guest List

Thank you,
emaill of intended recipient

About this Notice

• This courtesy notice is part of a free service to make email more reliable and useful. Boxbe (www.boxbe.com) uses your existing social network and that of your friends to keep your inbox clean and make sure you receive email from people who matter to you.

• My email was delayed.
• I needed to complete an extra step in sending an email.
• I needed to submit information to a company I knew nothing about.

I was considering doing business with him, but I know several folks who will accept my email who can do the same job equally well.

Imagine walking up to a local restaurant or dry-cleaner for the first time.

A large sign next to the door flashes – OPEN.

You attempt to open the door and about pull your arm off when the door is locked.  Another sign on  the door flips over.  It reads:

Please go next door to the “Photomart” and have your picture taken for our customer identification program. This program allows us to give you better service as we recognize you as a customer and not a robot or solicitor when you come to our door

When your return after a quick digital photo, the face recognition program at the door recognizes you, the door unlocks, and you are allowed to enter.

I registered, and sent my message.

I also felt uncomfortable.

I would like to trust the people I do business with, and I would like them to trust me as well. Trust is reciprocal.

I followed it with another email suggesting that I  felt that this process made me question whether his company would provide good customer service.

I took my business elsewhere.

Do you want the first contact a customer has with you to be a barrier to a long term relationship?

User experience research addresses the concerns people have about security while making access and communication as easy as possible.

There are better ways to manage access. They may not be as thorough, but they will provide bettr customer service.

Sometimes it helps to talk to someone with some experience to help you to decide how to manage the flood of unwanted information in the virtual world.

A FULL MIND can provide that objective ear and help you to decide on the best services and tools.

We can help you to keep things under control while making it easy for customers to do business with you.

Photo credit: kakisky from morguefile.com
Maybe this is true of a baseball field,
but not for most social media platforms
or most business processes.

Most of us need a reason, a motivation, before we take an action.

• The Twitter feed has to have content we want or a connection to someone we care about.
• The Time Sheet has to provide something we want after we fill it in.

If not, we forget to check twitter  and fill in a time sheet when it is the end of the month or the project.

Use a little basic knowledge about how people behave.

If the outcome is something we want every time for a while, we come to expect this outcome and we are unhappy when it fails to please us – so we STOP, very quickly.

If it is great sometimes and we cannot predict when we will get something, we will continue checking those tweets and entering hours, even long after the rewards disappear.

To get people to listen to your tweets,
make sure that they occasionally get something they really want. (The first access to the latest gossip, a coupon for a discount at a favorite business, a note from a friend.)

To get people to fill in time sheets correctly and in a timely manner,
a paycheck at the end of the month may not be enough. (A thank you for submitting at the end of the day, a suprise bonus, public recognition at the next team meeting.)

(By the way. Each of us finds different things rewarding. While you might enjoy public recognition, it may just embarass others. A $10 bill might work for one person, but another might prefer a really good chocolate bar.)

The keys are:

• Expectation that reward is possible
• As soon as possible after what we did
• Unpredictable in time

Ask A Full Mind about more ways to encourage the behaviors you want to see.

Thanks Blog Indiana and Firebelly for the idea for this post

I spent some time this afternoon with a friend, Matt Kenyon,  who is a glass artist.
I wanted to brainstorm with Matt to see if we could come up with some ways to help him to sell his work.

If your product is ART
sometimes you need to do more
than just sell the product,
you need to sell
the ARTIST as well.

I took a workshop with Matt last year at the Indianapolis Art Center and was fascinated and humiliated to learn that for me, making a pretty little glass paperweight was not only difficult, but impossible!
I now have a lovely blob of clear glass with some colored bits in it. I keep it to remind me that glass blowing is HOT, HEAVY, and REALLY HARD WORK.
I can more vividly appreciate the skill that goes into creating those lovely hand blown vases on an entirely new level.

Anyway, we were discussing how to market his glass more effectively.  One aspect of our discussion applies to many products.

Selling art is often more about the relationship with the artist than about the object itself.

If a want a pretty paperweight I can pick up a rock on the beach.

I bought a paperweight from Matt at a recent Art Fair. I wanted a paperweight that my instructor had made because he was so patient with me in my extravagant ineptitude and I was impressed with HIM as well as his work.

That blob of colored glass means more to me than just something pretty. It has memories and ideas attached to it. I like being able to say that I tried making something, but here is what it was supposed to look like. I like pretty lumps of colored glass, but this special paperweight has more value to me.

On a small scale, this sale was about my relationship to Matt. It is about my appreciation of his skill. It is about my desire to learn. It is about his patience.

So relationships may work for Matt.

What if you can’t talk to the person that produced or designed the product?

Companies that have made an effort to have a relationship with their customers and/or to build relationship BETWEEN  customers often not only find that they have repeat business, but there is a brand loyalty that boggles the mind!

We buy not just the motorcycle, but Harley Davidson.  The brand has associations that are important enough that I have seen TATTOOS of Harley logos. Now THAT is a relationship!

Get other tattoo design here

While I doubt that Matt wants his name tattooed on your head, he will be more likely to be able to sell his work to someone who knows him and knows the work he puts into his product. I recommended he put effort into getting to know his customers and students and that he keep track of them, building the relationship over time.

While this is especially important for artists, it is an important part of all product sales.

Building  a personal relationship with a customer has multiple benefits.
It is not just about sales and money.
You not only have a loyal customer who is likely to continue to buy from you, you may also have a new friend!

Thanks Matt!

A professional driver knows about driving a car.

When they imagine the use of the car as a tool to do a different job, you get:

A Font Designed “by” a car….

IQfont

Applied knowledge!

A recent post on Smaller Indiana titled Is Twitter a Job Qualification? captured my attention.

As an educator, I am constantly struggling  to help people learn a concept and not just to imitate a behavior or repeat what they have done before.

Learning is about process and change. It is not about collecting bits of information like the chipmunks who hang out by my bird feeder, stuffing their mouths with seeds.

I know lots of people who use Twitter. I know very few who use it well. I am trying to learn how to use it in an effective manner for what I want it to do. I want it to be another tool at my disposal to accomplish an objective. This may not be what YOU want it to do.

I first used Twitter to send messages to my friends while I was on a trip to Taiwan. I wanted something that I could use quickly as I often only had a few minutes of access to a computer. (I tried to take a “computer vacation” on my three week trip.) I had fun. My few friends willing to follow had fun. This did not make me a Twitter expert and did not qualify me for any job I can think of.

I later started to look for people to follow to learn more about how Twitter could be used as a tool.

I came across Guy Kawasaki’s tweets. Does that man spend every waking hour online? He finds such fun and interesting stuff! Whenever I have time I wander through his tweets. Better than Readers Digest!

My friend Travis Smith is tweeting as part of his user-experience job at Tuitive (http://twitter.com/Tuitive) in Indianapolis. His personal tweets are often related to his work as well. They are a part of who he is. If follow him to keep up with the person as much as the topics.

This fall I plan to use a Twitter account to keep students thinking about the topic in a course I teach about the use of computers in the behavioral and social sciences (in other words, psychology, sociology, political science, anthropology etc.) I am looking forward to finding out if the tool works for this application as well.

I will let you know how this works!

Maybe my students can use the experience to get a job.

He reminded me of the important difference between motivation that comes from the outside (Sometimes referred to as a carrot or stick motivation.) and motivation that comes from within.

Sticks seem to be used all too often. Punishment for what you do is often misplaced. You may think that you are not getting reports done, but you boss may see the problem as not taking time to revise your writing. You get told to “Work harder or you will be fired!”. but since you do not know how to improve, you may put in more time and be frightened and unhappy in your job, and STILL be fired.

Carrots are often a great way to get someone to do something you want. They do work, but there are even problems with “carrots”. Sometimes we offer more money for a job when what the employee would prefer is to work from home or to have more vacation time. Not all of us like carrots! (I think that money often works because we feel that we can use that raise or commission to get the thing we really do want.)

Carrot or stick – we can end up hating a job that isn’t really that bad. How could that happen?

Let me tell you a story about kids and chocolate bars.

A group of kids were using some free time to happily color pictures. When offered a chocolate bar in exchange for a picture, they were happy to draw a picture in exchange for candy. (Like your being offered to use your enjoyment and skill in talking to friends to make a sales call.) GREAT! You get paid for something you would do for nothing.

What happened a week later? When the kids had some free time, they no longer chose to color and draw pictures. Sometimes getting paid for something takes much of the joy out of it. (Ask any artist who is “producing art for sale.)

I know. I hear the advice too.

Do something you love! Do work that you have a passion for!

Be careful you don’t just “do it for the money!”

Keep that motivation inside of you!

No, I am not saying “Work for free.” or “Don’t pay people you hire to work for you.”

Rather – make sure that some of the rewards are internal.

Look at the product you made and tell yourself that you did a good job and it looks great. Then try to do better tomorrow and be pleased with your growth and skill.

Tell people tht you appreciate what they do. Not just a 20% tip, but a “Thanks, I appreciated that you took back my steak so it was perfect!” Tell people exactly what they do that you appreciate.

Give rewards that encourage people to think they are better people. Give employees control over their time (Many folks do better if they can take a lunch break when they are hungry and not only at 12:23.) Let employees make decisions about how they do their job.

If someone is doing something that does not work well in your company, tell them exactly what the problem is and reward them for making improvements rather than threatening them for being “bad.”

If you can get to the end of the day and instead of saying:

“Another day, Another dollar!”

you can say

“I think a did a good job today!”

You are on your way to being more satisfied in your job. (Even if you don’t get a raise this year.)

Once we have considered the answer to those questions, we can begin to look at characteristics of a business that would change how the web might be used effectively.

Let’s look at three examples:

ONE: The one person craft business

Marge has been selling her hand made dolls at craft fairs. She has done well enough that she has been encouraged and her friends tell her that lots of people in other places would love to buy her dolls as well. She is thinking about getting her own domain name and hiring someone to put up a site for her. Her computer skills are minimal and she will have to pay someone to make any changes on the site.

TWO: The product distributor

Tina works for a popular cosmetic company. They have a company web site with a link to a page with contact information for their distributors. Tina has the choice of having her own web site linked to the distributor contact list. She is also thinking of putting a personal web site that has information about her cosmetics business as well as a personal blog.

THREE: The consultant

Zoe has a regional consulting business. She attends professional and networking events and hands out business card, but there is seldom a chance to let somewhat know what she really can do.

These women have different needs and different customers.
How might they begin thinking about a possible online presence?

MARGE:

The one person craft business

Marge has customers that are from her region. Most are women and most are middle age or older, though they often say they are buying a doll for a grandchild. They like the fact that the entire doll is hand made, from the body to the accessories, and are willing to pay the $50 she charges for each doll. The dolls take her several hours to make and she only makes them in her spare time so she completes only a doll or two a week. Although Marge may run out of customers in her local region, she doesn’t really want to make dolls full time as she would not make enough money on each doll to be worth giving up her other job. For her to invest in a formal “doll” web site would cost more than she makes on the dolls.

This does not mean that she can’t expand her market online. There are sites that already have frequent visitors looking for hand made items, such as “eBay” or Etsy” (A craft marketing site.) She can use these sites to market her dolls with very little learning on her part. She will need to learn to take decent digital photos of her dolls and upload the photos and her descriptions. She needs to decide whether she is willing to deal with international currency and shipping. These sites provide much of the “traffic” that would need to be gained through some type of marketing effort if she were to build her own site, and are more likely to get the national (or even international) attention she wants. She will also need to decide how people will pay for her dolls. Taking credit cards online can involve a lot of extra costs. Some sites provide tools to manage the payments as part of their service. (They will also take either a small payment for each item listed or a percentage of the final cost.) This can still be much cheaper than managing your own collection tools and marketing. If this is successful, Marge may want to have her own site to sell her dolls. When and if she does, she will need some very different advice.

MY ADVICE TO MARGE

• Take small steps.
• Try posting a few dolls to a craft sales site such as Etsy.
• If this is effective, consider further expansion and investment and use this site to drive business to a more extensive personal site

TINA:

The product distributor

Tina has a great opportunity to get her business promoted as a part of the company she works for. Their branding efforts and ability to bring people to her information are worth a great deal to anyone putting business content on the web.

Tina will need to find out what is allowed on a company sponsored site. Her idea for a persona blog may not be allowed. She may also need to use specific colors and layout so that her site is the same as others from the same company. She needs to know the legal implications surrounding linking to the company site as well as having her own “location page”. If the cost is nothing for a link to the distributor list or is minimal relative to her monthly profits, she should make use of the company’s resources.
Whether she should do more is based in part on:
the characteristics of her customers
her own technical knowledge,
how much she is willing to spend in dollars and time

1. Her customers:

Do her customers shop online for other products?
Do they regularly reorder items?
Do they call her or wait for a visit?
If her customers routinely call her for refills of commonly used items and are used to shopping online, a web presence may be a good idea. Online ordering would make it possible for her to get their orders more easily and quickly and would be a benefit for everyone (Unless the main company web site allows purchases that are not credited to Tina’ account. In this case – an independent web site might be better for her business.)
If her customers seem to wait for her visits, the web site may not have as much benefit.
In either case, a web site does not mean she should neglect any personal relationships she has built with her customers. Visits, calls, notes, and other personal connection may be her best marketing tool.

2. Her technical knowledge:

Is she going to be comfortable having to deal with the computer on a daily basis?
Is she able to intervene if the customer has a problem with the web site?
Taking orders online can mean more business, but more business may also mean people with more problems with the technology. Is Tina willing and able to be a technical help support desk when necessary? There should be people at the main company that manage this for the company web site.

3. The dollars and days

Is the cost of the web site going to be easily made up in even a small increase in business?
Does she have the time to update the content of a web site?
Digital marketing can be great fun. Writing blog posts about new products or even your daily experiences can be a wonderful creative process. It can also take a LOT of time from other obligations. Can Tina make as much from someone coming to the site to read her blog than from someone she has a personal conversation with on the street? While many blogs have been phenomenally successful, most are only read by a few family and friends. Too much chat about products can be boring and too obviously a pitch for your dollars. Chatting away about things not of interest to her customers may drive them away just as often as drawing them in. She will need to find out where her interests match those of her customers to choose appropriate blogging topics.

MY ADVICE TO TINA

• Use any resources available from the company.
• Start a personal blog using free software such as Google’s blogger. Use a name appropriate to your long term goals, personal and professional.
• If the blog gains a following and linking it to the company site and products does not create legal problems, begin by mentioning your connection on the blog site. If this gets customers, consider a business site of your own.

ZOE:

The consultant

If her customers are web savvy, Zoe is a prime candidate for her own web site. Her marketing efforts focus on personal contact or word-of-mouth. People need a place where they can see evidence of her work and gain a better understanding of what she can do for them.
Her challenge will be putting her work into terms that her customers can understand. The better she knows her customers, the easier this process will be.
Zoe will need to make sure that her web site is professional and presents her clearly and honestly.
She needs to invest in a domain name that is appropriate for her business.
While she might begin with design aids available at many companies that host web accounts, she should think about investing in personalized graphic design and professional assistance with posting a site. The site does not have to have a large number of documents, but it should be ready to grow as her business expands.
Her web site needs to emphasize her expertise in her field and the range of her services. While she could use a blog to help people to get to know her better, this works best when she can post about a narrow range of topics very likely to be of interest to her customer

MY ADVICE TO ZOE

• Unless your expertise includes effective web development and design, hire good people to do the basic work for you.
  Ask that you see a mockup of the site structure before the design elements are applied. Try this out on some people similar to your customers. Can they find their war around the site? Can they find what they are looking for? Do they think the site is easy to use? (This is a simple version of usability testing.)
  Assume you will spend $3,000 to $5,000 for a good simple design. It can cost much more if the site is complex and if the designers need to learn a lot about your customers before designing the site.
  Make sure that part of the cost includes training in changing and submitting new content. You will need to keep this site fresh and you cannot be obligated to anyone else to make that immediate change

Of course, real people need more consideration and more detailed advice. Just because you want to be “Up to date” doesn’t mean you need the same thing as everyone else. Your web site should fit as well as your favorite shoes and make you look as good as a $1000 suit.

How do you know what someone needs?

Are the participants in your training sessions “getting it?”

After your last presentation, did you hear someone say,
“It was just a bunch of PowerPoint slides.”

Do visitors complain about your web site?

The more you know about the people who you do business with, the more you can grow a positive and productive relationship.

Let us work with you to develop these relationships by using research tools that can make your next web site redesign or training project really connect with the people who use it.