Latest Web Design content from Econsultancy

Planning for site-specific marketing, and how to get it right

2012-02-22T18:21:00+00:00

There are several important questions every person who works on a marketing project should ask.

Where will the marketing be?

Tic Tac, as part of their “Shake it Up” campaign, has created a large number of unique print ads with an augmented reality layer that brings the campaign to life on viewers mobile devices.

Watch this video, and note how the AR environment changes according to the different settings in which the ads are located.

There is:

A poster, which is seen by people on the go, and has a clever fact that can be read quickly
A magazine with an interactive game for people who are sitting around
A drink coaster with a pick-up line spewing beaver, to aid conversations at bars.

There is one minor problem, though, that needs to be considered. Underground, on a subway platform is a good place for a poster. People are waiting, and will have lots of time to look at it.

However, this isn’t the right place to prompt people to use their phones to text for a link to the app. There is no cellular service in most of the New York City subway. It is better than the campaigns who prompt you to scan a QR code that leads you directly to a website, but it still needs work.

Marketers need to consider all locations their ads may be in and plan accordingly. There could have been another call to action for subway posters that would give the user an experience straight away instead of waiting until they are above ground again - for example, if subway riders were prompted to use email, it would be queued, then automatically sent when they reemerged onto the surface.

How well does the marketing leverage the surrounding location?

This ad, for Koleston, a brand of natural hair dye, is an unique idea. It's a fantastic execution that leverages the natural beauty of the ocean and sunset to communicate a narrative about natural hair color alteration.

Is this “digital marketing”? It is as soon as people share it.

In a world where images travel instantaneously, a compelling real-life scene is a must-share. This ad uses the environment in such a clever way, there's no need to remind viewers to share it with their friends - they can be trusted to do it on their own. It's a quality that more marketers should take notes from.

What does the marketing do to the expectations of visitors to a place?

Who could forget this Apple ad from the Vista era?

In 2007, placement on a premium site, animated video, and integration between two banners was more than a little mind-blowing. Creating a novel experience in what is for many people a familiar setting is a surefire way to delight a crowd, and earn positive attention.

Notably, though, there was no good way for digital viewers to share the Apple ad. The complete opposite of this is Wieden + Kennedy’s 2010 Old Spice campaign, with Isaiah Mustafa. This campaign amazed the marketing world by building a well-known television character, shepherding him into YouTube stardom, and then upending all expectations by creating content in reply to tastemakers both famous and obscure.

In a conversation about strategy with Fast Company, Wieden’s creative director said: “It's not just responding to tweets, it's looking at the environment right now. YouTube is the place where people share video. Twitter is the place where--celebrities dying or whatever it is--those things blow up so quickly. We know we can only run this thing for a short time so Twitter felt like the place to create the explosion.”

In short, the Old Spice campaign didn’t succeed simply because it was funny. It succeeded because it understood the intricacies and interworking of the media environment – and created an infrastructure to carry a resonant narrative across every format, from print to television to digital.

Does the marketing compliment a location's purpose?

The Tic Tac campaign does a good job about matching the content of their ads to the social context of their placement – quick facts in places of transit, games at rest, pickup lines at the bar. The Koleston billboard takes the beauty of a natural setting and works it into the fabric of the brand narrative. The Old Spice ads are delivered to people who are sitting in front of their televisions and are more or less expecting to see commercials.

But there are instances of insinuating a marketing product even more directly into the intent and motivations that people might have for visiting a place. Mobile technology is allowing digital vendors and storytellers to penetrate into locations and contexts that were previously thought to be inviolable. Customers aren’t bound to the desk, and increasingly digital marketers are going mobile and traveling along with them.

Case in point: Amazon’s Price Check mobile application, which compares in-store costs against Amazon’s own pricing. Amazon got in hot water with brick and mortar retailers during the past holiday season by offering consumers a 5% discount in exchange for using their app to scan the prices of competitors’ goods. The big box stores were upset because they felt penetrated. We're now seeing that architectural infrastructure is no longer capable of securing a sales environment from hostile commercial incursion.

Did Amazon’s targeted customers think that Amazon was doing a "bad thing"? Probably not. After all, these are the same people who first chose big-box discounters over local shops anyway.

Adobe to focus Flash on games and "premium" video

2012-02-22T17:43:13+00:00

Today, Adobe released a roadmap (PDF) for Flash Player and as The Verge observes, the software giant will be narrowing its focus:

Future bug fixes and developments will be prioritized around two key areas: gaming and the deployment of so-called premium video. Relying on its nearly universal distribution, Adobe hopes to see Flash maintain its position as a leader in browser-based games (something that Google is actively challenging with its Chrome Native Client development kit) and will seek to support its developers with a formalized game dev program and a set of unspecified game services. On the video side of things, Adobe pledges closer collaboration with hardware partners and the delivery of its video streaming and content protection technology to more platforms in native formats.

Flash haters, of which there are many, will certainly see this as a sign that Flash is on its death bed. But is that actually the case?

No.

In reality, Adobe's focus on gaming and premium video is just a response to where the market is already going. At one time, Flash was a wonderful, albeit imperfect, means to an end. There were simply things you couldn't do (or couldn't do easily) without something like Flash, so it filled in the gaps.

But as technology has evolved, the number of gaps Flash needs to fill are decreasing. Although more and more is being done with HTML5 and JavaScript, gaming is arguably one of them, as there are simply things that can't (yet) be done with HTML and JavaScript. And although web video will continue to move away from Flash, there's still likely going to be a market for Flash in the "premium" (read: DRM protected) video space.

Adobe narrowing its focus to the areas where it's wanted and/or needed is a smart move. The big challenge for Adobe, however, is making sure that it doesn't narrow too much, too soon, particularly in markets where there is still a role for Flash Player. On this note, I was critical of the company's plans to drop support for Flex. Flex is most commonly used in the enterprise, where there are a variety of reasons companies would much prefer (and even need) to use Flash to deliver their RIAs.

Expect other conflicts like this to emerge as Adobe looks to a post-Flash world. As I noted in my post about Flex, how well Adobe handles them could very well impact how well Adobe does in the HTML5 world.

Anatomy of the perfect website: infographic

2012-02-21T16:02:00+00:00

Have a look at your company website. Do you have all the elements you need for a perfect website? Do you agree with this anatomical chart?

Lings Cars and the art of persuading visitors to buy

2012-02-21T10:55:00+00:00

Challenges with your first impression

When you first arrive on the site you have some ‘pretty significant’ challenges to overcome.

These may include wondering where the hell the search facility is, not having any indication of where to actually start or just simply trying to take in the variety of in your face banners, flashing icons and multitude of ‘click me now or else you’re doomed’ calls to action.

A really interesting and critical part to all of the content provided is that there is, in the most part, a specific reason why that content exists and is promoted. In a word, persuasion.

If for a minute you take the very concept of usability out of the equation, this site is absolutely packed with a wide range of persuasive design techniques which are quite clearly influencing thousands of visitors to hire a car from this website and not one of many others available at the click of the back button (presuming you can’t even face clicking on anything for fear of your computer blowing up, or something like that).

Trust and ways to build it

When you’re considering taking out a hire agreement, it’s not something the average consumer will do lightly.

It may well be the first time they have considered this route for their next car, and one absolutely critical ingredient for them to have the confidence to commit to a hire provider is trust.

Common hire terms are three or four years, and we’re not just talking about a small commitment in terms of monthly price or the purchase of a commodity item. Hiring a new car will for most consumers be the second biggest amount on their monthly overheads spreadsheet after mortgage or rent.

Pillars of building trust

Key pillars for how brands build trust online are:

Providing a professional, usable online experience.
Answering key visitor questions.
Providing transparency to the consumer.
Demonstrating social proof.
Providing industry recognition.
Showcasing personality.
Demonstrating recency of information.

In the next section I have detailed just some of key techniques that Ling Valentine and her team employ in order to build consumer trust in their brand and proposition online.

Persuasive techniques adopted to build trust and persuade visitors to buy

You can trust me!

Directly under the logo and business overview, there is the small but powerful statement ‘You can trust me! ... In 2010 I rented over £35million of cars (at RRP)".

Now this isn’t to say that all visitors will actually see this statement due to it having lost the ‘do what you can to grab attention’ battle many moon ago, but those that do will immediately get a sense of the scale of operation and amount of other consumers obviously hiring from this website.

Not just 1,500, but 1,500+ customer letters

In the primary navigation, there isn’t just a customer tab but you actually get some colourful confirmation of how many customers have chosen to write a letter, presumably thanking Lings Cars for a fantastic service and great hire price.

You won’t fall off your chair when I say social proof is a really important and powerful technique to help persuade consumers to do something, and you’re under no illusions on here that boy does Ling have social proof.

Live and kicking (your ass if you give me any sh!t)

If you want an example of a brand or in particular the person behind/running the brand engaging with consumers and prospects, Ling Valentine is fantastic.

Not only does this really bring out the personality of the brand (more on personality to come) but it clearly demonstrates that this hire provider is very much alive and kicking, compared to some quite soulless car hire company websites I’ve been on.

Bang up-to-date with the latest deals

More messaging that is contained within the homepage focuses on demonstrating that they are constantly adding new hire deals, with the aim of saying to visitors ‘if you want the best and latest deals, count on us to keep bringing them to you’.

I’m out – who needs the dragon’s money anyway?

OK so Ling has previously been on Dragon’s Den. You can’t beat a bit of name dropping to enhance credibility, and the carefully selected quotes from Duncan, Richard and Deborah plus their mug-shots, help to demonstrate some of Ling’s business acumen and charisma.

Did I mention personality already?

It’s all me me me and my larger than life personality

As the saying goes people buy people, and as you look round the site you are under no illusion as to who you are hiring from.

From the opening message ‘I live inside this website Monday to Friday 9am-6pm, to give you the very best service and make your experience a happy one! - I am Ling, accept no substitutes’ to My Cheapest Leasing Deals and ‘Hi! I am Ling Cheap Car Leasing - WAH! from Dragons' Den. I lease cheap new cars!’ not to mention the About Me tab in the navigation (adorned with some more creative treatment) the website screams personality.

Who said you don’t get anything for free?

Who would have thought you could get a free collectors badge from your chosen hire company? I’m not saying this will be a deal clincher, but people like free stuff and well, a collectors badge is free.

Who said hiring cars has to be boring?

I don’t know actually, but not just content with providing a plethora of distractions on the homepage, visitors can also spend time not browsing cars but actually looking at Fun Stuff from the primary navigation.

I wonder what other car hire companies would even consider providing any fun stuff for visitors, especially with a smiley face emblazoned too?

It’s a family business

You don’t just get Ling’s advice throughout your online experience. Hover over most of the car deals on offer and you also get baby Ling giving you some timely advice on which to buy.

In all seriousness there is of course no actual insights provided here, but it’s another element that delivers an experience that is rich in personality.

Understanding the true running cost

Along with the monthly hire cost, Ling also provides a cost for the true running cost per day. Clicking in to this area provides a whole page of information explaining how the cost has been calculated.

This type of additional information provides visitors with a much richer amount of information from which they can make a much more informed purchase decision. The word which sums up this approach is transparency, and it’s quite refreshing to see.

What you get for your money

Many sites still don’t provide the right amount of transparency when it comes to telling the consumer what you get for your money, but this is one of the areas where Ling tries to really deliver on, including jems like this “I send you a sexy first aid kit for your Mercedes A-Class glovebox (limb amputation size)”.

When will someone be there to help me buy?

Hidden within the content is at least information about when Ling is personally available, as well as a useful side panel providing visibility of who you chat live at the current time.

Due to the nature of what visitors are potentially looking to invest in I’m sure live chat will be a very important part of the customer journey for many prospects, and although its competing with many other elements it at least stays with you as you scroll down the (how feckin long?) pages.

Up-front restrictions

When you get to the stage of actually choosing a make and model, the product page for hiring a specific car is packed full of information.

One of the many elements are the ‘restrictions on this deal’ which is repeated throughout the page. One things for sure Ling is providing transparency, which if like myself consumers read down these product pages as you go through the decision making process you can’t help but see.

No hidden fees

Along with providing transparency around any restrictions for a particular deal, the website also provides details of any additional costs which on other websites may be ushered in the back door as hidden fees.

Along with many of the elements I am detailing you do truly get the sense that Ling isn’t going to con you in to a deal where you suddenly get presented with hidden fees and nasty surprises – a critical area for consumers to build and maintain that sense of trust prior to purchase.

Additional expenses clearly promoted

Without looking at other hire websites, I can well imagine that the additional expense to consumers if they go over the annual mileage limits won’t be that well communicated. Dare I suggest its an area where car hire companies regularly make extra revenue from their customers?

In keeping with the ‘all cards on the table’ approach for this website, once again there is no question that you are being kept in the dark, although ‘between 4 and 10p a mile’ isn’t the narrowest of ranges!

Price and value will continue to be a primary driver for many consumers

This website screams cheapness (I mean with the terminology goddamit, nothing else), so there is no denying that part of the strategy here is to demonstrate that you’re going to be getting a great deal if you hire from Ling.

Who doesn’t ‘want a cheap car leasing deal’? I certainly would.

3 + 35 =

Along with providing transparency of the proposition in spades, another key area that the website delivers on is answering potential visitor questions.

For the first time hirers, even down to understanding what 3 + 35 means has been given a straightforward answer.

Full menu of links to answers on…

At the start of every offer page, there is a sub-menu of links which allow visitors to choose what questions they want answering, from explaining prices to saying who can drive the car all the way to what happens when you want to return the car and what happens for MOT’s.

What happens if I click the beautifully bevelled, flashing ‘order now’ button?

So what happens when a visitor has read enough and has been persuaded to hire from this website? Well the main call to action is the flashing ‘order now’ button, but to many visitors clicking this is the equivalent of taking a leap of faith.

Lings Cars handles this by providing a panel ‘what happens when I press “order now”?’ four times within a deal product page, ensuring that visitors have every chance of seeing this crucial information as they are digesting all the information they are being presented with.

The wording used too also reduces the amount of commitment users have to make at this initial stage whilst providing the clarity of when they will make their final commitment.

How to visualise and get excited about BHP

Ling dedicates quite a big area within the ‘Questions, Questions’ section to telling the story of what you’ll be getting ‘under the hood’ with a particular car.

I love the photo of the engine, not to mention the personality being brought out with the likes of ‘rip-roaring turbo direct injection diesel engine!’ and "It has 6 cylinders and 24 valves. This means it kicks out 241bhp and torques (but no one understands what a torque is). Jeremy Clarkson would be proud of me!"

Recognising the purchase decision probably won’t just be made online

Along with the primary call to action area being repeated four times down the page, visitors also have the useful option of printing the current hire details for viewing offline, or sharing with others who don’t aren’t in a position to view the website (whether its their choice or not).

In some respects the printed version of a deal page provides a less intensive viewing experience, whilst still containing most of the key elements that the website provides. Long live printable pages I say.

Car or coronary? I’m Lingin’ it!

Another one of the aspects of a hire detail page is where Ling compares the daily running cost to a eating a few Big Macs, every day.

The clincher for me was knowing this doesn’t included the cost of fries. This is another superb example of Ling’s true personality in all its glory, and I’m Lingin’ it!

It’s all about the conversion baby

In amongst the plethora of information each product page provides, what is ultimately the primary goal of the site, to get visitors to choose to hire now, is regularly repeated down the page.

By regularly asking for the sale, Ling is aiming to catch different visitors at different stages of the understanding and consideration phase.

In some ways it reminds me of the new membership promotion page on this site, which also features an extremely long selling page, but never loses sight of what the aim of the page is for - converting visitors to buyers.

So, would you consider hiring from Lings Cars?

I’m really keen to hear what people have to say about this website. The more time I spend on the site the more persuasive techniques I could have featured in this article, but it’s not exactly short already so I had to draw the line somewhere...

To summarise my thoughts, once you climb over the first hurdle of ‘wtf’ first impressions and actually find a potential deal you are interested in, the amount, type and style of information which is provided is quite simply a breath of fresh air.

Many, many retailers can learn a lot from the wide range of persuasive techniques on show here to encourage visitors to become buyers.

Now, if only a few more basic usability principles could be factored in, that would be something pretty special…

(This article is a follow-up to a previous post on how Booking.com deliver persuasive design practice. Paul is also the trainer for Econsultancy's E-commerce and Usability best practice courses.)

Using mobile marketing to reach a global audience

2012-02-16T09:21:00+00:00

The number of internet users around the world is growing fast. And more and more of them are connecting on the move.

2012 is predicted to be the year that smartphone sales overtake PC sales. Around 87% of the world’s population already has a mobile phone, while 3G networks now cover 45% of the globe.

And in emerging markets such as the BRIC countries, more people are choosing cheaper mobile devices over computers and broadband connections.

Global companies have been slow to keep up though. A Google survey last year found that 79% of its largest advertisers didn’t have a mobile-friendly site and are potentially losing millions of customers.

Consumers choosing mobile internet

There are many reasons for this rise in use. In much of the world, fast broadband connections are rare. Fewer than a quarter of Brazilian households have fixed broadband, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), but mobile networks allow many more to get online.

India, with its vast population, has the fourth highest number of internet users in the world. But patchy broadband coverage means 59% only access the web from their handheld devices, according to OnDevice Research.

In contrast, Japan is home to one of the world’s most sophisticated mobile markets. Millions of users find their phone’s internet browsers a fast, convenient way to stay connected.

According to estimates by the ITU, mobile broadband subscriptions have grown 45% annually since 2007, and this is predicted to continue. For online marketers, it’s fast becoming essential to adapt their strategies to the small screen.

A specially optimized mobile site is a good start. There are few things more annoying to searchers than finding a website is painfully slow or simply won’t load. It’s best to cut out Flash and limit text to the most important information.

If you’re marketing in developing countries, it’s important to remember many people still use relatively unsophisticated devices with pre-pay contracts. Sites can take longer to load, and downloadable content should be to be kept to a minimum size.

Website design isn’t the only thing to take into account. The demographics of mobile-only users differ between countries, but they tend to be a younger, urban population.

For example in Russia, 45% of 18-24-year-olds are mobile internet users, compared to just 1% of over-55s.

Keep it local

Keeping it local is good advice for many online campaigns, but especially mobile ones.

On-the-go searchers are more likely to look for “restaurants in Tokyo” or “Beijing hotels”. And increasingly consumers use them to compare prices, or search for reviews of products before buying.

Search terms should also be localized for popular search engines. While Google is king in much of the world, Yandex rules the Russian mobile market and Chinese users prefer Baidu.

And getting the language right is essential. With limited space to get your message across, translations need to be word perfect.

PPC

Adapting to this trend can bring big advantages to PPC advertisers, who link to compelling, easily accessible sites.

A study by analytics firm Amethon found mobile users click through on ads more often, rather than scrolling down the small screen. But they also lost interest in sites more quickly.

Google has also said it will take “mobile-friendliness” into account, giving ads that link to optimised sites a slight boost.

It may take a little time and effort to get it right. But with roughly one in seven searches now on a mobile device, it’s definitely worth it.

Q&A: Foolproof's Meriel Lenfestey on the EU cookie law

2012-02-15T13:22:00+00:00

Is there now an acceptance that this cookie law is happening and something has to be done to comply, or are some still hoping it will go away?

I believe there is an acceptance amongst major online service providers that this is not going away.

Many smaller organisations, without legal departments, are likely to be unaware of their responsibilities or are taking a wait and see approach on the basis that they aren’t likely to be targeted themselves.

Is the ICO being clear enough on what is required of online companies to comply with the law?

The ICO’s ‘almost impossible’ task is to facilitate and enforce the implementation of the EU Directive in the UK.

The new law is relatively clear, particularly when viewed alongside existing legal definitions of consent. UK Business, Government, and I, feel that the resulting legal requirements are too onerous to be practical and a clumsy way to achieve the underlying goals of the Directive.

In attempting to appease us all, the ICO has implied more flexibility in their guidance, contradicting the law around issues such as the timing and nature of consent.

Although the guidance doesn’t have any legal standing, it has fuelled the organisational fires between legal and commercial teams about how much to invest in complying.

What should online businesses be doing in preparation?

By now, all businesses should understand how they are currently using cookies (directly and indirectly).

Our advice is that this means conducting a cookie audit which not only lists the cookies, the data they store and the provider, but also identifying what benefit each provides to users (including how that benefit can be described to users).

It should also include a categorisation (we’ve identified five overall categories of cookies), what commercial benefit they provide, the level of intrusiveness they could be deemed to create and whether they enable a feature the user specifically requests.

Information should be placed on every website, to describe in user facing language, how cookies are used.

All businesses should be revising their customer contracts to ensure they include consent, and their partner contracts to ensure it is clear where responsibility lies (without that the law makes the primary domain responsible).

With these steps taken, an experienced designer can be briefed to design a UI solution which delivers the best possible user experience for the specific business requirements.

Some have suggested that doing some planning (i.e. showing willingness to comply) will be enough. What is your take on this?

It’s not enough legally. However, no one knows what enforcement action will be taken and some are willing to wait and see, safe in the knowledge that the ICO will give them warning before any action.

The scale of the financial penalties, when viewed against the cost of implementation and risk to business have a created a great incentive for businesses to take minimal steps.

Are there any loopholes that online businesses will seek to exploit?

The law has three aspects (consent, information and exclusions) all of which could be seen as open to interpretation.

The ICO’s recent guidance illustrates this brilliantly within a single document where they suggest non compliant solutions might be acceptable.

These include solutions based around delayed consent rather than prior consent; and inferred consent based on information in a footer, rather than explicit, provable, informed consent.

The lack of clarity around which cookies will be deemed strictly necessary (Shopping baskets “may be excluded”) and their implied flexibility around some cookie uses (e.g. analytics) will also invite many businesses to argue that their cookies should be excluded.

You have been working on this issue with clients in the financial sector. What are the challenges that are unique to this type of business?

The clients we have been working with are organisationally risk averse but resist the requirements because they don’t feel they place intrusive cookies.

They use a lot of cookies (one client uses several hundred), and they use third party cookies (including analytics, partner service providers and aggregators). They will face particular challenges in delivering against FSA requirements such as TCF without being able to rely on people using cookies.

They are often dealing with multiple markets across the EU and will need to satisfy the legal requirements in each market, regardless of any flexibility implied by the ICO.

How badly will the loss of cookies (if users opt out) affect the user experience on websites?

I doubt many websites will offer a persistent opt out option. More likely, they will keep asking each time a user returns or tries to use a piece of functionality which requires cookies in the hope of persuading them.

However, without consent, the immediate impact will be a reduced set of functionality and a less personal experience where the user must hunt down relevant information rather than have it float to the surface.

The medium term impact will be caused by businesses' lack of insight to lead their service development decisions. The long term impact will be a change in the market dynamic with fewer ‘free’ advertising funded or aggregator based websites.

Is it possible to comply without affecting the user experience? What are the best, or least bad, options?

A site which only uses cookies which drive core features the user explicitly requests, e.g. shopping basket in an e-commerce site will probably be compliant without changing anything.

This is true of very few online services. For the rest, it is not possible to comply without affecting the user experience.

We’ve been working with our clients to recommend solutions which minimise the impact on the experience through careful, intuitive placement of consent requests and information, as well as concise, customer facing wording to gather single consent for multiple cookie types (wherever possible).

The laws also apply to mobiles, tablets and connected TV. How will that work in practice?

It makes very little difference except that it adds strength to the argument that we can’t wait for a browser based solution.

Regardless of the platform, the user must be able to make an informed decision before proceeding with an action which will place a new type of cookie.

What are you advising your clients to do about this?

We’re advising them to decide on a strategy and apply it across all platforms.

How do you expect large online businesses such as Tesco and Amazon to deal with the cookie issue?

I expect that few (if any) will fully comply, at least at first until they see what their competitors have done, how the ICO is enforcing the law, and how users respond with their increased awareness.

I do however, expect that they will all increase the prominence of cookie related information on their services, and that they will have fully compliant plans up their sleeve, just in case.

Is there anything companies can do to educate web users about the cookie issue in advance?

I’m torn on this one. I don’t believe users should be educated about cookies. I see cookies as a technical solution to deliver a service – part of the magic which makes the web work.

As this isn’t a luxury providers are afforded in the law, I’d suggest that providers start to refer to cookies in places where they are beneficial (to users) in their services e.g. remember me boxes, add to shopping basket, pass choices to another page, store preferences etc.

This will start to create positivity around them as consent is sought. Registered users can be asked for consent early so that the necessary change in May will be smooth.

In a recent interview with LBi's Manley on the EU cookie law, he said: 'some say this is unworkable, but in all honesty, it’s not, it’s just a bit irritating.' Would you agree with that sentiment?

Creating a compliant solution is possible from a technical and design perspective.

In my opinion, the problem is that the law is misaligned and out of proportion to the underlying goal and doesn’t factor in the realities of the commercial world and users’ tendency to take the path of least resistance.

I’d say that makes it more than a bit irritating.

Meriel will be speaking at a breakfast briefing on The New Data Protection Directive & Cookie Compliance next Thursday (23rd).

Smart phones, tablets were a big part of holiday shopping: report

2012-02-14T17:12:36+00:00

For smart phones, Google says that 46% of device owners researched a product or service on the device and went on to make a purchase offline and that 37% did smart phone-based research followed by a desktop computer purchase. Interestingly, 41% of smart phone owners performed their research and completed a purchase on the device.

What role did smart phones and tablets have in the purchasing process? Both smart phones and tablets were both popular tools for reading product reviews and comparing prices. Smart phones were particularly popular when it came to searching for a store's inventory and contacting a retailer, but somewhat surprisingly, consumers still far preferred using the desktop to search for discounts and coupons.

According to Google, "The first key mobile insight every advertiser should know is that consumers use their smartphones at many different points during the purchase path." This means that marketers will need to be careful not to look exclusively at the 'last click' if they want to understand how mobile devices are driving sales. Case in point: some 19% of smart phone owners researched a product on their phone, visited a store to look at the product, and then went home to purchase the product using a desktop computer or laptop.

Of course, for many companies, tracking consumers as they move to and from mobile, web and physical presences is not the top priority. As Google notes, having a mobile-optimized site and providing a "seamless experience between online and offline in-store", something many businesses haven't yet established, is the first step for success in 2012.

Michael Graves on putting people first

2012-02-13T23:27:00+00:00

His voice gravely, Graves recounted an anecdote about one of the first times he had successfully dressed himself on his own. Victorious, he'd gone to the bathroom to shave, only to discover that the faucet was out of reach.

“Who is this room for?” Graves wondered, before deciding to look on the bright side. “I’ll just ask somebody from my office to bring me an electric razor tomorrow.” He thought. Before noticing that the plugs were located too close to the floor.

Animated with irritation, when he next saw his doctor he commanded. “Get in the wheel chair and roll in here. Pretend you’re me. Try to use the sink.”

“I can’t!” the doctor said.

“You’re planning a $40 million dollar addition to this hospital… are the same experts who designed these facilities doing it?”

The doctor admitted they were, and Graves extracted a promise from him that they would build a full size mockup of any room to be built, before execution, in order to test it. Of course, this was a promise that wasn’t kept. And the same problems were repeated in the new facility.

“It’s amazing how stupid people are.” Graves said. “When it doesn’t pertain to their specialty, then they think it’s out of their reach.”

He showed a number of slides, including the one below.

“What’s wrong in this picture?” He asked. “There are three things circled, but actually, there are four.”

The television is behind the patient, far out of reach.
Similarly, the trashcan is in the corner.
The female urinal is on top of the heater. “Think about it. Don’t think about it.”
The male urinal is clipped onto the end of the bed.

Each of these design choices makes the patient that much more dependent upon others for assistance; that much less empowered. And empowerment is what Graves seems to want most. At one point he struggled while reaching for a bottle of water placed on the nearby podium. Making cooing noises, a woman raced up out of the crowd to help.

“No, it’s okay.” Graves said, before relenting. Piqued, he quipped, “You’re the best. Let me take you home with me.”

Graves went on to detail the thinking behind the suite of new products that his firm has designed for hospitals, the disabled, and the elderly. A lightweight overbed table with a large handle to encourage proper cleaning of the most frequently touched surfaces. A transfer chair that increases patient comfort. Chair arms with “stand assist” curves at the end, that when used for support keep the chair occupant in a position of optimum balance. Wheelchair friendly showers without curbs.

He also described, regretfully, the products that didn’t get made. On the Chinese manufacturers of a rolleter that didn’t make it to market: “They were trying to cut corners, and we were trying to make the corners smooth.” Graves admonished, “You have to work with people who get it, and who understand that you’re a humanist.”

At the end of the day, it’s important to be the right man for the job. “We were interviewed along with some other architects to do houses for the Army, for the so-called Wounded Warriors… when we got there, I knew we’d get the job, because I was the one in the wheel chair.”

As a marketer, what did I learn?

Listening to executives, academics, or artists of Michael Graves' caliber is always a two-fold excercise. On the one hand, there are the actual facts and stories being shared. On the other, there is the method by which they have come about their success. Graves was quite open about what he thinks it takes to make something great, and his thoughts apply to pretty much any type of work imaginable:

Always ask, "who is this for?" and, "where are they?"
Be considerate.
Test to see if your solutions work.
Don't feel constrained to a narrow mode of "expertise."
Empower people to act for themselves.
Know how you want people to behave, and figure out how to get them to do it.
Quality matters - ultimately, it's your name on your work.
Learn how to be the right person for the job. If you're designing for people in a wheelchair, you had better spend some time in one.

Q&A: Malcolm Coles on the new Mirror website

2012-02-10T10:38:00+00:00

Why have you relaunched the site?

The old website has been around for several years, with an old content management system.

We wanted to give our journalists a more modern tool to publish their work, and we also needed a new platform which would enable us to integrate social media more effectively.

Now we have a new CMS, and we’re trying new technology such as the personalised news suggestions from London-based startup Rummble Labs.

What are the main goals of the new site?

We aim to increase the number of pages viewed per visit by each user, and features such as the personalised recommendations will help us to achieve this.

Another aim is to showcase our great photography more than we did with the old site. That one had plenty of photos, but didn’t really provide the space the show them properly.

Now, journalists can add metadata to posts with great photos, and they will be given more prominence.

We also wanted to have fewer ad slots, but make them more appealing and therefore more valuable to users. We're definitely not going down the paywall route.

Also, comments will be open on all articles by default, which is the opposite of how it used to be, so we hope this will encourage more people to stick around and leave their views.

They’ll be on now for most stories, though for legal reasons, not every single one.

How do you handle comments?

We use the latest version of Pluck, which has some built-in moderation tools, and we post-moderate all comments, in part relying on readers to flag inappropriate comments.

How does the personalisation work?

The old site was relatively cluttered, and though we promoted a lot of stories on thr homepage, I think it gave people has less idea of where to look and go on the site.

Before launching this version, we spent a lot of time working out how to help people find what they want.

People tend to snack on news sites, maybe browsing during breaks, lunch hours, and so on, and personalisation helps them to find something that will interest them.

The technology will learn from the articles that people choose to read as they browse the site, and will recommend a further reading list at the right hand side of articles.

These are based on the user’s viewing history, and will recommend stories based on this, and what other people who liked the same article also liked.

In addition, users can sign in with their Facebook logins and receive recommendations based on their interests.

Recommended news pulls up a list, so a 30 year old woman with an interest in celebrity sees something different than a 40 year old Arsenal supporting man.

One thing I noticed on the new site was the 'mega' drop down menus. These are now common in e-commerce but less so on news sites.

Yes, e-commerce sites have increasingly used these as a way of allowing people to see each section at a glance quickly access product pages deep in the site.

In the same way, these provide our users with a shortcut to the main stories in each menu, as well as allowing them to see the top stories in each section at a glance.

Now you've launched the new site, will you continue to test and tweak?

With the previous redesign (in 2008), it was launched, and then nothing much was changed after that.

There were a lot of user testing before relaunching this version of the site and we’ll be using lots of MVT as we go on, as well as learning what works and what doesn’t from web analytics data.

Which sections people use most, how they navigate around the site, and so on. We’ll then be able to make changes to improve and increase usage of the site.

Have you relaunched the mobile site too? What proportion of traffic comes through this channel?

Yes, we've also launched m.mirror.co.uk mobile site, all built in HTML5.

Mobile traffic currently accounts for an eighth of all traffic, though it wouldn’t surprise me if it overtakes online at some point.

Later in the year, we’ll also be looking at iPads and tablets. the question is whether we design apps or optimise for tablets using style sheets.

Useful e-commerce trends: the promo strip

2012-02-09T12:01:00+00:00

The Promo Strip

Here's an example of the most basic version, from Play.com:

That's it. A simple strip of key information that appears under the top navigation of a site, performing a roughly similar function as a direct mail Johnson Box.

Sometimes these promote key selling points of the site or the brand itself, other times they highlight current promotions, though really they're a nice way to display info that you want *every* visitor to the site to see.

The benefits of placing these under the top navigation are:

They appear on every page, so no matter where someone lands on the site they see it.
Even if visitors are on a low screen resolution, they still see it immediately.
The top navigation is where visitors are looking, so - whether they register it consciously or not - almost everyone sees it.

11 More Examples

Below are 11 more examples of the trend. In each screengrab, the promo strip is highlighted in green.

John Lewis

There's a theme among the biggest retailers to use the strip for delivery messaging.

John Lewis promote their 'free delivery' threshold, their 'click to collect' & 'international delivery' info, along with their famous 'Never Knowingly Undersold'.

Evans

Evans follow the trend with Delivery & Returns information, but also include a call to action to sign up to their email list.

Topshop

Again, Topshop opt for the 'Free UK Delivery' & an 'international delivery' promo.

House of Fraser

House of Fraser copycat John Lewis (or maybe it was the other way round) with 'store collection', 'free delivery', and 'international delivery' all promoted prominently here.

Debenhams

And again, Debenhams follows along with Free Delivery, store collection, and international delivery.

Interesting variations on the theme:

Other than the standard 'free delivery over £XX, pick up in store', here are a few variations from retailers who've gone a little further.

Marks & Spencer

M&S step things up nicely from their competitors, showing international and UK delivery info, but also highlighting current promotions in an area every site visitor will see.

M&S almost always has sales on some areas of the site, and this allows the retailer to flag these to everyone who lands on the site.

Boux Avenue:

Another retailer showing their delivery and returns info, but Boux Avenue is worth a mention as - whereas other retailers have lumped the promo strip on top of their existing design - Boux have folded it very neatly in with the overall look/theme of the site.

Naked Wines

Naked's version differs slightly from others. Firstly, it's above the navigation. Secondly, it introduces some urgency and a deadline with their 'Order in the next XX minutes for next day delivery' call to action.

Penhaligon's

Penhaligon's fill this area of dead space in its layout with 'free delivery' info, but also - very usefully for a heavily gifted brand - promotes its free gift wrapping service here.

Pen Heaven

As with Naked Wines, Pen Heaven again focuses on urgency, offering same day engraving for orders before a particular time. It also features customer reviews heavily here; great for a smaller brand that visitors may not have heard of.

Kiddicare

Kiddicare is probably the UK's leading baby product website. it also leads the way here with its promo strip.

First, it beats out all of the standard 'delivery' promos, with next day delivery in '1 hour slots'. Second, it shows off the 365 day return policy. Third, Kiddicare offers a price match promise:

Taking it far further, the retailer has added these strips down either side of the main content:

These strips are hidden if you're on a smaller resolution (eg 1024x768). For anyone on a larger monitor, they reinforce the price match & fast despatch, but also show off their many awards, and promote their 119,000 product reviews.

Summary

As you can see, these have popped up all over the place. They're a very simple addition to highlight features or info you want to show off to all of your visitors.

If you run an e-commerce site, and haven't already tried this, it's worth testing. If you're already running this with the bog standard 'free delivery over £xx', it's worth trialing some other ideas to see the impact they have. There are some nice extensions to this too: personalising them to include discount codes depending on traffic source, etc.

If you're willing to A/B test it, it's probably worth paying more attention to the impact it has on 'new visitors' or first time buyers, rather than your overall conversion rate.

Do leave a comment if you've seen any other interesting examples of this, or had any experience yourself around results.