I think of Greenpeace as an inherently serious and dedicated group (whether you agree with their tactics or not). If I were Greenpeace, I would WANT to be taken seriously given the cause. SO, I was a bit surprised that they came up with a mascot for their ‘Save the Whales’ campaign that was a bit ‘cartoony’. To top it off they held a ‘Name the Whale’ contest that allowed people to suggest names for the whale and let the public vote on the winner. However, when someone suggested the name “Mr. Splashy Pants“, well, they weren’t too happy.

As a side note - just add ‘Mr.’ (or Mrs.) to the front of something and ‘pants’ to the end, and it’s funny… in a junior high sort of way. Just start calling me ‘Mrs. Bloggy pants’. See? Not, I suspect, what Greenpeace was after.

Of course, to add insult to injury, the name went viral. Votes for Mr. Splashy pants skyrocketed. Then a funny thing happened - Greenpeace started to embrace Mr. Splashy pants. Mr. Splashy pants merchandise cropped up everywhere and people love it! To Greenpeace’s credit, they’re riding the tide (pun intended). However, time will tell how effective this campaign is to their cause.

The moral here is:

1. If you’re going to run a contest, make sure you have some controls in place
2. If you want to be taken seriously, don’t have a cartoon as a mascot
3. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, and…
4. Be careful what you fish wish for

Not to be Captain Obvious, but men and women really do shop differently.

The other day, I was listening to ‘the Herd’ on 680 the Fan and Colin Cowherd (the Herd) was going off about airport security and luggage and how he thought it would be SUCH a great idea to have a website where you could buy your clothes online before you left and pick them up on the other side of security when you arrived. Apparently, men have a uniform – khaki pants, blue button-down shirts and loafers. They can just pick out their size and VOILA! Instant outfit. This may work for men, but….

I’ve had several conversations with my husband about this. I can buy him any piece of clothing – pants, dress shirts, shoes, boxers, etc. simply because I know his size. Ah, “would ‘twere that it were” for women. He won’t go NEAR buying women’s clothing. Each type of clothing, each brand, each store has different interpretations of what a size ‘8’ is. Some even under-size to make women feel skinnier. Am I going to buy jeans that SAY they’re size 4 when they’re not really size 4? – heck yeah!

More importantly, men just think differently about shopping. Don’t believe me? It’s well documented…

From misscellania.com

Women go on an expedition. I needed jeans; it took me 6 weeks. Too low at the hips, too tight, too loose in the waist, those can’t be 8’s – they’re too small, too short, too long, TOO AGGRAVATING. To add to my pain, I refuse to shop in department stores – too many choices.

Back to this airport shopping site idea. For men, I can see this working. For women, not so much. I’m wondering if etailers do/should/can market differently to men and women. Should the structure of the ‘women’s’ section of a site be different than the men’s… is it ever? Is it smarter to package outfits (like Rooms-To-Go or Garanimals) for men but provide accessories and upsells for women? I haven’t seen any sites that sell differently to men than women…then again, I don’t shop for clothing online, either. Maybe (cave)men do.

I watched the movie ‘Click’ last night. Not so much because I was wanting to see it but, rather, because there wasn’t much else on.  I found it surprisingly relevant to my line of work and was inspired to write this post.  If you haven’t seen it, the premise is this: a stressed out Architect (Adam Sandler) is trying to get ahead at his firm by working hard for his smarmy boss (David Hasselhoff).  He gets frustrated one night due to the stress of balancing work and family.  He then flips out because he can’t find his TV remote so he sets out to buy a universal model. 

The only store open is a Bed, Bath and Beyond where, during his search for said remote controller, he comes across a door marked Beyond (I found this funny in and of itself – never thought about what the ‘beyond’ was).  Behind this door is Morty (Christopher Walken) – the resident ‘scientist’ of the ‘Beyond’ department.  He shows Mike (Adam) this new ‘universal remote’ and Mike soon discovers that the remote can control everything … EVERY thing.  He can turn down the volume of the dog, pause his kids, fast-forward his wife nagging at him.  He soon gets caught up in fast forwarding through all of the hassles of life so he can get his work done and get promoted.

AH, but this isn’t what I wanted to talk about.  After a while, the remote starts to ‘learn’ Mike’s preferences and reacts automatically to life’s situations.  Every time his wife starts yelling – fast forward.  Every time he goes to get ready for work – fast forward.  He can’t stop it.  It’s the way the remote is programmed.  So, Mike’s remote was supposedly programmed to be ‘smart’ … to learn his preferences and react automatically thus making his life easier.  But what happens is that his life becomes a huge mess.  He changes his mind about wanting to fast-forward through things, but the remote can’t unlearn. 

This so-called ‘personalization’ or artificial intelligence has been around in various forms for quite some time.  There was talk in the 70s about AI.  When the internet boomed personalization and customization were the rage.  Now Microsoft is coming out with a search engine feature  that will try to ascertain what you MEAN when you search the internet by comparing it with items on your desk top.  All of this makes the assumption that computers can predict your future behavior by examining your past behavior. 

While this theory holds true in many aspects of life, I don’t find that it does in ‘searching’ behavior.  At any given time, I may change my mind or focus or may be searching for something I may never search for again.  I may have documents on my computer from work that have nothing to do with personal searches.  I balk at the thought of someone – something – trying to second guess what my intentions are.  It’s like the former coworker of mine who insisted to me that we could tell what our users wanted by looking at what they did via our web logs. 

Examining past behavior only tells us what people did, not what they want to do.  I simply don’t understand the constant push to try to get computers to do something that, quite frankly, a lot of humans can’t even do.  Why should we expect a computer to know what we’re thinking and what we’re going to do?  Why would we WANT them to?  I certainly don’t.  Disagree?  Just watch ‘Minority Report’.

There’s a theme in Monty Python movies -a comedic tactic, if you will- to take light of people who say one thing but really do/mean/say another. It really IS quite funny. Those of you familiar with Monty Python and the Holy Grail will find these scenes familiar. Those of you who are not (for shame!), here’s an example of what I mean…

First Scene - Arthur

Guard: Who goes there?

Arthur: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, Defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!

Guard: Pull the other one!

Arthur: I am. And this is my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of Knights who will join me in my court at Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master.

Guard: What, ridden on a horse?

Arthur: Yes.

Guard: You’re using coconuts!

Arthur: What?

Guard: You’ve got two empty halves of coconut and you’re banging ‘em together.

Arthur: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through —

Guard: Where’d you get the coconuts?

Arthur: We found them.

Guard: Found them? In Mercia?! The coconut’s tropical!

The Black Knight

Arthur: Now stand aside, worthy adversary.

Black Knight: ‘Tis but a scratch.

Arthur: A scratch?! Your arm’s off!

Black Knight: No it isn’t.

Arthur: Well, what’s that then? [Pointing to the knight’s arm lying on the ground.]

Black Knight: I’ve had worse.

Burn the Witch!

Bedevere: What makes you think that she is a witch?

Mr Newt: What, she turned me into a newt!

Bedevere: A newt?

[pause]

Mr Newt: I got better.

Bring Our Yer Dead!

Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead. [Hits gong]

Large Man: Here’s one.

Dead Collector: Ninepence.

Old Man: I’m not dead!

Dead Collector: What?

Large Man: Nothing. Here’s your ninepence.

Old Man: I’m not dead!

Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.

Large Man: Yes he is.

Old Man: I’m not!

Dead Collector: He isn’t.

Large Man: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.

Old Man: I’m getting better!

Large Man: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.

Dead Collector: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.

As funny as this is on the big screen, it’s not so funny when it comes to real life. Now, I’m not accusing people of lying, but people do have a penchant for believing that they do one thing, when they really do quite the opposite. For instance, think about how you would ride a skate board or a scooter - do you push with your right or left foot? Do you wear name tags on the right or left side? In what order to you eat the food on your plate at dinner? Think about how many people are in jail because of faulty eye-witness testimony – victims convinced of what/who they saw? What people think and what is actually true are often different things.

This gets me thinking. How should we listen to users? We know we should, but how much should they dictate what we design? The trick, I believe, is to hear not just what they’re saying, but what they’re NOT saying, and how they’re saying it. Basically …. we need to interpret what they’re telling us.

A good book about this is “Are Your Lights On? How to figure out what the problem REALLY is” by Donald Gause and Gerald Weinburg. It covers techniques for how to get at the real problem. It’s such an easy trap to only take your users’ word for what they need or want and design solutions based on that. Think about where Apple would be if they just ‘listened’ to users without really hearing what they were saying … without figuring out the real (right) problem to solve. As Henry Ford is attributed to saying “if I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse”. Or maybe two empty halves of coconuts

Quick!  Match the following menu items to the type of food.  Your choices are: Burritos, Fajitas, Quesadilla, Salads, Nachos and Tacos.  GO!!

• Alfredo Garcia
• Art Vandalay
• Billy Barou
• Close Talker
• Fat Sam
• Homewrecker
• I Said Posse
• Joey Bag of Donuts
• John Coctostan
• Pinky Tuscadero
• Ruprict
• Sherman Klump
• The Full Monty
• The Other Lewinsky
• The Ugly Naked Guy
• Triple Lindy

So, how’d you do? 

Beyond the fact that these names say nothing about the food items they represent, I don’t even recognize several of them from American popular culture.  Imagine now that you’re a foreigner that has never been exposed to TV. 

To be fair, this menu has descriptions of each item categorized by type of food. But the point is that if you were just looking at the name of the item, you’d have no idea.  To top it off, you have no frame of reference for Pinky Tuscadero if you’ve never seen Happy Days.

I noticed this the other night when I went to order Chinese food.  I was using the menu I pulled off of my mailbox and noticed that they only had the title of the dish.  I have to tell you ‘Happy Surprise’ doesn’t sound like something I want to eat.   Sticking to what I know – beef with Broccoli, I may have just missed out on a yummy dish. 

Same goes for websites.  You may think that your product names or site navigation names are cute and ‘hip’ - but do they have meaning?  If they are cute and funny, is there some kind of context?  Does your audience understand the language you’re using?  Be careful what you call things on your site, you don’t want your customers missing out on that ‘Happy Surprise’.

In advertising, as well as in User Experience, there’s a concept of memorability. In the case of advertising, it’s more about whether the viewer remembers your brand (as opposed to UE where’s it’s whether they remember how to use or do something). Back in the day, one of the most successful campaigns was for Charmin. You remember Mr. Whipple? He was the grocer who chastised patrons with “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin!” How about the old lady at Wendy’s asking “Where’s the Beef?” More recently, there has been “HEAD ON. Apply directly to the forehead. HEAD ON.” All annoying, yet effective, no?

Well, there seems to be a new trend – ‘Brand cheerleading’ and psychological trickery. Interestingly enough, the campaigns in question are both for meat. The first campaign is for Hillshire Farms – a very effective one since I remembered immediately what the brand was. One ad in this campaign shows a woman at her desk preparing a salad with meat on it. Her coworkers come out of nowhere – one chanting “go meat, meat – go meat, meat” while another chimes in with a cheer “That salad rocks, the best….” And another continues with “that’s crazy girl, I swear, there is so much STUFF in THERE”. Silly, yet cheerful. We all know why cheerleading exists whether we’re used to seeing applied to lunch meat or not. At the end of the commercial the whole office gang (sitting together) cheers “cuz you hungry. you hungry. you’re mama say you hungry! — you say Hillshire, I say Farm. Hillshire. Farm. (pause) GO MEAT!” WHOO HOO – I’m going out and getting me a salad (with meat on it)!

The second product is also a lunch meat product. This time, Oscar Meyer is pitching their Deli-Creation lunches with the same type of commercial - though with more of a psychological twist. Two guys driving the wiener-mobile show up in an office cube-farm with sandwiches and a microwave/backpack (complete with extension cord to the wiener-mobile). The catchy tune (Muzak version of what sounds like ‘we’re having a heat wave’) prompts the lunch-bringers to march while nodding their heads up and down to the beat. The office workers start nodding… I start nodding.  “Yes,”  I say to myself while nodding.  “Oscar Meyer microwavable sandwiches are good.”   In an apparent stroke of good timing, I had just come across an article on how shaking your head up and down while performing a task can increase your conviction that your opinion about that task is correct. SO, if you’re inclined to eat a nice, hot, turkey and cheese sandwich made by Oscar Meyer, your conviction that Oscar Meyer lunch meat is good might be increased. Of course, the study is about YOU nodding your head - not the guys on the commercial - but I dare you to watch it and NOT have the urge to do so.

So now you get the ‘Go Meat’ portion of this post… why the “thank you?” This is another part of an ad I saw that sticks with me and definitely works as far as brand recognition goes. Driving to work one day I saw a billboard for The Closer with Kyra Sedwick. It had a picture of her, the words “The Closer, New Season, TNT, Monday June 18, 9p/8c, THANK YOU.” Thank you? Hmmmm - I don’t get it. Polite, yes… Are they thanking me for reading their ad?? Ok. You’re welcome? Actually, it turns out that the main character (the Closer) says this throughout the show - it’s her ‘tag line’. Of course, I didn’t know this (nor did several people I asked). So if TNT is trying to talk to their current audience, fine. They’ll understand. However, for those of us who are Closer-clueless, this ad is annoying. It IS memorable - but not in a good way. Therefore, I’m not watching the show.

I think I’ll have myself a sandwich instead. GO MEAT! Thank you.

A few weeks ago I was talking to my insurance agent on the phone and I mentioned that I was going on vacation.  At the end of the call, she said to me “Have a great vacation”.  I automatically replied “You Too!!”… then laughed.  I was so used to hearing someone say “have a great day” or something similar that I reacted first and thought later.  Any of you that are Brian Reagan fans will recognize why I thought this was so funny.  He’s a comedian that does a bit about saying the wrong thing at the right time (audio clip in QuickTime.  Seriously, listen to it – it’s worth it!).  It got me thinking about saying the appropriate thing to the appropriate people.

I’m currently taking classes online at Drexel and they constantly send me emails about ‘on campus’ events and parking passes, an announcement obviously meant for people that live in and around Philadelphia.  It would be so easy to just create a database of people who obviously don’t live in PA and filter out those folks when they send these emails.  All they need is a zip code!  It often baffles me why more companies don’t take the time to clean up their data so they’re not saying something ‘inappropriate’ to their audience.  I’ve started ignoring all emails from Drexel – and every once in a while I miss something important.  But, it’s just not worth my time to have to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Drexel should do that for me – at least to some extent.

Actually, I prefer Spiderman. Or Batman. Or Wolverine… superheroes who are humans with some special powers born from a tragic event. Not some alien who just happens to look like a human being. Mostly, though, it drove me NUTS that people (namely Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen) couldn’t tell that Clark Kent was Superman. Puh-lease! They look exactly the SAME - save the curly cue hair, the glasses and the ridiculous speedo-y outfit.

Clark Kent = Superman (CLEARLY)

I highly doubt that if I took off my glasses and donned some spandex that people wouldn’t recognize me. Granted, the actual comic book version adds a few muscles to Superman, but it’s still pretty obvious. So – annoyed by the sheer stupidity of the folks of Metropolis, I refused to partake.

Then I realized that I’m contradicting myself. I have long rallied against calling the same thing something different – it confuses people. Case in point: Holcomb Bridge Road and Route 140. This road is an exit on Georgia 400 north of Atlanta. I’m driving up to Roswell on GA 400 for the first time and I see a sign just past exit 5 that says ‘Holcomb Bridge Road Exit 7’. Perfect. I’m at exit 5, Holcomb Bridge is at exit 7 – do the math. I pass exit 6 and I know I’m on the right track. Then – a sign – “Route 140 East - Norcross Exit 7a : Route 140 West - Roswell Exit 7b”. WHAT? Where’s Holcomb Bridge Road? Where’s just plain Exit 7? I’m going to Roswell… do I take A or B!!?? Luckily, I had the forethought to actually look at a map before we left and I knew that my destination was east of 400. The point is, I didn’t know that Route 140 is also Holcomb Bridge. Same Road, different names. I didn’t know if I was in the right place.

Now, I could see how people miiiiight not pick up that Clark Kent and Superman were one in the same. If they’re called something different and dressed differently, it makes sense that people wouldn’t necessarily see the connection – especially in different contexts. I had some context for Holcomb Bridge Road… I had seen it on a map. I had seen the sign back at exit 5 telling me it was at exit 7. I had enough information to make the connection. But, for a few seconds I almost panicked and caused an accident because I couldn’t decide if that was the right exit. For Superman and Clark Kent the situation is a bit different.

If the average citizen sees Superman during a daring rescue, then sees Clark Kent a few days later in the supermarket, they may not make the connection at all. How many times have you seen a neighbor or coworker out somewhere that you never expected to see them? Did you recognize them right away? I exit 400 at Holcomb Bridge every day, and the sign –while it still bugs me to no end – doesn’t impede my ability to do so. Of course, I still can’t resolve how Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen can see Superman and Clark Kent all the time and not make the connection! Ok, I’m back to being annoyed at Superman. I’ll stick to Spidey. No way you can tell he’s Peter Parker. AND – he has better tights.

Peter Parker = Spiderman

The point is, when you name something on your site or on any signage (say in a building) the navigation or signage should match the destination. If you click on Shoes, the page shouldn’t say ‘Footware’ (you clicked ‘shoes’, the page should SAY ‘shoes’). People need context and a sense of ‘where they are’ and ‘who and what is around them’. They may take a chance and see if it’s the right choice, then they’ll know that what they clicked is the same and won’t need the connections anymore. On the other hand, they may just decide that what they’re looking for isn’t on your site and leave. Are you willing to take that chance?

I forget what exactly we were talking about the other day, but I brought up the subject of my less-than-adequate skills in the art of tact.  My coworker jokingly commented that I didn’t know when to put on my ‘tact hat’.  Jocularity ensued – especially since that phrase is a bit tricky to say.  I proved this theory to be true later that day when reviewing a project with coworkers (sorry Amy and Nalini).  To nicely pair out this personality trait of mine, I’m a master at sticking my foot in my mouth.  Usually, I end up insulting someone in a backhanded, yet unintentional way.  It’s kind of like asking a woman ‘When’s the baby due?’ – only, she’s not pregnant.  I guess my only redeeming quality in all this is that I recognize – almost immediately – when I do it.  Some of my more positive-thinking friends and coworkers have tried to spin it into things like ‘you’re just passionate about things’ and ‘you’re opinionated – in a GOOD way’.  Regardless, it doesn’t excuse my behavior and, intentional or not, it not a good thing.

As usual, I have a moral to my little anecdote – be careful how you treat people.  Also as usual, I can apply this to what I do.  In this instance, it occurred to me that User Experience isn’t just about how pretty, usable and useful your site is.  It is also about how to talk to – and treat – your customers or users.  How you talk to them, what you say to them and how quickly and often you respond to them is just as integral to the process.  Colleen wrote about writing for the web and mentioned Tone and Brand, which speaks to how you talk to your users. But there is more.  It also matters how your customer service responds to users/customers.  It matters what you say to them, and how you say it, offline as well as online.   It matters how you market to them, how you treat their information (email, etc) and whether you know who they are.   It even matters how your error messages on your site are constructed!

So, in addition to what you say, think about how tactful, respectful and courteous you are.  And don’t stick your foot in your mouth.

I recently attended the 8^th Annual Information Architecture Summit where talk of Web 2.0 was all the rage. The theme of the conference was ‘Enriching IA’ with a focus on:

• Rich information: More and more information becomes available to users and systems alike, and these days most of the information comes with metadata, built-in links to other information, and API’s or micro-formats that allow for mashups. How rich is your information?
• Rich interaction: The web is moving towards a more interactive environment, and desktop apps are adapting web metaphors. How does this affect the way you design applications?
• Rich relationships: We’re all already linked through information; and social computing is increasing the possibilities to exchange information. Is your information a social lubricant or is it an obstacle for building relationships?

Web 2.0 obviously dips into all of these areas. As tagging and open APIs allow users to define metadata and create visualizations and overlays of information with things like Google Maps, Mashups and Many Eyes, the web is becoming a users’ market. Users also are sharing and communicating and networking at breakneck speed. Sites like MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr – to name a few – allow users to share and tag their own ‘information’ and to create their own content that they can then put out for all the world to see. So if users are controlling their own content, does that mean Information Architects (IAs) will go away?

Hardly. Web 2.0 may be the next new best thing, but it ain’t the whole ball of wax. There are some User Experience gurus, however, that feel that IA is going away. Josh Porter claims that:

“IA as it has lived will soon die. Not because it wasn’t valuable, not because IAs didn’t do great work, but because the Web is moving on. The problem is that IA models information, not relationships. Many of the artifacts that IAs create: site maps, navigation systems, taxonomies, are information models built on the assumption that a single way to organize things can suit all users… one IA to rule them all, so to speak.”

I need to point out two things here:

1. He says “IA as it has lived” and…
2. “IA models information not relationships”.

One can interpret the first statement to mean that IAs must adapt or die. I’ll agree with that. What career doesn’t follow that process? The second assumes that everything on the web is ABOUT relationships. It is with this statement that I have the most trouble. I’m not convinced that everything on the web is appropriate for Web 2.0 ‘methods’. Does all information need to ‘build relationships’? Does he mean relationships of data or metadata or social relationships? I can’t help but think that the alternative to ‘one IA to rule them all’ is ‘all IAs to confuse them all’. In other words, personal content, metadata, taxonomies etc., means the most to the people who create it. If everyone created their own street signs, where would we be?

Needless to say, I’m skeptical. For one, IA is more than JUST deliverables like site maps, navigation schemes and taxonomies. It is about solving information problems, creating good experiences (on and off the web) and helping people find information (which still applies in a Web 2.0 world). Peter Morville points out a study in which Amazon tried a tagging experiment. What they found was that:

“tagging works well when people tag “their” stuff, but it fails when they’re asked to do it to ‘someone else’s’ stuff. You can’t get your customers to organize your products, unless you give them a very good incentive. We all make our beds, but nobody volunteers to fluff pillows at the local Sheraton.”

As for me, I’m not jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon just yet. At least not to the degree that everything must be 2.0. Sure, it’s cool, it has its uses and it has great potential, but I do believe that there is content out there to be organized for the sake of the users who don’t want to fluff someone else’s pillows.