On Usability
With the advent of web applications usability has been taking center stage more and more. What is usability? The usability.gov definition, a website run by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, is pretty good and reads as:
"Usability measures the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system—whether a Web site, a software application, mobile technology, or any user-operated device.
In general, usability refers to how well users can learn and use a product to achieve their goals and how satisfied they are with that process. Usability, as defined by Joseph Dumas and Janice (Ginny) Redish, means that people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their tasks. Usability may also consider such factors as cost-effectiveness and usefulness." (ref: http://www.usability.gov/basics/whatusa.html)
This is the core definition of usability: "...how well users can learn and use a product to achieve their goals and how satisfied they are with that process." While you'll hear the term used alot when referring to web applications (Ex: Gmail, FreshBooks, Photoshop Express) it's important to any size project regardless of medium. It's not just limited to the web or interactive technologies. Matt Linderman of 37signals probably said it best when he wrote:
"It’s about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. It’s about looking into the future, foreseeing any potential obstacles, and removing them." (ref: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1594-fit-to-be-used)
Good usability doesn't just happen, it's purposefully designed and you know when you encounter a poor usability experience. You end up on a site, searching for something and you end up frustrated when you can't find it or something isn't working as you had expected.
The Bad
I recently had this experience while picking out wedding invitations online with my fiance. We wanted to change the email address on our account but could not find an option to do so on the site we were ordering from. Unable to find this I decided to search their site hoping to find a link on some Help or FAQ page that I had missed. Here's what their search form looks like:
When entering text in the search field the color remains a very light grey making it hard to read and difficult to tell if I'm spelling everything correctly. Regardless, I entered my query hoping to find the missing account settings page.
What they don't tell you is that this search field is for products only. Would have been good to know that before I wasted my time trying a few other search queries trying to get their site to cough up the answer I was seeking. Giving the search button a more contextual name like 'Product Search' would clear that up easily.
The Good
One of the best examples of good usability that's come out of the "Web 2.0" craze is live search fields. Google has the feature where it will guess what it is you're searching for before based on what you're typing. This is really helpful for a couple of reasons: very useful if you're doing research and might not know what exactly you need to search for.
It also helps to mitigate spelling mistakes which gets you the information you need faster and reduces the amount of stress on Google's servers by helping prevent a second search of the proper spelling of the search term. A similar example of this can be found on Apple.com.
Typing a semi-specific word like 'laptop' into their search box brings up a list of Product pages and store pages, each one detailed with descriptions, prices and a small icon of the product being offered. Talk about useful.
Yes, No, Maybe
Have you walked by the corner of 22nd Street and Broadway lately? Western Union has wrapped the vacant retail space in vinyl to announce its new global marketing campaign, “Yes!”.
I actually didn’t realize Western Union was still in business – I thought it had gone the way of the typewriter. When shown this picture, my young colleagues asked, “What’s Western Union?” My bookkeeper said, “That’s where you go for bail money!”
All jokes aside, I was baffled and had many questions. Who were they targeting? The faces of the campaign were diverse, but typical of your average American corporate campaign. The paint splattered “Yes!” was reminiscent of graffiti—was this an anti-establishment statement? What is the relevance of a telegram/wire transfer company in an age where there are 50 wi-fi networks in every building and a bank branch on every corner? And why should a marketing campaign be so darn confusing?
I went to the company web site, and this is what I found:
What is the Yes effect and what does paint have to do with it? I think of myself as reasonably web savvy and I couldn’t figure it out, so I left the site and forgot about it. Until I happened to be reading the Harvard Business Review and lo and behold, an explanation: “In a recession, where can you go to find an untapped and eager customer base? Look to the approximately 200 million migrants worldwide and their relatives back home—a pool of about half a billion potential customers.”
According to the article, Western Union having understood this market, has more than doubled their revenues and agents on the ground over the past five years.
So I went back to the website. After much clicking around I finally find out WU is looking for six ambassadors to tell inspiring stories that will win them the opportunity to “select one of three great educational causes to receive a $10,000 donation from Western Union.” Ah, a noble cause, indeed. Alas, I’m still not sure what promoting education has to do with transferring money.
And then a friend sent me this link to a Brandweek article (http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/esearch/e3i4fdb8e9f0eeb905c0e3730b310d5a085) . The article talks about the TV spots and agency Leo Burnett: “The debut TV spot shows the letters of the word "yes" floating across the global landscape. The message: "Every day millions of people around the world are moving their lives forward and making things happen by saying yes to a brighter future." Fifty print ads, featuring photographs of real people, will pepper international publications.”
Years ago ad great Jay Chiat once said “I’m interested to see how big we can get before we get bad.” Leo Burnett is big and this campaign is bad. I see the agency telling the client they needed something high concept—“the brand cryptic”. Go out and create awareness; they could be like Coke, a younger sibling, at 124 years old.
Except Coke didn’t decide to start advertising this year.
There is so much navel-gazing that goes on in marketing and advertising—what is it going to take for advertisers and agencies alike to understand an audience is composed of people? A recession perhaps?
You might say the cryptic outdoor displays did their job, making me aware of the WU brand and piquing my interest with the images. The wrap effectively generated the lead (me), but didn’t drive me to a web address, instead leaving it to me (and everyone else who sees the wrap) to take the initiative to find out how to find out more. WU got its chance market to me, to define its value, services and audience. They could have influenced me to engage further or maybe tell someone about it. Instead they confused me and frustrated me. And I wouldn’t have researched any further if I weren’t writing this piece.
And that is the failure of this $250 million dollar campaign.
Marketers must ensure that the work accurately communicates the thrust of a campaign, before the viewer reads a word. To avoid such confusion marketers must ensure designs meet the following criteria:
• Graphic concepts must accurately depict the chosen theme in a way that is simple, memorable and to the point. Remember George Lois? Lois created some of the best advertising and marketing messages ever—and his covers for Esquire are a timeless primer in the audacity of a great concept.
http://www.georgelois.com/esquire.html
• Regardless of medium (print, outdoor, web, etc.) a commitment must be made to the most important message the advertiser wishes to impart. The viewer should be intrigued, not confused. The audience will not hang around long enough to read your mind.
• People use websites. Repeat again. People use websites. The WU website has too many equally weighted and competing elements compounded by unclear messaging. Good copy combined with design techniques such as weight, size (scale) and color could have better directed the viewer as to hierarchy of importance.
• Words and pictures must work together. In the WU campaign, the paint splatters oddly imply a sense of anarchy that is dissonant to the humanitarian and hopeful message the campaign hopes to impart.
There is another ingredient to great communication. And it is the hardest one of all. Courage. Companies often lack the courage to draw a line in the sand and say what they mean loudly and prominently. If the objective of this campaign is to celebrate the hopes and dreams of 200 million international immigrants through education, it needs to be front and center. If Yes! is the word that changes everything, tell us why, in words and pictures that work together to tell the story. Or the response to this campaign could very likely be no.