Digital Agility Needs A Digital Core

The ability of any organisation to remain flexible and adaptable to changes in market conditions, improvements in technology and evolving customer needs is now becoming essential. Outdated business models, approaches and products & services no longer keep a company competitive and ultimately successful.

Having the ability to swiftly deliver and manage rich online experiences and digital functionality across multiple channels and touch-points is almost mandatory now.  But this requires a core digital core architecture that allows Information Technology providers (either in-house or as vendors) to respond quicker and quicker.

Note: It also requires a change in the organisation's mindset

Product & UX Quote for the Day

I am at Turing Fest, the tech & digital conference in Edinburgh.
There is unsurprisingly a lot of presentations and chatter about improving the product & user experience.

I was therefore reminded about this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Should we really bother with personas?

I've been a huge advocate of UCD (User Centred Design) for around a decade now. I've implemented large multi-device websites and specified & delivered major digital platforms based on this approach. However quite recently I've been thinking that just basing the user interface and functionality of digital services around a few key personas might not be the entire story.

My reasoning here is that although a selection of personas may map to the profiles of key website visitor stereotypes, when you start to look at them in more detail you find that your users are all different. So whilst at the very highest level your personas are very different, at the lower level (e.g. the completion of a certain task) a subset of these have alternative needs. And to confuse matters, these alternative needs are shared with users in other personas.

Let's just consider 4 different personas of a typical online service and overlay a few different user profiles over them. As you can see, the personas can cover the main functionality a service provides, but each user has a place in one or more of them. And in the case of some really important users (such as those who need accessibility compliance) they could be present in all 4 personas.

Or put another way... there is no point creating specific personas for each user type. You'd end up doubling your persona numbers just accounting for accessible users if that was the case.

No, that doesn't make sense.... and in this way the developing of personas really doesn't map to something you actually need on your digital project. An understanding of what functionality you need to prioritise over other functionality.

Finding User Experience Resource in Glasgow

Since moving to Glasgow I have noticed that there’s been a lack of some digital-specific skills. The most obvious so far has been around the subject of analytics & insight. However more recently there has been a new glaring resource gap opened up… User Experience.

I currently have a large client project in the Glasgow area that requires User Experience resource.  So for the last couple of weeks I've been looking for decent local freelancers who can consultant on-site over 2 to 3 months. This is an important piece of work and I really need someone who can take things from Customer Strategy all the way through to wire-framing (ideally with large eCommerce and travel experience).

However, despite one unsuccessful avenue, I've so far drawn a blank. And after speaking with several digital contacts in Glasgow, there seems to be a real unmet demand for decent and available user experience contractors and consultants in the West Coast of Scotland.

Or am I missing something?

The seven key areas of an eCommerce evaluation

I get asked to evaluate online retailing proposition a fair bit. So I thought I would share the key areas that I typically look at and report on.

User experience:

Quickly assess a site’s reaction from target site users (ideally using video & audio remote assessment tools such as whatusersdo.com)

Conversion rate optimisation:

Carry out an analysis of the potential use of conversion rate optimisation (CRO) tools & techniques, including possible AB & MVT processes and products

Retailing, merchandising & site operations:

Review of Inventory, pricing & fulfilment processes & systems. Then review the current processes for photograph & video asset production, merchandising, content management and offer promotion, as well as any sale, distressed inventory, affiliates, syndication, etc.)

Analytics:

Review of current Google e current digital analytics set-up, including: campaign tracking, eCommerce (e.g. funnel & conversion) metrics, integration with other services (e.g. digital marketing, product recommendations, etc.)

Site health:

Review the code, page loading time, internal linking, redirects and 404 (not-found) pages (note: this could cross over into search engine optimisation territory, so can in theory be done at the same time)

Volume & Performance (V&P):

Carry out an assessment of any projected volume and/or performance figures and (hopefully) a check of an previous testing done. This then leads into a validation of these figures and the subsequent planning of future V&P testing.

Have I missed anything?

The user experience of user experience

Those who know me, know that I'm passionate about the optimisation of online and multi-channel customer journeys. Right from the early days of my work with the web, I noticed how the digital user experience broke when 'real' people tried to use it.

Over a decade later, everyone has got a lot more savvy about the use of user experience techniques to maximize customer acquisition, engagement, conversion and retention.

However, with all the terms that now exist around this subject, it's no wonder that even the people who are the customers of UX work (e.g. clients) can get a bit confused.

Customer experience, process flows, user stories, user journeys, user-centred design, usability improvement, swim-lanes, conversion rate optimisation, etc. are all terms that a seasoned industry person should be more than familiar with and some are pretty interchangeable. But can we honestly expect the actual users of our services to keep up with whatever the latest name for something is? Furthermore, if we don't actually have sensible, understandable and consistent names for things... how will those who want to purchase these services explain it to their bosses, purchasing terms or even to themselves?

Perhaps the user experience of user experience needs a bit of improving?

No you are not an expert!

It seems like every is a bloody expert these days. From self-styled Digital Marketing gurus through to Social Media ninjas (please, enough with the fantasy role playing... you should have got that out of your system playing Dungeons and Dragons in your youth), it feels like everyone wants to be known as an expert in their field.

It's actually not that hard to look like an expert these day. Just like nobody knows if you're a dog on the Internet.... it is relatively easy to create the pretense of a fair amount of knowledge, so that anyone quickly looking at your online activity will think your an expert.

Don't believe me? Take a look at a range of colleagues and ex-colleagues on Linkedin. Check out how many are now using the new 'skills' functionality to label their expertise. Now look at how many are over-stating what they are capable of and therefore how little they are getting their fantasies validated by their peers.

So next time someone says they are an expert in a specific subject, just look at how many people have confirmed this in their Linkedin profile.

Note:
So far, in my Linkedin profile I have given myself the following skills, which have yet to be validated by any of my contacts: Online User Experience, Internet Strategy, Project Management, ecommerce seo, Technology, Programme Delivery, Web Analytics, Web Content Management, Online Marketing, SEO, Web Solutions, E-commerce Solutions, Multi-Channel Commerce, Digital Communication, Conversion Optimization, Web Strategy.
Does anyone fancy confirming these for me please? :-)