Mobile Monday Sydney Roundup

Here's a quick brain dump of the insights from tonight's Mobile Monday Sydney. We had 3 fantastic speakers who provided unique perspectives on the mobile landscape. If you know someone who couldn't make it, spread the post!

The session opened with Ken Wong, head of User Experience at Fairfax Digital, who gave a top quality presentation on "Lessons I learnt from building i-stuff". Following him was Manuela Davidson, mobile producer at ABC, who provided an insight into the mobile initiatives at ABC. Closing off the session were Virgin Blue's Warren Hamilton, a product specialist, and Kirsten Romanin, a marketing specialist, who touched on the mobile travel landscape and the latest Virgin Blue Mobile App, called 'Check Mate'.

Favourite Quotes

The difference between a good and a great app is the lessons you learn from your customers. (Ken Wong)

Mobile is not a platform. It is a lifestyle. (Manuela Davidson)

Ken Wong (Fairfax Digital)

Ken's presentation approached the mobile space from a strong user experience perspective. He provided us with 3 critical lessons:

1. Let your users surprise you

• Listen to your users. Learn how & where they use your apps.
• The difference between a good and a great app is the lessons you learn from your customers.
• Where can you start learning about your customers? Observe them 'in the wild'. Contact your customer service team. Mine your web analytics.

2. Start thinking about the 'bounce'

• Traditional UX is state based - you move from one state to another
• Mobile UX is different. You need to look between the states.
• To improve mobile UX, consider transitions such as fading, zooming in/out. These interactions may seem so simple, but they completely change a user's interaction with the interface (and thus the system).

3. Laziness is good

Ken provides 2 approaches to 'laziness':

• A lazy practitioner is a good thing
  • Identify high traffic features (e.g. login or search). Design & build this feature properly the first time and then copy & deploy it across multiple services. I call this: high quality, modular design.
  • Advantages: Better use of time elsewhere & consistent design and experience across differing mobile offerings.
• Consider the 'lazy' UX
  • Primarily focused on the iPad's interaction model - most users use the iPad when they are 'lazily' lounged in a couch.
  • Key takeaway: consider the contextual environment when designing the user interface. You want the user interface, and thus the user experience, to harmonise with the user's environment.

Manuela Davidson (ABC)

Manuela provided a deep insight into the motivations, initiatives and statistics around mobile at ABC.

Some of the interesting points she raised included:

• ABC's motivation for moving into the mobile space: "[in the future] mobile will fall easily within a public broadcaster's obligation".
• Mobile is not a platform. It is a lifestyle.
• Mobile traffic to the m.abc.net.au website: Apple (45%), RIM (28%), Nokia (7%), Android (4%), Other (16%).
• As we move towards the tablet-era, the digital strategy to cater for these mobile devices will depend on content that is more interesting and inviting, as well as increased video consumption.

Future opportunities, challenges and considerations Manuela identified:

• Users (customers ?) having a larger appetite for audio and video content
• Increased customer expectation on video quality (HD, BluRay, 3DTV)
• Data usage challenges the distribution chains (servers, bandwidth)
• Rich media considerations (consume live/on-demand/offline content)
• Relevant-based apps (location-based, social awareness, personalisation)
• Future delivery considerations (telco bandwidth- 4G network, rise of User Generated Content (UGC), increased quality of data, increased uptake of social media, gaming)

Warren Hamilton & Kirsten Romanin (Virgin Blue)

Warren & Kirsten's presentation walked us through the thought process involved in producing the Check Mate Mobile App from competitior analysis to multi-channel marketing.

Warren provided us with some interesting mobile travel related statistics and facts:

• 51% of AsiaPac travellers use mobile devices to check in or perform other activities (change seating, check up on flight cancellation)
• BA.com has ~ 20,000 mobile users per day
• Lufthansa issues ~120,000 mobile boarding passes per month; ~ 2 million mobile page views per month
• Virgin Blue's mobile offering extends to their ~ 2 million Velocity Members
• Biggest threat to airlines are the concierge services in the travel industry, as they contain more customer data (providing improved granular customer market isolation and analysis capability)
• Co-branding with these concierge services is strategically strengthening - Virgin Blue has co-branded with WorldMate in the USA.
• Air NZ is considered as the most advanced carrier to utilise mobile technology in the local AsiaPac market

Kirsten revealed their marketing strategy behind their Check Mate Mobile App launch:

• Primary target market: 35-50yr old business men
• 4 pillars of the marketing strategy: awareness, education, promotion, partnership
• Given the target market, Virgin Blue's strategy was to align with a corporate brand and leverage the strength of that brand in the corporate market. This brand was BlackBerry (ever wondered why there isn't a Virgin Blue iPhone app?)
• Marketing techniques learnt in the alcohol industry were translated to the mobile airline space - the technique of 'sampling' was used to develop a wallet-size pamphlet which could be easily distributed. It basically provided potential customers with a sample of the Check Mate mobile offering. More importantly, it served to initiate one-on-one conversations with potential customers.
• Multi-channel marketing strategy spanned across: television, print, internet, kiosks in the waiting lounges. Overall, this ensured that constant customer engagement with the concept of the mobile app (prior to launch) and with the actual app (post launch).

Before I wrap up, I owe  a HT to @hannahlaw for her tweet about tonight's event. If she hadn't tweeted it, I wouldn't have been able to share these insights. So Hannah, a big thankyou!

Once again, if you know someone who couldn't make the event, spread the post. There's some fantastic content that's not to be missed!

Qantas Boarding Pass: Redesigned

Over the past 7 weeks, I've spent more time in the airport than in my own bed at home. What this has resulted in, is me becoming a faux-quasi-David Attenborough of the airport landscape -  I've accrued many hours just observing how passengers (including myself) interact with boarding passes. In User Experience (UX) land, we call this engaging in 'experience research' or 'ethnographic research', i.e. watching human behaviour towards a product/service to gain insight on how users interact with it (and how they don't interact with it). My finding? Current-day boarding passes aren't designed to be passenger friendly.

In this post, I will only be focusing on Qantas' boarding passes (I'm loyal to this carrier). But whilst I'm isolating Qantas, I can guarantee that it's a universal design problem across all carriers - just have a look at Boarding Pass/Fail by @tyler_thompson. I was introduced to this site by @jwswj after I had completed my re-design (see footnote).

Current Design

Redesign

My thoughts on the Current Design vs. Redesign

The placement of information in the current design lacks a natural logical flow

Many of the passengers I observed struggled to easily find their departure gate and boarding time from their boarding passes. Older-aged passengers called on the assistance of their travel companion, whilst younger-aged passengers took on average, roughly about 3 seconds to achieve this task.

I believe that this struggle is due to the lack of a natural logical flow of information in the boarding pass design. Adopting a Western-world reading pattern (from left to right) for the boarding pass, the string of information on the boarding pass can be read as:

The Carrier is Qantas Airways for Flight QF123 leaving on 15 June for me, the passenger,Jordan Sim. I will be seated in 31F in economy class travelling from Sydney to Melbourne and this flight has a boarding time of 7:40am with a sequence number of A123. I have to board at Gate 5 and my service information is Frequent Flyer Bronze QF1234567.

This string lacks a logical flow and the pieces of information do not harmoniously sit together to be easily memorised. Information accessibility is poor. Now compare this to the redesigned boarding pass:

I, Jordan Sim, the passenger, am travelling from Sydney to Melbourne on Flight QF433 on 06 June. I will board at Gate 5 at the time of 3:10pm. When I'm on the plane, my seat number is 39F.

Reading the redesigned boarding pass is easy - the pieces of information harmoniously work together to form a comprehensive string. In other words, the information is easily accessible.

The key difference is that the boarding pass has been designed through the eyes of the passenger (i.e. the customer). The information on the boarding pass directly mirrors the physical boarding process. It begins with the passenger travelling between 2 locations via a plane. The plane departs on a certain date from a certain gate at a certain time. Once the passenger has passed the gate, they  have a seat on the plane.As such, it can be seen that customer interactions have been considered in the design of the new boarding pass. This makes it passenger friendly.

</rant>

What are your thoughts/opinions?

Add your comments below :)

FOOTNOTE: Whilst I am glad to know that I share a similar opinion as the UX experts towards boarding pass designs, I am simultaneously flat as my designs look similar to Tyler's even though they were designed completely independent of his.

@McDonalds 2.0 – The McCustomer Experience

Two weeks ago, @jwswj and @dkeeghan brought me to McDonald's on Bourke St, Melbourne and introduced me to the 'new' in-store touch screen ordering system. Let me just say, I was thoroughly impressed - it's clean & simple, user-friendly, interactive, intuitive and fun.

In short, I had an awesome customer experience.

It's not new technology. But it's application is exciting and definitely game changing. Here's a quick video to wet the appetite.

What makes this so good?

1. Order Accuracy What's the number one issue surrounding meal ordering? Order accuracy. How many times have you asked for a burger without pickles or mayo, only to have it returned with pickles or mayo or both? How many times have you ordered something extra, only to find out it's not in the bag? There's a disconnect between the customer's requirement, the clerk's interpretation and the chef's instructions.With this in-store kiosk, customers directly communicate their requirements (customised meals) to the kitchen. A customer who receives an accurately prepared order is a happy customer.
2. Ordering Experience Customers interact with McDonald's products via imagery as opposed to text - large-sized images of each product are displayed on screen for users to select. There's tabbed navigation that organises the products into high-level categories - Favourites, Deserts, Drinks, etc. Smooth fading transitions and subtle animations are triggered whenever the customer interacts with the system, creating a seamless and somewhat perceived effortless experience. Simply, it makes you want to play more with the system (and hopefully order more?).
3. Accessibility Firstly, the kiosks are physically accessible to short or wheel-chair bound individuals. Secondly, the User Interface (UI), predominantly consists of large icons, buttons and textual descriptions, ensuring technical accessibility.
4. Less Queue Time Harry Balzer, VP for food market research firm NPD Group Inc stated: "It's about time and lines". Today we are looking for the easiest, quickest and most convenient ways of feeding ourselves. Why wait 5 minutes in a queue before placing your order when you can walk up to a kiosk, place an order and pick it up 2 minutes later? A customer who waits less is a happy customer.

So what's the McCustomer Experience?

For me, the McCustomer Experience is the harmonious operation of the 4 previously identified factors. I believe this is the case, because when you examine the 4 components through a collective lens (examining them as a group), they cover an end-to-end ordering process - from pre, during and post-order. The total McCustomer Experience is the sum of all of its working parts. As Christa Small, the McDonald's director who headed testing for this system, said:

"The customer perception is that it's a better experience. It's the perception that you have control over the process."

Now that you know of this new ordering system, go out and find one to play with.

Hit me back with a comment and let me know what your McCustomer Experience is like.

User Experience (UX). Steve Jobs'ing the Newspaper Industry.

Over the next 5-10 years, one question will cause many restless nights for the CEO's of newspaper companies. This question, one of multi-billion dollar proportions, is:

"How can we successfully convince and convert readers to pay for online news?"

Many people think this is an impossible task, and there's evidence to prove it. The New York Times launched a subscription program called TimesSelect in 2005, charging readers US $49.95 per annum. (Non-loyal) readers proved reluctant to pay for online content and the program was abandoned in 2007.

With British newspapers, The Times and The Sunday Times, recently announcing that they will charge for online content from June 2010, I thought I'd pitch in my two cent's worth.

In this blog post,  I propose 3 ideas:

1. The problem- Newspapers are not innovating enough.
2. The strategy- Newspapers need to focus on their readers...not their revenues
3. The solution- Really Rich User Experience

The problem: Newspapers are not innovating enough.

Most people think the problem is that news is free and so readily available on the web. This is what makes content so impossible to charge for online - if you can't get news from one news provider, there are many more just one click away. Additionally, there's blogs, Twitter and other social media technologies which can be leveraged for free, to obtain news and information. But these alternative are not the problem; they merely form the digital landscape which we're growing up in and currently inhabiting. More importantly, they form the baseline for all of our (user/customer) demands and expectations.

The problem is that newspapers are not innovating enough. An examination of existing and future chargeable online content offerings shows that they are nothing to be desired. In these initiatives, newspapers are re-packaging existing news services into 'sparklier' offerings and then they differentiate by the bells and whistles they hang off (more up-to-date news coverage, more images and/or more information).  In the case of The Times and The Times Select, its "video, interactive graphics, personalised news feeds and the chance to engage directly with our journalists" (James Harding, the editor of The Times). Most of these offerings we can already get on the web today. This is why newspapers have all failed in the past with charging for online content, and this is why they will fail in the future. Reinventing the wheel got nobody anywhere. The same rule applies for newspapers. If newspapers really believed in the value of their journalism, they'd provide a much superior product and service to their readers than what they area already providing.

The strategy: Newspapers need to focus on their readers...not their revenues

If newspapers really focused on their readers, they'd know that charging for online content (in the present climate) is a futile move. More importantly, they would have a better understanding of the information needs of readers today.

In no specific, order, the information needs of readers today can be distilled down to 3 key pillars:

1. Succinctness

The supply of information well exceeds our demand and consequently, we have to consciously manage the equilibrium. This balancing act is a challenge as most of us are time-poor, i.e. we don't have enough time to identify, process and consolidate information (this is one reason why RSS became popular).

We don't need more information. We don't want more information. But what we do want is information presented in a succinct-manner and then have the ability to access that information. It is maximum factual impact within minimal time (this is one reason why Twitter became even more popular).

2. User Experience (UX)

Apple is a leader in the UX market. From the time each Apple product is unpacked to the time it is retired, customers revel endlessly about their amazing experience with the product. What Apple has done is not just revolutionise the technology market, but the consumer expectation market. Consumers now demand from every new generational technology release, much more sophisticated environments and capabilities that are just as, if not even more, easy-to-use.

In addition to this, consumers want the ability to control their information. They want an information pipeline that can be tailored to their information needs and interests. It's all about personalising the user experience.

The implications of increasing consumer expectations on the newspaper industry are huge, as it creates a massive opportunity for newspaper to innovate and offer game changing products and services that will revolutionise the way we browse and consume news content.

A perfect example is the collaboration that's between occurring between Wired Magazine and Adobe to develop their magazine content on the iPad. I believe Wired Magazine will be:

1. A market disruptor within the magazine industry and 2. A market leader in shaping the way we consume print content in the future.

3. Accessibility

There are three dimensions to information accessibility:

1. Physical - Information has to be physically accessible everywhere, from the mobile to the desktop, both online and offline.

2. Time - It also has to be accessible in real-time. The quicker you have access to information, the sooner you can position yourself in front of your competitors.

3. Societal - Information also has to be presented in a manner that it does not discriminate against those mentally and/or physically disadvantaged.

The solution: Really Rich User Experience

The only way newspaper companies will be able to convince and convert online readers to pay for online news is if they completely change the way we consume news. I believe that one way to achieve this is to provide consumers with a really rich user experience.

This isn't rocket science and you'll see why in the next two scenarios.

Scenario 1: The Portable Music Industry

Just less than a decade ago, MP3 players dominated the portable audio market. They synced seamlessly with the desktop, were highly portable and allowed music to be played on the go. In October 23, 2001, Apple released the first generation iPod. It synced seamlessly with the desktop, was highly portable and allowed music to be played on the go; it provided the same services as the MP3. The technology and the functionality was not revolutionary.

What was revolutionary, however, was the way users interacted with their music content. Apple provided a completely new and refreshing user experience for managing audio content. No longer would tracks have to be viewed individually (as in the Mp3); they could be viewed collectively grouped per album or per artist. No longer would volume be increased/decreased at the press of a button; it could be increased/decreased through sliding your finger across a track pad. Apple completely disrupted the existing model of interacting with a portable music device and offered a really rich user experience. Now the Apple iPod holds over 90% of the market for hard-drive based music players.

Scenario 2: The Mobile Communications Industry

Touch-screen smartphones have been around for decades, harking back to the days when names like Palm Treo, Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) and Siemens were considered 'radical'. They were compact computers with nifty features like GPS, WiFi, calendars, calculators, notes, email and an address book. However, none of these technologies took off.

Jump forward in time by a decade - in 2007, Apple officially announced it's smart phone, the iPhone. It was a compact computer with nifty features like GPS, WiFi, calendars, calculators, notes, email and an address book amongst other things. The feature set wasn't revolutionary. What was revolutionary, however, was the way users interacted their mobile device. The iPhone user interface (UI) was sexy, intuitive and consumers became completely immersed within it (and they still are now). At the time, the phone didn't even support basic functionality such as copy and paste, or even allow for multitask processing. But users loved the really rich user experience. Now the iPhone constitutes over 60% of the Australian mobile market.

It appears that revolutionising the way we consume content and providing even richer user experiences with each new technology release is key towards shifting an entire market towards a new convention.

One idea I have of a really rich user experience that I'd like to experience in the near future is reader immersion. Essentially this is my term for virtually embedding the reader within the real-life context of the content they are consuming.

The best example I can think of is the recent events in Haiti. Our perception of the situation was only conveyed through news articles, video snippets and online photo galleries. However, each of these mediums are mutually exclusive, and as such, are unable to collectively provide a complete experience of the situation in Haiti.

Through reader immersion, I foresee technologies such as Microsoft's Photosynth and Augmented Reality being combined to provide a richer user experience. Through Photosynth, readers will be able to see a three-dimensional rendering of the environment, and they will be able to view and move around in it. Overlaying textual information, via augmented reality, within this three-dimension virtual environment enables readers to drill down to more specific news content regarding the situation. The combination of these technologies would completely immerse readers within the world of Haiti, right from their home, and would enable them to have a fuller comprehension of the situation.

Conclusion

It's not about providing more news, more video or interactive graphics. We simply don't have the time to consume more content. The existing newspaper model is bunk.

It's about disrupting the market and way we consume news content now. It's about delivering a game-changing news service with an even richer user experience than the one we have now.

If any newspaper company is able to do this, they're just Steve Jobs'ed the newspaper industry, and they've lined themselves up for the billion dollar bang.