47. Ill-defined problems
cause insanity and vanity
We attempt the impossible: “boil the ocean”
in no time at great cost
We believe the unbelievable: unwarranted
claims from agencies and software vendors
48. Ill-defined problems
cause insanity and vanity
We attempt the impossible: “boil the ocean”
in no time at great cost
We believe the unbelievable: unwarranted
claims from agencies and software vendors
We become irresponsible: we serve
ourselves and declare victory at the expense
of our teams and users
54. Your site is a
complex adaptive system
John Holland:
“A Complex Adaptive System
is a dynamic network of
many agents acting in parallel,
constantly acting and reacting
to what the other agents are
doing.”
58. Your site is a moving target
built upon moving targets
59. Your site is out of your control
more John Holland:
“The control of a complex adaptive system
tends to be highly dispersed and
decentralized... “The overall behavior of the
system is the result of a huge number of
decisions made every moment by many
individual agents.”
62. Regime A:
“We’ve gotconstant
The to pendulum swing
get control of
this mess” Regime B:
“Let’s let a
thousand flowers
bloom”
63. Regime A:
“We’ve gotconstant
The to pendulum swing
get control of
this mess” Regime B:
“Let’s let a
thousand flowers
bloom”
Regime C:
“We’ve got to
get control of
this mess”
64. Friends are hard to find
and harder to keep
“Three weeks after the redesign, unique daily visits to
the flagship Gawker blog slumped by 50 per cent...”
65. Friends are hard to find
and harder to keep
Andy Budd:
"People expect the
pain of losing something
to be greater than the
value gained from
its replacement"
http://ind.pn/gSKcnH
“Three weeks after the redesign, unique daily visits to
the flagship Gawker blog slumped by 50 per cent...”
66. “The perfect is the
enemy of the good.”
Voltaire might
have added:
“Constant change
means never having
to say you’re sorry.”
68. But you must refine
1. Prioritize: Identify the important problems
regularly
2. Tune: Address those problems regularly
3. Be opportunistic: Look for low-hanging fruit
75. Zipf is everywhere
• A few search queries go a long way
• A few documents go a long way
• A little bit of navigation goes a long way
• A few of your audiences matter the most
• ...
87. User Research Landscape
Which of us can you do
monthly? weekly? daily?
from Christian Rohrer: http://is.gd/95HSQ2
88. #3: Be an opportunist:
find the low-hanging fruit
89. #3: Be an opportunist:
find the low-hanging fruit
➡ High priorities with low costs
90. #3: Be an opportunist:
find the low-hanging fruit
➡ High priorities with low costs
➡ Semantic webs to support contextual navigation
91. #3: Be an opportunist:
find the low-hanging fruit
➡ High priorities with low costs
➡ Semantic webs to support contextual navigation
➡ Small improvements to search
96. More fruit:
contextual navigation
More fruit: improving
contextual navigation a la BBC
http://slidesha.re/fzChQB
97. More fruit:
small search
More fruit:
teaching the search engine
to be smart at Hewlett-Packard
98. More fruit:
small search
More fruit:
teaching the search engine
to be smart at Hewlett-Packard
99. More fruit:
small search
More fruit:
teaching the search engine
to be smart at Hewlett-Packard
100. Life by a thousand cuts
50% of users are search dominant
x 5% of all queries are typos, fixed by spell checking.
2.5% improvement to the UX
50% of all users are search dominant
x 30% (add best bet results to top 100 queries)
15% improvement to the UX
Ditto for improving content, search results design,
navigation design…
See the Independent (extensively quotes Andy Budd): http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/website-redesign-a-design-for-strife-2248852.html\n
http://www.nothingfromnothing.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ethics-IR.jpg\n Agencies: stop sucking at the teat of your clients like parasites\n Clients: fire your agencies\n Teams: stop getting comfortable and taking the easy route\n