I spoke on two panels at eTail 2007 in Washington D.C. last week, one of which (”Examining e-commerce Tools that Set You Apart from the Competition”) was covered by DM news in an article titled “Petco and [my company] find online video and user-generated reviews engage customers.”

Check it out!

After attending the Barry Schwartz presentation about “The Paradox of Choice” at Shop.org’s Annual Summit back in September, I was excited to read his book of the same name. Schwartz points out that despite the fact that people with more choices may, in the long run, end up with a better overall outcome, they will be less satisfied with that outcome. This is because an endless supply of choices leads to stress, added effort to find the best choice, and regret after the choice is made. These ideas really struck a chord with me, as I myself am a “maximizer”, someone who insists on finding the very best solution even when others that are more easily available would serve me almost as well with far less effort, so I quickly found the book at a local library.

Although the Shop.org presentation was geared towards retailers aiming to offer a better experience to their customers via less stressful choice, I read the book for my own personal gain. If I could learn to “satisfice” instead of “maximize”, according to Schwartz, I’d be a happier guy. Unfortunately, the book spend most of its 288 pages trying to convince me that choice is a problem — a fact of which I was convinced during his speech — and offered little advice for how to avoid the pitfalls of choice and become happier. As GI Joe told me, knowing is half the battle, so I suppose that the book’s seemingly endless examples of choice paradoxes will only serve to help me recognize maximizing situations in the future, but I still could not help wishing there was more of a solution in sight.

One thing I do like about The Paradox of Choice is that it doesn’t have a catchy name that includes barking cats or purple cows. It presents actual ideas with real examples. Its a quick read, so check it out.

I wrote an article recapping the Philadelphia World Usability Day event that took place in November.

Read it in the UPA Voice.

Read it in the STC UUX Newsletter.

There was a lot of talk at the recent shop.org Annual Summit about how broadband has finally achieved critical mass and how this supposed web 2.0 revolution is poised to take advantage of this trend. 50% of internet homes are now broadband, and on average more than 80% of online purchases are made via broadband connections.

One of the conference’s keynote speakers suggested that the broadband penetration would increase to at least 80% of all internet homes by 2010 (perhaps a conservative estimate as moderate-speed DSL can already be had in many markets for around the same price as dialup). This statistic was used to suggest that the time has finally come to get agressive about targeting broadband customers.

I, however, see a different situation on the horizon; in 2010 when those dialup holdovers are finally embracing what we currently consider to be broadband, the speeds us early adopters will be using will be far, far faster than what we considering today.

Already, Verizon offers a 768k DSL product and a 15MB FIOS product, and Comcast just announced a 16MB product called Blast!; if trend continues this gap will continue to grow. Applications, graphics and videos that we currently consider for the top of the line “broadband” users will become the lowest common denomenator, and perhaps HD imagery and video will be the expectation of “high” broadband users (the early adopters).

Surely we should embrace the broadband of now and continue to monitor its progress, however as the details change, we also must keep in mind that although the details may change, the challenges may remain the same.

As suspected, a lot of discussion at the recent shop.org Annual Summit was devoted to social networking and how it can be leveraged by e-retailers. Although much of the conversation revolved around adding SN tools to commerce sites (Customer Reviews being the most popular), many suggested leveraging external tools such as MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. to drive both brand messaging and site traffic.

What worries me about this is not unlike the concerns I expressed recently about blogs — will the commercialization of these sites render them obsolete? The great thing about MySpace is that individuals are able to publish their thoughts and opinions, hook up with other like-minded people and have a place on the web to call their own. Sites like YouTube and Flickr flourish because the content is generated by average people, not companies, and as such it is fresh, interesting and exciting. If, on the other hand, every other MySpace page becomes a company promoting some product or agenda, or it becomes harder to find videos on YouTube that were uploaded purely for entertainment and for no other reason, these sites will lose thier cool, and thus their audience.

On a related note, I remember when I first started using eBay back in 1998 — there were phenomenal deals *everywhere*. It quickly became a daily stop on my surfing adventures. Sure, the overall assortment of product was not what it is today, but it didn’t matter. The site succeeded because it was something special in a world of sameness. Nowadays, I hardly ever use eBay because it is so cluttered with people who are more interested in profit margin than getting rid of their stuff. When I do look for something there, I regularly find items that are going for more than I could buy them new at Amazon or another web vendor. Great deals reminiscent of the past can be found occasionally, but they have become the exception rather than the rule.

Are MySpace, YouTube and Flickr next to suffer from oversaturation? If retailers continue to look for ways to profit from these wonderfully organic mediums, I fear that this will be the case.

We’re trying something new at PhiChi — a full-day workshop focused on UX design topics! Its being run by William Hudson of Syntagm design, a UK-based consulting firm. William has over 30 years experience designing interactive systems and has extensive speaking and writing credits to his name. The workshop is $350, a pretty reasonable price for a full day affair
(most cost closer to $800 in my experience). Check it out…

I recently stayed at the Courtyard Marriott on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile while attending Creative Good’s LabFest.

Normally, this would not inspire anything remarkable, but the check-in process at this Marriott was truly remarkable. There was nothing new, but the speed and efficiency with which it happened was phenomenal. I walked up to the desk and said “reservation for Madaio”. The clerk asked for my credit card, scanned it, and handed me my keys, all in less than a minute. That was it!

Why are other check-in processes any more complicated than that? The speed in which they did this instantly created a positive experience at this hotel for me. Other than that, it was somewhat pedestrian, but I left with an overall positive feeling towards the place.

On a somewhat related note, Phil Terry also spoke of hotel experiences in his Keynote speech at the conference. The CG folks were staying at The James hotel, a hip, trendy boutique that was by all accounts extremely nice. One thing, however, was missing — in a downtown hotel that caters to business travelers, none of the rooms had desks!

(Oh — in case you are wondering, go here for my other Marriott story.)

World Usability Day Philadelphia was a great success — over 100 people battled through a SEPTA strike and a several block power outage (including trains into 30th st. station and traffic lights in the area) to attend a great keynote speech by Tom Tullis of Fidelity and to participate in site reviews, usability tests and more.

Interestingly, Tullis’ speech was titled “Usability and the Evolution of Technology, or You Shouldn’t Have to Read a User Manual to Ride an Elevator!” and he spent a good few minutes at the beginning of the presentation discussing these so-called “destination elevators” which I described in a recent post about the Marriott Marquis in NYC.

Personally, I worked at the “5-minute website reviews” table, taking a few minutes to review and suggest site improvements for anyone who stopped by. The table was consistently busy, as I was talking to someone pretty much the entire time.

Overall, this was a fun event, and a good chance to meet people who work in the UX industry. I look forward to next year!

After successful visits to UI9 and UI10, plus another trip to Kendall Square for a Forrester Boot Camp, I’m starting to get pretty familiar with the area. If you’re thinking of going to UI11 or any future UIConf put on by UIE, here are some recommendations for non-conference related activities: Read the rest of this entry »

I recently attended User Interface 10, the week-long conference put on by Jared Spool and the good people of User Interface Engineering. Although one of the more expensive conferences, it is one of the few fully focused on User Interface Design and is highly recommended for anyone in the field.

The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to meet and network with a ton of great people in the industry. Thanks to Kyle, Philly-area folks met up on Monday night for dinner and established some great connections for the rest of the week (and hopefully beyond!). It is invaluable to attend skill-specific conferences such as this one — networking with people who think about and do the same things you do on a daily basis is not always this easy to find.

As for the conference itself, it consisted of three full-day workshops and one day of 90-minute workshops. Attendees selected full-day workshops in advance and could pick from a variety of 90-minute sessions Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

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The next PhiCHI social is set for August 17, 2005 at 6:30pm, at Alma De Cuba in Philly (1623 Walnut Street). Come out and talk shop over a few drinks.

There is also a center city happy hour special that evening…

There are a couple of good events coming up in the Philly area for user experience (etc) professionals:

PhillyCHI Happy Hour:
Thursday, July 14, 6:30PM at 105 Social in Manayunk (the old Grape Street Pub).

During the winter PhillyCHI has more serious meetings, but for the summer a happy hour seems like just the ticket. I’ve never been to one of this group’s meetings, but it sounds like an interesting crew and I am hoping to make this one.

PhillyIA Social:
Thursday, July 21, 2005 at 7 pm
UPDATE: This event has been moved to Cereality in University City.

This event is pretty casual — just enjoy a relaxed evening with some fellow IA professionals (and talk a little shop too). As Eddie likes to say, come for the cereal, stay for the IA! If you want to attend, let Eddie James know. I’m going on vacation early the next morning, so I may have to miss this one.

For more info on either group, check out the links in my right nav >>>