It’s Not about You

The user experience and why it matters to your website

by Bill Koch, Editor, definingINSIGHTS

Twice a day, I let my son watch his favorite TV show, Teletubbies. If you haven’t experienced Teletubbies, imagine four brightly colored characters who talk in one- or two-word utterances, dance to silly music and have “televisions” on their costumes. Every move they make is punctuated by sound effects. To an adult, none of the action seems to follow a logical pattern.

Some parents don’t understand this show. Kids under three love it.

When we visited my sister recently, we talked about how some parents don’t let their kids watch Teletubbies because they think it’s too weird. My sister, a wise professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, sighed and said, “I want to get a sign for parents like that. In big bold letters it will say, ‘It’s Not about You.’”

The world of the web user

Ask any usability expert, and he’ll tell you the same thing about your website. While you may want your site to look and feel a certain way, it’s important to remember that you are building the site for your customers, not for you.

Cord Woodruff, director of human factors engineering for definition 6, agrees. “You are always vying for your customers’ time and interests. It’s crucial that you build a site that will engage them and keep their interest.”

Naturally, that’s the supreme goal of any website or application. But how do you get there? Woodruff advises, “Understand the user experience and go from there. To really succeed—and set yourself apart from your competition, you must balance your business needs with the customer’s needs.”

What is the “user experience?” It’s not just a buzzword. Woodruff lays out the difference between usability and the user experience like this: “Imagine designing an application suite for a restaurant. You design the applications for the servers, the waitresses, the kitchen staff and the managers. You build an infrastructure of servers and applications that interact with each other flawlessly. You test the applications in a real restaurant to see how they work and tweak the system from there.

“That’s usability. The user experience goes like this: I’m a customer. I’m hungry. I want to eat out. If I go to this restaurant, will I be served in a reasonable amount of time? Will my bill be accurate?”

While you can build the most advanced system in the world, if it doesn’t enhance the user experience—or engage your customers—the system could be headed in the wrong direction.

Anonymous but connected

“At the most basic level,” Woodruff says, “humans have to interact. Any study of human behavior makes this perfectly clear. We are social beings. We need to congregate.”

The wondrous rise of the Internet might seem to dispel this notion. “While the Internet is built on the promise of anonymity,” Woodruff explains, “it only confirms how much we want to connect, how curious we are about the rest of the world.”

In fact, Woodruff argues the success of the Internet depends upon a curious blend of “the certainty of connection with a promise of anonymity.”

Therefore, usability experts like Woodruff push their clients to design systems that connect people anonymously, or at least give the impression of anonymity. “People always want to connect, but they may not always want to be identified.”

What they always want, Woodruff stresses, is to find information that’s relevant. “There’s a difference between data and information,” Woodruff says.

Designing for a relevant experience

Your website or application may be filled with customer data, but does it have information? What is the right information?

“Data,” Woodruff states, “is basic statistics about your customer. These could include their date of birth, their e-mail address or their last three purchases. Information, on the other hand, is how that data is relevant to me as a customer.”

Woodruff has learned that no matter how much flash and interactivity you build into your website, if the data presented is not relevant to the customers, they won’t come back. “It goes back to the heart of user design. You must understand the behaviors and needs of your audience first. Then, you build your business requirements based on that knowledge.”

Further complicating the search for the perfect way to present your organization to customers are different levels of user experience. Woodruff believes there are four levels.

“First, there are the task-oriented users. They want one thing from your site. After they accomplish that one task, they will leave.

“Second are the transaction users. They have a few things to accomplish on your site. They will continue to work with your site—even if frustrated—because they need to complete several tasks.

“The ‘just browsing’ users are at the third level. They are comparing information on your site with other sites—or even other media—before they decide to use your services.

“Finally,” Woodruff explains, “are the guests. They happen upon your site through a banner ad, word of mouth or even by chance. You only have few seconds or clicks to impress them.”

Woodruff says the real balancing act in user-oriented design is building websites and applications that cater to the needs of each of these four types of users. “There’s no right way to do it,” Woodruff cautions. “And anyone who tells you they can is lying.”

Toward a more perfect union

“A usability expert develops a translation device between developers and users,” Woodruff says. “If you ever find happy usability experts, they probably don’t know what they’re doing.”

Woodruff sees his role as being a “wooden spoon” in the thick of marketing and design. He stirs the pot of marketing execs and developers alike, challenging them to understand their users before they create one logo or type one letter of code.

“If you build a house with a crumbling foundation,” Woodruff says, “pretty curtains won’t save your house. You’ll have to rebuild from the ground up—at three times the cost.”

While many decision-makers think the “user experience” is an ethereal concept, Woodruff thinks it can be measured in dollars and cents. “If you do the work up front to understand what will engage your customers and keep them coming back, you will save a great deal of money by building your site right the first time.

“This isn’t a negative or cynical view,” Woodruff continues, “it’s just realistic.” Working for big hitters like Sony Online Entertainment, HP, Nokia and MusicMatch, Woodruff has solid numbers and proven ROI to justify investment in user experience and usability studies before a website is created.

Remember who comes first

Usability experts like Woodruff have their work cut out for them. “Our job is to challenge clients’ ideas on how they deliver information.” But the results are well worth it.

Woodruff continues, “Sites and applications that start with a well-studied user experience cost less and engage more customers. That’s a proven and documented fact.”

By starting with the user’s needs—including users at all levels—your business can create an online community that engages and retains new customers. Hold off on the flash, the sounds and big promotions until you understand what other experiences your consumers have had and how these experiences affect what they want and what they will see when visiting your site.

“The greatest user experience,” Woodruff concludes, “is the one we haven’t had yet.” But don’t be daunted. This usability expert reminds you that in order to build an innovative new site, you have to understand your old customers first because—as you already know—it’s not about you.