User Generated Content

People have opinions.

People have experiences.

Experiences may lead to an expression of an opinion. Depending on the experience, this opinion can be negative or positive.

Take, for example, my own personal experience of TalkTalk. When I moved my life over to the UK, I immediately began hunting for the best broadband and international call package deal with the phone providers. TalkTalk was the cheapest. Hands down – BT was incredibly expensive, and other providers had shoddy deals, so it was TalkTalk who prevailed.

Friends around me were of the opinion that TalkTalk should be avoided at all costs because of X, Y and Z.

I ignored them, I wanted to form my own opinion. Besides, money was tight, and TalkTalk were giving us a Go-Live date of three weeks time. 4 weeks, still no broadband. 8 weeks no broadband, but phone line had been set up. TalkTalk telephone customer service (outsourced to India) were so difficult to understand, and difficult to give any clear, solid answer. They skipped around the topic without confirming anything. Boy, was I regretting the choice to move to TalkTalk.

Then I discovered http://www.talktalkmembers.com/

A no-hold-back customer frequented Help forum, with official TalkTalk staff moderating and dealing with the queries. 150% more effective then actually talking to someone on the phone. Replies would generally be within an hour, you would receive clear feedback and understanding, and apologies, and the offer of compensation (as long as it was TalkTalk’s fault). Each initial first post would usually start with:

“TalkTalk customer service is appalling I have been let down repeatedly, I am never extending my contract and I will pay the cancellation fee to move to BT”

And the final post would usually be along the lines of:

“Oh thank you SO much, you provide an amazing service, so efficient thank you.”

I found out within 24 hours why my broadband would be delayed by another 3-4 weeks, that I would be offered compensation, and they were very sorry.

Fantastic.

It’s a relatively dangerous thing which TalkTalk are doing. The forums are open to public, so the faults in their services are wide open for any potentially new TalkTalk customer to see, and run away from. But TalkTalk have so much faith in their staff, that they know each issue will be resolved to a satisfactory level, and although their dirty laundry is aired for the world to see, it gets clean pretty damn quickly.

I would say 90% of people come away from the forums far happier then when they arrived.

Other companies aren’t so sure of the idea.

I’m currently working with Company X (a rather large world-wide corporation) on the idea of user generated content, and whether the potential installation of a forum would be a beneficial idea or not. Then, there’s the topic of moderation of the forums. By “moderated” they mean: 24 hours a day moderation – with a huge amount of censorship. If any contributor even breathes something negative about Company X then it will be deleted. Freedom of speech is not allowed, and propaganda is rife.

Being the “social media expert” I informed them that this would be social media suicide. Not allowing forum members to voice their opinion would anger us mere mortals, and it would rapidly spread across the internet that “Company X” is not allowing members to post freely and openly on a public forum. Instead of being afraid of what users would post about them, they should embrace this chance to swiftly and easily connect with their users, allowing them to tackle and solve issues head-on.

This, by itself, would spread the word quickly across the internet how efficient “Company X” are in their customer relationship management.

Currently “Company X” hire two individuals to sit at computers all day, trawling through the internet for any mention of “Company X”. If this mention is in anyway negative, these people find a way to respond, or remove the offending comment. Really, they are that scared of their users.

To cut a very, very, long story short. “Company X” opted out of the forum, and any ability to add comments to blog posts, content that would be user generated was strictly prohibited from any part of any of “Company X”’s multiple websites. It wasn’t worthwhile, they said, to spend time and energy to follow up with any of their millions of customers who may post comments or posts on their websites.

If they could censor free speech and opinions they would.

All I have to do is turn to any one of my friends and ask their opinion of “Company X” and whether their experience would lead them to recommend their services to me (I can sure that they have had some kind of experience with them). I don’t need to go on a website to find that out.

User generated content on a corporation’s website is not something to afraid of, but only include it if you can afford the time and man-power to moderate and respond. Do Not Censor.

People have an opinion as a result of an experience. Take this chance to change that negative opinion by giving them a positive experience.

User (Life) Experience Part 2

(Part one is here)

I don’t hate interviews.

Infact, I really enjoy them. Not because – as a friend boasted recently – I get every single one I go for, but because I enjoy finding out how a company works, what the people are like, etc etc. I always consider them an opportunity, and it’s as much up to me whether I feel I would enjoy the role, as much as they think they would like me.

I once had a 4 hour interview for a usability role in a very famous online poker company, it followed two 1 hour-long telephone interviews. I was introduced to everyone, they fed me (crocodile was on the menu; I didn’t have it), I did some tests (same one twice as I was given the wrong instructions the first time), I was asked the same questions twice (the woman who interviewed me didn’t take a single note on paper), and given the guided tour of a very “Google-esque” office.

It was incredibly draining and intimidating, and I couldn’t wait to be out of there. I was glad when I found out they had hired someone who had more experience than me. It was the only role I had gone for where they didn’t say that they thought “I would be bored.” Had I gone for the interview now, I would be upset that they hadn’t hired me, but at the time, it was too much for me.

So I learnt a lot from that experience, particularly when the recruiter never called me back to inform me I hadn’t got the position, and I had to call the woman who interviewed me directly.

I could write an entire blog on recruiters, I could also write a 3 part blog on that particular interview… maybe another time.

When I secured myself an interview in the 70-mile-away alley, I was excited. I knew things were coming to an end at my current position so I didn’t feel bad. We discussed Facebook, we discussed Twitter, we discussed my thesis about gender-bending. Luckily enough, I had done my research on who would be interviewing me, so I was able to ask educated questions about one of the interviewers research into affective-computing. We also brushed onto user experience topics, like user journeys, use cases, wireframes, sitemaps, card-sorting etc.

I knew about it all, but I had never really done a lot of it.

My current job had never bothered with any user experience, and only designed designs from 9 years ago, thinking they would still be in fashion today. This new company based in Poole, were ahead of the curve even, dealing with brand-new design concepts, and constantly striving to be on top of the latest techniques in design, marketing and usability. They were a London agency, only in Poole, Dorset, and beside the sea.

At the end of the interview, I was shown around the building, and then sent on my way. Things were promising when the recruiter reported back to me. I remember walking along the harbour after my first interview, and being able to see the Isle of Wight in the distance, I just knew I had to be here.

They offered me the job, and the 4 hour daily commute didn’t even deter my positive response.

I literally high-tailed it from my previous job, never had I been so glad that I was moving on. No more abuse. I would work somewhere where I would be respected. My work would actually get to be discussed without being repeatedly slapped down at the first hurdle.

I didn’t exactly slip right into the job, I certainly didn’t take to it like a fish to water, it took a few weeks for me to find my feet and understand the way in which things are done. It was scary and intimidating for my first few tasks. Due to how I had been treated in my last job, I was terrified of getting something wrong, and was extremely defensive whenever anyone questioned me. It took me 3 months to get out of that habit. It still happens every now and again.   I’m dealing with some amazing clients, and some incredibly talented people around me, as well as trying to keep my head above water.

The 4 hour commute wasn’t easy, it was a real killer. I didn’t get home till 10pm some nights, and I would be up at 6am the next day to go back into work. I felt like a zombie some days, and it was very difficult some days to complete work which was presentable. This was the career I wanted, so I was going to stick at it. My skills are random – which is what previous employers have struggled with. My new job also struggled a little too, they wanted to know where I fit into the company, and they are pushing me towards Information Architecture. Seems to be something which I can work at.

I have learnt that usability is definitely not the same when you’re out in the Real World.

It’s far more difficult, with a huge amount of random considerations that need to be accounted for. Clients have different needs, as well as different budgets, and that all needs to be taken into account when deciding whether or not to include a “use case” and how many “personas” need to be composed in order to fully represent the audience.

I’m not sure whether this is what I expected it to be, but I do know I am actually enjoying my role. My first job role to really enjoy, it’s challenging but doable, and I’m responsible for my own work as well as having other people to refer to. It also helps that my 4 hour daily commute has finished, and I’m now living 5 minutes away from work, so I actually have a life now.

So, what is a User Experience Designer?

In my case, a User Experience Designer designs the most optimal experience for users when navigating through a website.

What do I do?

I create (not necessarily in this order) personas, user journeys, concept maps (we call ontology diagrams), sitemaps, use cases, wireframes, interaction-pattern documents, and potentially a whole lot more. I am also involved in usability testing.

I enjoy it because I’m easily bored, and so quickly distracted. There’s something new all the time, something challenging too. When I look back on my previous job in particular, it makes me embarrassed that a company like that still exists in this day and age, and that I worked for them! If I felt I wouldn’t be sued, I would post the name of the company up on this website, but to be careful I’ll keep quiet for now.

I’m still young-ish and I’ll experience miles more in my job-filled lifetime, and I’ll blog about those too.

I’m still working out my own life experience, and I have much more to do

User (Life) Experience

I am a User Experience Designer.

So what is this supposed to mean? What does it encompass? What does it involve? These are questions I frequently get when telling people what I do.

I could have had an educated guess 4/5 months ago as to what this would involve, and I was mostly correct. Mostly.

Now, after 4/5 months in my role now as a user experience designer, I’m starting to comprehend everything that it involves.

My usability based academic background has involved various topics, such as user journeys, the UCD process, wireframes, storyboards etc etc. I don’t think in academia you will ever fully 100% understand in what way these things work in the real world, and why they are important and in what order.

I suppose that’s why I decided to forgo the unrelated job offers after my under-grad, and stuck around for something that was low-paid but extremely related to my degree. If I was going to make a career out of my life, I had to sacrifice the job that was quite well paid and easily accessible to me, to something that was 1 hour 30 minutes away from me, and paid less. Relevance was key to me when I eagerly walked out of college with my degree in my hand.

A year in a junior web designer / developer role, with a key focus on usability practices really increased my attractiveness to potential future employers. I gained XHTML, CSS, Javascript skills as well as general layout, usability and design skills in that position without even realising I was learning. I went from thinking that CSS was a music band, to being able to code an entire site using it. My gentle prod for a salary raise went unnoticed, and a two month job hunt yielded nothing of interest or suitability. My main desire was to work in a primarily usability role, with web design / developing as a secondary role, most roles were the opposite way around.

Thus began the UK job hunt.

Seems the UK was further ahead than Ireland for general web design practices and put actual money into making sure websites were usable, some companies hired in-house usability experts to ensure that their website was consistently usable. Some companies existed purely for selling their usability testing services, agencies hired usability experts to work on projects and to provide depth in respond-to-tender briefs.

A couple of flights later, I had secured a job role in Camberley, UK. The interview had gone well, I had ensured I understood all of what the role encompassed and within 6 weeks of me moving across the water, I started my first day. Really, I should have seen the warning signs when they gave me a title of “Design Engineer.” My inexperience showed as I was excited at being titled something which sounded so professional and important, when really it showed they had no idea what my skills were.

The next warning sign was obvious when they asked me to learn everything about Google AdWords in the two weeks before I was to start. Again, being inexperienced and eager, I did it.

When I started, it transpired I was head of all things Google! AdWords, AdSense and Analytics. For in-house, for clients, for the bosses friends. Nothing like the usability role I had been promised during my interview and conversations with the recruiter.

False advertising, but in this case, I couldn’t take it back to the shop to return it.

Instead, I knuckled down, inhaled anything AdWords related that came my way, determined to make the best out of my situation. The designs I did deal with were created using tables, not CSS or web standard XHTML. One website I worked on for 6 weeks, 1 week away from being published the plug was pulled. Three months went by; probation time. Having not put a foot wrong, and having learnt an amazing amount of information in a short time, I was convinced they didn’t have a bad word to say about me. Sitting downstairs in the bosses “Mobile Boardroom” (tatty old camper van), I was informed I had been late to start work too many times over the past three months, and consequently, would not pass my probation this time. My next probation meeting was in another three months time.

Upset, but determined to improve, I soildered on.

A friend in work informed me that in the three months I had been late three times. Two of which I had genuine excuses for. I had worked through my lunch on these days, and during the past three months I had stayed late many a time. In my mind, this is not something worth failing my probation for.

I could now see clearly that the end was indeed nigh, and I needed to look quickly if I was only guaranteed a position for three months. The operations manager began to take a particular disliking to me, being obtuse and argumentative, my reasoning was ignored and overlooked, my work was continuously sent back. There were times I would cry as soon as I got into my car when I left work. Being defensive without wanting to appear as though I was being defensive was hard work. Continuously being knocked back when I would put so much effort into my work, was soul destroying.

Hundreds of sneaky recruiter phone calls later, one seemed to come along that was right up my alley, only this alley was 70 miles away from me.

(Part Two is here)

Zopa – Social Lending

If you, like me, are sick and tired of hearing about your hard-earned cash going to fund someones pension who doesn’t deserve it, or how about paying for a dirty movie, or paying for a duck island, well try out Zopa.

Zopa is a way of avoiding banks altogether, and is known as the “Human way to get a low cost loan.” You can stop putting your hard earned cash into the banks, and instead, directly help the economy by reaching out to people who need it the most.

I believe that this website has been out for a while, but I only recently came across it myself. It’s unique and different to see a financially based website be so outwardly “web 2.0″ with bright colours, round bouncy writing – basically a website that you enjoy to look at. None of this corporate imagery, blues, greys, big words… instead a totally user friendly website. It is completely unique in the services it provides, with an idea that is so old and has been adapted to the internet.

Obviously they have to do a credit check, you can’t have CCJs, loads of defaults on credit history… standard things. But once you’re in the clear you can lend, or borrow, to your hearts content.

Last month I went into Barclays to apply for an overdraft of £100, not a lot when I have much more than that going into my account monthly. The assistant was wonderfully helpful, very nice, put all the details into her computer, waited 5 minutes, then informed me that the computer had, in fact, said no. Minus the cough. I was horrified. The overdraft was to see me through to the end of the month, preventing any payments that may bounce, and in turn, give me a bad credit history, and in turn, deny me from applying for overdrafts in future. So you see, circular issue, and not going to be fixed.

No longer do we have the chance to negotiate with bank managers on loans, rates… all those kind of things. Now we have the cold, corporate, unfriendliness, unnegotiable computer program to deal with, who doesn’t have emotions and therefore can’t care about my predicament.

Now, lets take a look at Zopa.

I can do a profile all about myself, why I need a loan, why I am a respectable human being… and that I will definitely pay it back.

Or, I could read people’s profiles, and decide based on the information before me whether I want to lend to their cause or not.

Zopa has re-humanised the process of lending and borrowing, I mentioned earlier that Zopa is a step forward… infact it is really a step backwards away from the computer-run worlds of banks today. Giving something a face makes it much easier to part with your cash.

It’s like being angry at a car who has cut in front of you on the motorway; when you drive by them and look in to see a mother driving her two young children to school, and they’re singing along to “Piano Man”, tell me you don’t calm just a little bit. All part of the humanisation process.

There are fees involved so Zopa can make their way, so read up, but the concept is terrific.

Note: Shout out to Dave for contribution of inspiration for this post.

I Will Be The Best I Can Be

Sinead tagged me for this, and being unable to ignore things like this incase something bad happens as a results – I had no choice.

Here are the rules:

1) Put the link of the person who tagged you on your blog.
2) Write the rules.
3) Mention 6 things or habits of no real importance about you.
4) Tag 6 persons adding their links directly.
5) Alert the persons that you tagged them.

So… without further ado…

1)  I have random obsessions with certain animals – and often want to own as a pet. The desire to own an otter was the most recent one.

My Pet Otter

2) I think I have a slight case of ADD, and I believe it was caused by the internet.

3) Sometimes, I want to cry when I see old people.

4) I would easily go back to college and do another BSc and another MSc in IT related disciplines.

5) I am happiest when singing, composing and playing my guitar. All. At. Once.

6) Every day I tell myself I will be the best I can be.

I’m tagging… uhm… Renaldo, The Empress Molly, Lee, and I don’t know anyone else hehe…

Fail!

Saw this in a shop in Poole – you can get a £5 reward if the shop attendent doesn’t give you your receipt.

Just make sure you keep your receipt as that’s the only way you can claim your reward… FAIL

Gender-bending Research Outcomes

As those of you who have been waiting patiently for the results of my research, well, you shall finally be rewarded!

As I will be submitting this to a journal in the hopes of being published, I cannot post up my entire document, however, I will summarise very briefly a few points here:

Title: Gender-bending in virtual worlds: Investigating need for achievement between goal-orientated and non goal-orientated environments.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine a potential relationship between gender-bending online and Need for Achievement (nAch in goal-orientated (World of Warcraft) and none goal-orientated environments (Second Life). Gender-bending has existed online since the creation of MUDs (Multi-user Dungeons) and chat-rooms (Donath, 1998).

There were two stages to this study. Firstly, participants took part in informal interviews (n=6) to accumulate rich data involving their motivations behind gender-bending. Secondly, participants (n=253) responded to an online questionnaire to find out their motivations behind why they gender-bend, and to find out their level of Need for Achievement.

Findings show women in a goal-orientated virtual environment with high nAch are more likely to gender-bend then women with lower nAch. Findings also showed that that men who gender-bend have lower nAch than men who do not gender-bend in a goal orientated environment. There was no difference in nAch scores between individuals who do and who do not gender-bend in a non-goal orientated environment. Findings implicate that reasons for gender-bending differ between environments types, additional research is warranted into investigating and discovering further motivators for this behaviour.

What does this all mean?

Well, from my one-on-one interviews I found that:

World of Warcraft

• These users gender-bend primarily for game achievement reasons
• Secondarily they gender-bend because the character looks visually more appealing
• Thirdly because the character looks stronger and then leaves the user feeling more powerful

Second Life

• Second Life residents had more complex reasons for gender-bending
• Exploratory reasons – some interviewees were transvestites, transgenders and whose sexual orientation was bi-sexual and these factors had strong defining reasons as to why they gender-bend online
• Deceptive reasons – some interviewees wanted to protect their real-life identity by being something totally other online

The above results were very interesting but required far more research to fully understand the reasons for gender-bending online.

From my survey:

Need for Achievement (nAch) refers to an individual’s desire for accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards (McClelland, 1965).

Women who gender-bend in World of Warcraft had a higher need for achievement score then women who did not gender-bend in World of Warcraft.

• The conclusions we can draw from this include that as playing as a male character is recognised as being more difficult then playing as a female character (Suler, 2004), women who play as male avatars have a higher need for achievement. The game is more challenging and they enjoy it more once they have successfully completed tasks as a male avatar.

Men who gender-bend in World of Warcraft have a lower need for achievement score then men who do gender-bend.

• The conclusions we can draw from this are that as playing as a female avatar is recognised as being easier then playing as a male avatar (Suler, 2004), males who play as females have a less-challenging game. As individuals who score highly in need for achievement require a level of difficulty that they must master, means that playing as a female avatar for this purpose means that individuals will have a low need for achievement score.

There is no difference between need for achievement scores between individuals in Second Life

• There is no goal to achieve in Second Life, therefore there is no beneficial reason to playing as a male or female avatar.

Phew, so there you have it, summarised version of my research! Long over-due. Results in June… wish me luck!

References:

McClelland, D.C. (1965) Toward a theory of motive acquisition. The American Psychologist, 20, 321-333.

Suler, J.R. (2004). Do boys (and girls) just wanna have fun? In A. Kunkel (Ed.), Gender communication (pp. 149-153). Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.

WordPress iPhone app

What a wonderfully usable iPhone app that wordpress have managed to roll out.

I literally signed in about 60secs ago and I’m already writing a blog entry. This is how all applications should be- easy to interact with and minimum fuss and details.

As I have learned recently media ultimately needs to be engaging and wordpress app is a great example of that. When you’re on the go, it’s ideal for making quick blog posts which of course you can add to later if needs be!

Thesis update:
Thanks to everyone who took part again, I’m currently looking at all my results and I will report back in a few weeks about it!

Congratulations to t-girl85 who won the €50 amazon voucher!

Usability

As many of you may know, I have a keen interest in the area of Usability.

The idea of creating persons, scenarios, prototypes, wireframes really does excite me, and the possibility of working in a job which involves these kind of tasks really is terribly exciting.

Over here, very few web design, new media agencies hire people who are usability experience experts. They hire programmers and designers, and the pressure is put on the designer to create something that is inherently usable, even though a lot of designers that I know, would be primarily creative, and whose designs would reflect creativity and not necessarily something that is usable.

The few companies who do actually have the ‘middle man’ are the companies who create long-lasting, rich, user-friendly, high-revenue generating websites. Creating an ultimate user experience ensures that people will return to the site, and that people may repeatedly spend money with you.

Standard users aren’t going to grasp that a website they have visited is incredibly usable, but they will notice one that wasn’t usable at all, they will struggle to complete a task, and they won’t return!

Put more money into usability I say! Especially in these times – putting a small amount into something which may generate you high-revenue is very worthwhile! Better than putting a huge amount of money into a site that doesn’t generate you any return as a result of bad user-interface design.

Micro Blogging – Tweet with Twitter!

Well we can always rely on Stephen Fry to have amazing judgment on new gadgets and technologies, Twitter has not escaped his watchful eye, thats for sure!

Tweet with Twitter

I have been following Stephen Fry on Twitter for a number of months now, and have been enamored with his interesting tweets. Especially when he was filming a documentary and kept his follows updated on every step he took.

Now, since mentioning being on Twitter on Johnathon Ross TV show, his following figures have soared, so much so that he had to release this on his blog to give people guidelines. Popular man!

If anyone is interested follow me on Twitter. I frequently Tweet about Usability, Accessibility, HCI, Web Design… occasionally song lyrics. It’s been an interesting tool to keep in touch with people, and to meet new people with as well. Sinead Cochrane really deserves the praise for this for introducing me to Twitter.

The ease of use, and the accessibility of Twitter is what really has driven up it’s numbers. People can use Twitter using their PC, from their Mobiles, PDAs, Iphones etc. 140 characters means you have to say a pretty short message, short and sweet I guess, but this is what is really it’s a charm.

Without having to sit down for hours at a time, reading/writing a blog post, take seconds to update and inform, elaborate later if needs be. In a time when everyone seems to be rushed off their feet, Twitter allows us to take 5 minutes to be kept updated on many people at once.