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February, 2008 – Trends in user experience design: What you need to know in 2008 that can help your business

Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Hello, I am Susan Weinschenk, Chief of Technical Staff at HFI. Welcome to this live webcast presented by HFI's Usability Broadcast Network. The title of today's webcast is "Trends in User experience Design – What you need to know in 2008 that can help your organization" and I am really happy to have with me here today for discussion, Dr. Kath Straub, our Chief Scientist at HFI. Before we get going on our conversation, I want to remind everyone that you can download a white paper on this topic from our website at any time and also, if you are interested in asking us questions, we are going to have a live Q&A after the discussion and so you can submit a question anytime during our conversation by clicking on the link on the lower right-hand corner. So having said that, let's get going. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Let's start talking about these trends. So this is one of my favorite types of webcasts that we did-that we do because we get to talk about, kind of my favorite topic. Dr. Kath Straub: The new things that are coming. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The new things that are coming and the things those that are of most interest to us at HFI and that are, I hope, of interest to the people who are watching. I have got five different topics. We are going to talk about emotional design and persuasive architecture. We are going to talk about designing for different generations. We are going to talk about Human Factors in healthcare, trends in e-commerce and then also trends in e-government – the field that I know you have been a lot of work in. Dr. Kath Straub: Yes. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So let's get going and the first one we are going to talk about is emotional design and persuasive architecture and you know just from the conversations that we have that this is like the topic that I like to talk about, think about and read about. Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah, all the time. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: (Laughs) All the time. I think probably, are you saying that maybe people are getting tired of the conversation? Dr. Kath Straub: We don't know about that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: (Laughs) Well you know, my background and your background, we both have a background in psychology and for many people in the Human Factors field, this revolves around what we think of as cognitive psychology – in how people think and how people learn. There is a whole area of psychology more involved in a sort of non-conscious, more emotional processing that I feel, and maybe one of the reasons I am so passionate about this is because I feel that it was kind of missing in my education and I learned in intro sight like we all did about emotions and etc., but a real scientific study of how this comes into play and especially how it might relate to websites, web design or software design – that I feel, is new. Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah, it's much harder to measure than the things that we traditionally hang onto. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. Dr. Kath Straub: So this is probably why it has been so late in coming for us. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So one of the things that, by the way, that I have been reading about is the relationship between conscious thought and emotions. The picture that we have got is a picture of a brain is that traditionally when we talk about it, we talk about the new brain, the middle brain and the old brain. The new brain being the part of the human brain that deals with conscious processing, memory, verbal ability etc., and the old brain is dealing with automatic triggers. Dr. Kath Straub: Things like breathing. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Things like breathing, and then the whole you know, flight-or-fright right when you, oh no that's flight-or-fight. Dr. Kath Straub: That's something like that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But the fright comes in there too. Dr. Kath Straub: It has to do with the emotion of being nervous. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I don't want to argue with that but the whole, the story that I like is when you are walking in the woods and you see a twig, and you think you know, the wind moves it and you think it's a snake or something and you kind of jump, that would be the old brain so the automatic triggers and then the middle brain being this area of emotional processing of information. But do you know, I just read this book called "Train your mind, Change your brain" by Shannon Begley and the research shows that there is a connection in the brain between the pre-frontal cortex which would be the new brain and the emotional part of the brain which I didn't know that, did you? Dr. Kath Straub: Do you know anymore about that? Can you tell us more about that connection? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well, the idea is that it used to be thought that people would think about something and they wouldn't really be connected to how they feel that it would be hard to conscious of how you feel but what it looks like, from the brain scans being done now, is that there is a connection. Right when we are making our rational decisions, we are making those decisions partly on how we feel even though we might not be able to articulate it. Dr. Kath Straub: Well there is the research that shows that people who are playing games are having similar experiences to people who are in the same situation. So they have a neurological awareness to that but the flip side to that is the study you were talking about just before we started about the disjoint findings between people who were voting that was reported on the other side. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: What they were feeling... Dr. Susan Weinschenk: What they were feeling and what they were saying didn't go together, which we have always known from you know, instances when we worry about usability testing that what people say they are doing or might do doesn't necessarily match with what they do or how they feel, right, there is a disconnect. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So, you know what does this all have to do with... Dr. Kath Straub: What does this all have to do with this? (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Nothing, I just like talking about it. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: No it does. Well, what we are starting to apply in this whole topic of emotional design and persuasive architecture is how can we apply this research and especially this newest research to the design of products so that we can get at and maybe even start to predict, how people might feel so that we can direct their actions through. So we are going to talk about that actually in a couple of places through here. One of the things that I think this relates to is some old research, if you can call 1968 "old"... Dr. Kath Straub: You can. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I wouldn't call 1968 old but a lot of people out there and I am sure you would call 1968 old. The research on principles of persuasion, which as you know is another topic I like to talk about, there's actually a lot of research out there about how people behave and that goes way back and it was before computers and I wanted to just go through one of these studies as an example. One of the principles that I think is important when we are talking about emotional design and persuasive architecture is the idea of social validation so one of the landmark studies done in 1968 is you take a "pretend" victim, right? So they take someone, put him on a street corner or on a sidewalk and he would like you know, something was wrong and he was in distress, right, and he needed help. Then they would set up situations and they would see how if one person is walking by, would one person react and is that different if there are five people walking together? Dr. Kath Straub: Standing nearby? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Standing nearby. That's why they call this the bystander study, right? So they would have this going "Help, help, I need help" Dr. Kath Straub: (Laughs) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And if there was one person that was standing there, the chances of that one person helping were 85% of the time. If it was one person, if a group of people were there, help would only be given 31% of the time. Dr. Kath Straub: So it's important that other people are standing by and not helping. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Well, they would you know they designed the study like that and so, why is that? Why you know, one person helps a lot more than when there are five people? Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah. I don't want to stick out. I want to be a part of the crowd in some cases. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So what people were doing was they were looking to each other and if everyone was standing there and not doing anything, they didn't do anything either and it's just the idea of how powerful social validation is. We all like to think we are all unique and we are all going to do our own thing but we don't. Dr. Kath Straub: And we all want iPhones. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: We all want iPhones. I want an iPhone and you have one and I don't so we are going to have to talk to somebody about that. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But what does this have to do with usability? Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah, what does this have to do with usability? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, what is this concept of social validation in the design of sites? I don't if people have done this on purpose but what is very powerful, are customer reviews and customer testimonials on the site. I mean, how many times have you been on a site and you want to make a purchase and you read what people have to say? And you what? These people are strangers. These are possibly the PR marketing company that someone has hired to write these reviews. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So that you go purchase but you still read them. Dr. Kath Straub: But then... Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And listen to them. Dr. Kath Straub: They are on a website, how do I know if a social bystander will have any impact on me? It's just a website. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Because we still want to what everybody else is doing. Dr. Kath Straub: But who are these people? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: We have no idea and it doesn't matter. In the bystander study, they were strangers and they still affected your behavior. It might have more of an effect if they are people you know but you are still very affected by what everyone else is doing. Dr. Kath Straub: So this is a bit of a way for website designers to create an interpersonal effect even though they are not going to interact with you. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That's right. That's right. I mean, another example is not only do you have the reviews but you have the stars, right? You know and, 661 people gave this product you know, 4 or 5 stars. They said like "Okay, I'll buy." You know, it's very influential. So that's just one example of how influential these principles are and the point I am trying to make is as we move into 2008, I think we are going to see these principles start to have an effect on the design process. Dr. Kath Straub: But these are going to become much different to evaluate then. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, talk about that – talk about the difference in evaluation. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, one of the interesting things here is that we don't even know what people are looking at. We don't know how they go about deciding which things are important and which things are not. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Like whether the – is it the review itself or is it the number of stars or is it the number of reviews? Dr. Kath Straub: Exactly. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Kath Straub: And so what we said earlier that sometimes people don't say what they are thinking. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So let's says we are going to have more sophisticated measures to understand how they are doing what they are doing or how they are making decisions that they are making, some emotional, some not? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right and you've been experimenting this with the... Dr. Kath Straub: We've been experimenting this with the eye tracker...for a long time, right? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The eye tracker, right, in Baltimore. Dr. Kath Straub: To see where people are looking. It turns out that it's very interesting, you can ask someone to track where they are looking on the screen and watch where they are looking, it's actually very different. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Then you just be quite and watch where they are looking. Dr. Kath Straub: But they don't know where they are looking anyway. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: Sometimes, they will tell you where they are looking and they are actually looking at another place. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: You see the things that they notice and they are paying attention to things other than were important. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So we're also going to have to be careful about how we are measuring. Dr. Kath Straub: Exactly. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Exactly, okay. One of the things I have been playing with is a checklist of what to watch out for and what to look for. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: In emotional design and persuasive architecture, I think in 2008, we will see some progress there and just as we have heuristics and guidelines on how to design so people can do, things that are usable, I think we are going to start having these heuristics and guidelines around what people will do and I am- I hope that we get a lot of progress there. I know that metrics are a field that you are particularly interested in. Dr. Kath Straub: Right and I think we are looking at how people move through sites and becoming more sophisticated about using those metrics to understand what content will move people through a site more effectively but the flip side of that too is that emotional design is often visual. So I make decisions fast. I look at a website and I am either staying or gone within a few seconds. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: Certainly I didn't read any of the content. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So your list here actually might address some of the issues that might get me to stay or not stay based on that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, right so emotional design and persuasive architecture, I think you will hear a lot more about that at least from me. (Laughter) Dr. Kath Straub: From the two of us. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, let's go on and talk about – oh, before we leave designing for different generations, I wanted to mention that I'm actually, Mona Patel and I are giving a key note speech on this topic at a conference at Ann Arbor, it's actually at Ann Arbor on April 1st. The "Internet User Experience Conference" so I just mentioned that. The next one is design for different generations so another topic that I am very interested in and I will talk just a little bit about the baby boomers versus the Net generation but really I have been looking at this in a larger vein so first let's just talk about what we mean by generations. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: There are from the reading I have done, there are about four, it's actually five generations that are being talked about and grouped together and looked at and one of them I am kind of discounting but I shouldn't, it's the very, very young kids. But we have young kids then we have the let's call them the "Net Generation" or the next generation sometimes that term is used, and on our chart here you can see that those are people born between 1980 and 1995 so we are around there. Then we have the generation known as I guess, Gen Next. Dr. Kath Straub: Gen next, the ones who always get lost. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The ones who get lost. The ones who are just the whole in my chart here which would be people who are born let's say between about 1964 up to 1980. Then we have the baby boomers which you know, the big group that everyone always talks about from 1946 to about 1963. Then we have the seniors, the people who are older than the boomers. Dr. Kath Straub: So this is a bit of a shift because we have been talking about aging and design for a long time. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That's right. Dr. Kath Straub: Now we are doing the flip side. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. I'm not just talking because – we haven't talked about aging and design, I think that's important but then what I believe is also important is talk about all the generations. Again, a new field that is just starting to be worked on is interestingly enough, what I find when I talk about this is people don't realize how big that Net generation is. If you look at our chart here, there are for instance, 78 million boomers in the United States but there are 80 million Net generation so that's a larger demographic than the baby boomers because everyone always says, 'Oh, the boomers are the biggest generation." What's interesting about the Gen Next as you mentioned as they are you know... Dr. Kath Straub: They're missing again. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: They're missing again because they are a smaller group but from the – this is informal and I should try and get that data, maybe you're the Chief Scientist so let me get this data. When I am talking about this in groups and I ask people to raise their hands whether they are Gen Next or not, most of the people in the audience and therefore I am going to generalize, most of the people in the field of user experience are the Gen Nexters. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, which is very different, that means that we are designing for people who are different. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Not like that at all right which is to say that if you are always designing, you have to be careful to design for people who aren't like you but in this case you have this interesting thing where you have this big group of boomers, you have this big group of the Net generation and the Gen Next who are doing most of the design are in the same room. Dr. Kath Straub: But then what you have been talking about suggest that the Net generation have a very different attitude toward technology as well. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, the different attitude toward technology but even more important that you have the different reactions to websites and to design. So just to give you some, oh, before I go into that I also wanted to mention that worldwide, that divide between the numbers is much larger. 2 billion Net generation but 1.1 billion boomers so this is you know, not just the United States. Dr. Kath Straub: This is why the trends in mobile design might become very important. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yes, it's very important, right. So if we look at you know, what's different for the generations, and if we are just looking at boomers versus the Net generation, the differences between those two, some of the things are the same in terms of you know, they both want navigation to be easy but the kind of navigation they use, I think is different and as you know, you have been helping me collect some data on this and start to do some eye tracking and this is all very preliminary. I am going to be speaking on this at the UPA conference and I hope that we will have some more... Dr. Kath Straub: Real data. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I have some real data; it's just that I want more data. I also want to get data on the GenX. Dr. Kath Straub: The GenX okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But from what the data that we are starting to get in shows things like the boomers are relying on a navigation bar and really liking that and going there and the Net generation, any case is taking away the left-hand navigation bar. Dr. Kath Straub: Why do you think that would happen? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I don't know the answer to that, do you? Dr. Kath Straub: No. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I don't know, I'm just trying to find out what the differences are and you're going to have to figure out why but they are looking at more in the middle of the screen. They are much more tolerant and even excited by things that move in the middle, you know when you go to websites and there is the kind of a constantly changing image, although not really a video but almost a video. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The Net generation you know, they like that and the boomers, they find it annoying and distracting. So it's interesting to see. I also saw a lot of sensitivity on the Net generation about the images and the age of the people shown in the images. So a boomer would like at you know, any – if you have a picture of a person there and the boomer would think that you know, they wouldn't necessarily think, "Oh, that person is not like me" but the Net generation would definitely do that. Dr. Kath Straub: So it actually seems that they are more interested in the emotional aspects of the design. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I think they are more, they react more to the emotional aspects. I think their expectations of what; the way they think about the Web is totally different. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The way they talk about, the boomers will talk about "going on the internet" to do a task. Dr. Kath Straub: Whereas the Net generation just expects the internet to be there. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It's a part of their life you know. You don't "go on the internet" to do something. Dr. Kath Straub: But then there's another difference that you referred to earlier that the Net generation seem to be more tolerant to things that move. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yes. Dr. Kath Straub: I think they also have higher expectations about those things. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yes. Dr. Kath Straub: So they expect them to be informative and a part of the whole experience. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Entertaining and a part of it, yes but I do have to say that when we – when I did some - watching an older person in the boomer age, she was watching these videos at a medical website and she loved them. She got excited, so I think the boomers get excited about it but they don't necessarily set expectations as you said. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The Net generation expects the videos to be there and they expect them to be good. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Like an early YouTube piece. S: That's right. So I am really excited about studying this more and bringing in these other generations as well. Dr. Kath Straub: It has some improvisations for the e-commerce designing too. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It has a lot, yeah. Dr. Kath Straub: It would help us understand who we are segmenting too along the way. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Alright, let's go on and talk about healthcare, Human Factors in healthcare which seems to be a very hot topic. There's the World Usability Day which focused on healthcare as a theme. The Mayo Clinic, I spoke at it recently, The Mayo Clinic Conference in Patient Care, so there is a lot of interest in the healthcare industry around this idea of Human Factors, usability and the user experience. Dr. Kath Straub: And we're finding that in all of the studies suggesting that people are using the Web as their first line of information about their healthcare too. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yes. What are your statistics on that, in terms of number of people who have gone online? Dr. Kath Straub: The statistics are really I think in 2005, 85% American adult web users had used the Web at some point or another to look for information about healthcare for either themselves or a family member. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. Dr. Kath Straub: That's very high. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, it's very high. You know, in some of the – I was doing some interviews on the Net generational difference in healthcare and the younger people especially are using the internet sites, sometimes in place or certainly before they even go see a doctor. So they would use the internet to decide whether this was something they needed to go see a doctor on. Dr. Kath Straub: Well and some of the things that we have seen in our own work too is that people are not only using them more but they are also using them in more sophisticated ways. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Like? Dr. Kath Straub: So they need to have information that's going to move their knowledge forward. They need to actually see something they know they can start with and that gives them a sense of credibility for the information on the site itself but then they want to move forward beyond that and learn something from the site as well. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So what we used to think about is how do people design or how do people decide if the site is credible or not, this shifted slightly. It's less about the visual design in some cases where content is important and more about the actual content that they are interacting with. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. So people are becoming more sophisticated? Dr. Kath Straub: Yes. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So I actually wanted to use this idea on a healthcare website to talk about, kind of tie back into what we were talking about persuasive design. Dr. Kath Straub: Persuasive architecture. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right because one of the things that I think that's really important as you start to evaluate these sites and just to give an example of I think the trends in evaluating sites and how long beyond what we think is the normal kind of usability guidelines, is to think about what is the target action? I think obviously as usability people, we always care about you know, the target action but I don't know that we always specify when we are doing an evaluation or maybe we may not even know, we have to ask "what do you really want the person to do on this page or at this site?" Dr. Kath Straub: What is the page-level target? Where am I supposed to go? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. Right, what's the important thing you want to do? On that I have a case study here, let's pretend that what's really important here is that people go to the "Access the discounted prescription or medication" there's a whole section of the site where they see if they could get free prescription drugs and we are going to take a scenario that for this company, they want people to go there and sign up. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay, so this is an example on conversion of healthcare site, this is largely an information site. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: This is one of the sites that is very interesting to talk about because understanding whether it is working or not depends on really knowing what you are saying. What is the company getting out of this site? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: It's not simply visits although there is some brand promise. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: A brand promise to do that but really they want to get your name and they want to get your information in some way. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. So let's say that was true. What would you say about the design of – and we will go page by page – of this particular page and we know that we want them to click in that box? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, the first thing I would say is that as often a space that I wouldn't be necessarily looking to or looking for to find it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Because it is off to the right? Dr. Kath Straub: It's not in the center. The first thing that strikes me too is really why do I come in? As a consumer, what's going to get me to this site? Have I seen something that is going to draw me to this site? Or am I coming for a different reason and you're trying to divert me over to access all this? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Let's say that you were told that you could get prescriptions, some free or reduced cost on prescription drugs. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And so you came to this site for that. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So do you think you would notice this area and click on it? Dr. Kath Straub: Eventually I would notice it if I was looking for it and I knew the brand name – access2wellness might be something I would remember. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah but if it was something you didn't know that. Dr. Kath Straub: If I didn't know that, I would have a hard time looking for it and this is quite a lot of text. I certainly wouldn't read it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. I mean it's along title "Access to Free or Discounted Prescription Medication to Those Who Qualify" so we give them you know, a "maybe", I mean it's large and it's kind of a big picture but it's kind of, off to the side. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Alright, so let's say they found it and they clicked it and they go to the next page. Here's what they come to next and I know that people looking on the screen here, this might be small you might have a hard time reading it. Dr. Kath Straub: But we don't have to read this one because this is one of the best pages that you have brought together. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: (Laughs) I have this thing about collecting, you know, pages that should not be the way they are. So it says "You are leaving www.jnj.com" and then it says "The link below contains information you have requested, which is on another web site. You may click on the link to access the complete information you need." That's the first thing so I clicked and now they are taking me to another screen to tell me that I need to click again. Dr. Kath Straub: Which means I lost the brand value of Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: That I somewhere else. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Then it says, this is my favorite part. Dr. Kath Straub: Want me to read this? I can see you like this. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yes because I love it so much. Dr. Kath Straub: "This link will take you to a site to which this privacy policy does not apply. You are solely responsible for your interaction with that web site." Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right and I love the sentence that you know, and they have Privacy Policy as hyper-text so you should go click on the Privacy Policy and read it for the Privacy Policy that does not apply. Dr. Kath Straub: That will be detail that you don't need. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Why would you put that on there? I don't know. Anyway, so the whole – so again if you think, look at persuasive architecture... Dr. Kath Straub: You've lost me. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I've lost you; we are going to continue past this point - probably not very likely. Dr. Kath Straub: But this is probably what would be something to do with legal requirements for J&J. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I know but it's killed the persuasive architecture. Dr. Kath Straub: Perhaps there are ways to re-design this page so what do you conceive that wouldn't seem like such a warning? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Alright let's say for some obvious and we did continue. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Because we have to keep going on the next page. So then I come here. Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah, this isn't the most persuasive page that I have seen. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: What is wrong with this page? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, I am not sure I want to identify with any of these people. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Alright, so again it's small but there are these pictures of these people and they are very colorful but they are kind of unusual characters, right? So I would click on you know, "I am a patient" and that guy looks like ... Dr. Kath Straub: He maybe a patient. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: He may be a patient - he doesn't look too good. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But can do I identify with someone who doesn't look that great? Dr. Kath Straub: Right, so the graphics are interesting and they may be different and engaging in some ways but I am not sure they are quite the right graphics to get me to the point where I need to get on this page. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So one of the things that I am hoping that our audience is realizing is that some of what we are talking about involves typical usability issues like it was done the right side of the page, we could also talk about oh should we stop and decide on whether we are a patient or care giver, but some of this is a little bit different than the usual usability issues. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, you know if you looked at the usual usability issues, you have got some interesting stuff here. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: All of this stuff on top of the page is really important and it's providing J&J's commitment to access to wellness for individuals who might not be able to afford it but no one's going to read that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, no one's going to read that. I don't actually think I have ever read that. Dr. Kath Straub: No one's going to read that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: If we keep going and here I said that I was the patient and I kept going, now we come to this page. So what about the persuasiveness of this page? Dr. Kath Straub: This is just overwhelming again. There is too much to read. I don't know where to go and the "green" is kind of hard to read. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The green headlines, yeah. Now what's really interesting over here is, on the right side is really where you are going to take, they want you to pick which prescription. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Which prescription is yours, right? Dr. Kath Straub: Okay, so I might get there first because it is colored. An eligibility tool might seem like something I would want to go to but "Eligibility Tool" might seem a little bit hard. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It seems somewhat strange, right? Alright, let's say now and this picture, I am so sorry that this picture is so small because I – this is really a great regular usability consideration. They have the names of the prescriptions. If you are going to choose one of these so one of these would be the one you are going to pick, how do you think you would choose that? How do you select a prescription from here? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, it's hard to tell. It looks like you might press on the "Plus" sign. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well, and you do. You have to click on a "Plus" sign. You can't – I would have just clicked on the name. How did you know you were going to click on the "Plus" sign? Dr. Kath Straub: I don't know, it's just baggage from other websites. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But what does "Plus" sign usually do? Dr. Kath Straub: It opens things out and gives you more choices. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: This is not what it does here. Dr. Kath Straub: So? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So that's how you select. So anyway, we select, we continue. Okay, now you're here. Dr. Kath Straub: This actually looks like the same page that we were on. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I know, but it's not. Look over here. Dr. Kath Straub: Oh, so this has changed. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, "Patient Information" so you have to now start giving them a lot of information likes "Are you eligible for Medicare Part B and or Part D?" and everyone knows that right away, right? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, they might know it because Part B is a big deal but what do I get out of this? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I don't know. Going forward, they are asking for your family's gross income. Dr. Kath Straub: That's definitely something that I would want to give to a stranger. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And then finally you get through all this and you click on "Submit". Dr. Kath Straub: And what do you get back? You get nothing back. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, you want to read what it says here? Dr. Kath Straub: "Based on the information entered and the medication selected, the programs listed below may be appropriate. If you would like to save these results, print them using the "Print page" button ... Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And on and on and one and on. Dr. Kath Straub: That's too much information. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Now I don't even know what I got. Dr. Kath Straub: Right, so in that case, I am not really feeling good about J&J at this point. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So persuasive architecture but also some of the issues in healthcare. Dr. Kath Straub: But a really good opportunity that seems squandered. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That they could have done such a great thing with the concept evidently. Dr. Kath Straub: And they probably got me to give a lot of information which could have been helpful to them in other ways if it had been presented in a more useful way that let me know what I would get out of it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: In a more persuasive way. Dr. Kath Straub: In a more persuasive way. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Perfectly. Dr. Kath Straub: So this is the can-do, will-do stuff. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: This is the can-do, will-do. Dr. Kath Straub: The "can't do won't do". Dr. Susan Weinschenk: (Laughs) The "can't do won't do". Anything else you want to mention about healthcare, I know that you have been doing a lot of work in healthcare. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, in that same UPA conference that you talked about, where we are going to be able to give some information on a healthcare survey that we did for the World Usability Day. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Oh, can you just talk a little bit about the survey and what you did? Dr. Kath Straub: Well the survey – we did offer a newsletter and we sent out a large scale survey that was replicating some work that had been done years ago to see if there had been any changes in that space. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: In terms of how many times have people have gone on to look at your website? Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah and what their motivations were, what they found credible and why they found them credible and things like that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, so you are currently analyzing that data? Dr. Kath Straub: We are currently analyzing that data. It looks like we have found some things that are consistent with things that happened in the past but it looks like there have been some shifts too. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And you're not going to tell us about this right? Dr. Kath Straub: I can't reveal more because we are not sure what they mean yet. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So you're going to be presenting? Dr. Kath Straub: We think so, we are hoping to. We're hopeful. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, alright. Alright, next one, trends in e-commerce user experience. So do you think e-commerce is the same? We go to websites, we buy things and it's going to stay static. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, I think that's one of the really more interesting areas, right, this is one of the areas that is interesting to talk about for us because this is the front-edge. This is becoming more sophisticated that people can buy or sell stocks now, the usability is okay but again, we are going to come back to the PET architecture. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: By that you mean Persuasion, Emotion and Trust. SK: Exactly. So the persuasiveness of the site is going to be very important because a lot of sites are getting pretty good at what we used to call usability and now it's becoming the user experience environment. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Kath Straub: So it's not just can I do the task but can you get me through to make me a part of your partnership. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. So what do you think are going to be some of the critical elements moving forward in that distinction? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, it's really understanding what tips the decision point. So going back to your original brain image... Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: That mid-brain imaging and the decision-making that is a part of this, that's emotional, so understanding just how to do this task but understanding why I decide to do the things I do and then how that influences the way I go through the funnel of information that you are providing me so that I actually convert at the end of the day. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right and designing that sequence of screens and sequence of experiences even on a particular screen that will keep moving you forward. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. So that becomes a very different thing for looking at a website because I am looking at screen by screen by screen and not the overall flow of how that screen is moving into the flow at the same time. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So one of the things that I think we are going to talk about is that bar is getting raised. Dr. Kath Straub: Oh, yes. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: On what we expect from an e-commerce website. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, this is the only interaction I am going to have with the organization. I don't need to go to a bricks-and-mortar place. I can just interact with the Web and have it done then. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So, we have see, I mean this example from the QVC site, you know of course, we are going to see a lot of photos. We are going to see now great navigation. We are going to be able to do things like compare. There is this kind of where the bar is now, right? If you don't do those things, then you really fall behind. Dr. Kath Straub: And these are going to become much harder to keep track of with our traditional methods again. Just doing a usability test and having you come into a lab and say, "Okay, show me how you would buy something?" you will probably miss a lot of things that you would do at home when you have time to surf and you don't have someone looking over your shoulder and asking you to do this task when you normally won't. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Or when you don't have time and you are in a rush. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: What do you think about, and I am just kind of walking through the sites that are out there and giving us some idea of what's normal now. What do you think about the idea about people are going to the e-commerce websites in order to gather data but they don't actually purchase there? You know, they go to the store. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, it looks like the trends are suggesting that there are always going to be those people who do that but more and more people are just using the website becoming confident about that, I think you are going to have to go back to your Next Gen study and understand what the Next Gen are doing and whether they prefer going to the store. How much they want such things? But also, looking at ways that we can be more sophisticated about both social networking information and also use of multimedia to make this experience much more like going to the store itself. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Do you think that it's important if you take a company that has the bricks-and-mortar and the online presence that they really need to be very careful about the experience so that they have captured them so much that even if they go to a bricks-and-mortar, they go to their bricks-and-mortar, can they do that? Dr. Kath Straub: Well certainly. If I have a good experience with this store, I am going to have some brand loyalty but that's tricky though, right? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: Brand loyalty is something that's typically going away so if I can't, I'd rather just capture them in a Web in one fell swoop. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, right. One of the examples, I have this one up here from the store as an example because one other thing that we are seeing more and more in e-commerce and I think we will see even more in the future, is the different tools and the ability to be very interactive like at the site. Dr. Kath Straub: So those are Web 2.0 tools in different kinds of interactions that make the experience not a flat experience not just browse, click and buy, but select and de-select and prioritize and do all kinds of things that were done three or four years ago and I want to be able to do that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So the stores that I am going to go to are the stores that I am going to stick with are the ones that are going to let me do those comparisons but again interestingly, there's been some research that has come out recently that said that people will do things like going to a physical store and use their phones to check a website and compare. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, right. Dr. Kath Straub: So now I've got additional comparison tools that I can use, that perhaps I can find out of if the store doesn't have the models of the particular phone I'd like, I can see where I could get those other models see what the pricing is in the other places that are competitors to the physical store that I happen to be standing in right now. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And that's one of the ways to get the sales person to come over to you. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Rather quickly by the way, and pull out your device right there while you are standing in there. I think that people are doing that, right? (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Let's – before we go on to our next topic, I do want to mention again about score cards. So Phil Goddard is one of the people in the company that's really been doing a lot of work in this space of e-commerce score cards and you have one as well. So this, I think, is really another important trend that will see us going forward. Now when people are evaluating inside a company that has an e-commerce site when they are doing that evaluation, right? Rather than just giving an evaluation and making some improvements, you know, you forget about it for a year and you evaluate again. This is a sort of continuous evaluation, so do you want to talk a little bit about that? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, I think organizations, particularly e-commerce organizations rather than the front-end usability in the sense of user experience are using these kinds of tools of course in a more sophisticated way. So they are using things like score cards to evaluate where they are in respect to best practices but they are also using them in conjunction with things like analytics like Web trends. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: And usability testing becomes very tactical so it's not just holistic so if I am going to change one thing, I am going to test to see if that thing has helped in context. So people using multiple methods to come together at the same time to give a richer picture of whether this site is working but not just at one time, over time and building towards those goals and setting measurable goals for how improvement should happen over time. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So is that hard to do, to set up a program that will use the web analytics along with some of our more traditional user experience methods? Dr. Kath Straub: It depends on your experience with those kinds of data integration. Certainly you have to think it through. I think one of the things we find interesting is often when we go into organizations, they get all these different reports; they get trends, web analytics of some sort, amateur or whatever they use and then how they use a testing program, you know they might do a spot testing once in a while. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: And they get some other things where you typically ask questions or Google terms. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: But they never bring them all together. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Kath Straub: So they have all the pieces but nobody has been able to take the time and put them together in a sophisticated way so is it hard? Well, it requires some thinking. Is it necessary? Absolutely. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You just have to bring those people together in the organization. Dr. Kath Straub: Exactly and typically they are all already there. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, good. Our last topic before we go to the questions, so please remember to submit your questions. A couple of them have come in and we'll start on them in a few minutes. So talk about trends in e-government. So a lot going on in the field of user experience and usability in government? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, yes and it's your tax dollars at work so it's one of the best things we are going to be able to look up because we contribute both at the usability and user experience at the site itself but also to help us in ourselves be able to do better commerce with our government agencies that we need to work with all the time. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And I took some slides from a project that we worked on, that you worked on actually for the State of California as an example. Do you want to talk through these or do you want me to? Dr. Kath Straub: Sure why not? I can talk. So this was a project that we did at California and this is their state personnel board which you might not be able to guess, is where you have to look if you want to find a job in California. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And this is the "before" screen. Dr. Kath Straub: This is the "before" screen. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So this is the way it was organized earlier and it's very difficult to find where you should even look to find out if you can have a job and in the State of California, as in other places, retirement of those baby boomers is getting to be a problem. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So we are placing particularly IT specialists... Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, they need people to be able to find out how to apply for a job. Dr. Kath Straub: Exactly and one of the problems that we saw in an interview was quite clearly when people felt that they couldn't find what they needed on the website quickly, they were going to go somewhere else. They actually don't even bother to apply for a job in California even though some of the perks and benefits are well-known. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And that brings up this idea that you know the e-government sites, the bar has gone up for them as well. So they have, you know what is the competition in the State of California in looking for a job? You've got Monster, you've got Career Builder, and these are well-used and well-designed sites. Dr. Kath Straub: In fact when we did our user testing and our user interviews with the California sites, we were comparing the people or having people compare their experiences on the State of California site with these other competitor sites. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So that really is hard for the government. They have to be as up on this as the other companies. Dr. Kath Straub: Exactly. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So this is the screen after? Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: After you re-designed. Dr. Kath Straub: And you'll notice that it actually looks a lot more like those other career builder websites. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, right. It's got the pictures and the... Dr. Kath Straub: It's got the tools that people are really looking to find a job that they need and be able to work with California to be able to find the job that suits you the best. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So some of the metrics you got from this study. Dr. Kath Straub: Right, these are actually success rates and time to tasks, so people before were having a very difficult time finding any job that they may want to apply for and afterwards they were able to find it quite quickly. Basically what we did was took out a lot of stuff that wasn't related to a job. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. (Laughter) Dr. Kath Straub: And we just moved that to a different place. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: To someplace else. Right. Dr. Kath Straub: Because that's not relevant to me if I am looking for a job. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So, time on task? Dr. Kath Straub: Much faster. So people, who are by the way, Net generation, right? Because that's who the State of California is looking for. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That's who they are looking for, interesting. Dr. Kath Straub: Were able to do this quite quickly and that turned out to be very important for them. The other thing that I think was very important about the way we were thinking about this is the notion of jobs.california.gov site came up. So people who want to have a very simple URL, they just want to go to one place to find all these jobs. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Interesting, instead of going to the State of California website and then having to navigate. Dr. Kath Straub: Or even worse than that, in California and many other states, if you want to get a job with the State, first what agency do you want to apply to? Then you need...so you need to know a whole lot. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You need to know the whole structure. Dr. Kath Straub: Exactly. They just know that they want to work in Sacramento and they are IT persons and that they want this salary. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: They don't care what agency it is necessarily. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So one of the trends I think and you think will happen in 2008 is the government, the State governments in particular but the federal government as well, will get more sophisticated. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. And they will get more sophisticated in the sense they will get simpler. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yes. Dr. Kath Straub: So they will have a single site that is jobs.ca or govjobs.gov rather than have individual tabs to know what structure the government wants. So an integrated government, easier to work with. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, we are ready for questions and answers and we have some already. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:- Dr. Kath Straub: Alright, I have one for you. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, go ahead. Dr. Kath Straub: Can persuasive architecture be used in a non-ecommerce application? For instance, has any research indicated any differences? If a doctor has some "reviews", does it influence in the same way? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well, I don't know if there are going to be doctor reviews on the internet. That's an interesting idea though. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, if you look at this, a lot of the articles that are posted... Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Are posted by doctors. So you are saying that that could be a review. But my answer would be yes, absolutely, persuasion architecture doesn't just have to do with e-commerce sites. It has to do with any – anytime you have a technology and you are trying to move things through it is like - does usability apply only to e-commerce sites, right? Dr. Kath Straub: Right, we want – of course it has more of an application for information-based sites. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: Because if we figure out how to measure persuasion, we are going to be better figuring out how to measure the effectiveness of those sites that don't have an obvious conversion. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. So basically what you have to think of is what is the target action that you want someone to take? And that might be buying something at an e-commerce site but it might not be buying at all. It might be registering for information, it might – the target goal might be viral. It might be to pass on this information to friends. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, then harder to measure, this might be something like learn information about this particular site or this particular merchandise. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So in that case, there is nothing to download. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: There's nothing to send on. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, so the action might not be an action as we think of it. Do you have another one? Dr. Kath Straub: Sure, this one is on your favorite topics. Does social validation change if it is a group of engineers versus housewives? Meaning is it more intense or less, depending on the nature of the group that you are studying? (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That is an interesting question. I don't know if I have seen any research on that. Have you seen any research on that? Dr. Kath Straub: I certainly haven't, that's why I asked that question actually. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: There has been a lot of research on social validation in you know, various settings. I don't know whether I have seen any specific research on that. I think that the research is so strong that I would says that possible there would be small differences but not large. I'd have to say we don't have specific research on that. Dr. Kath Straub: Well, let's see, okay let's try another one. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Kath Straub: There seems to be a trend in Web design to create target and fictitious personas. Should steps be taken to provide different experiences for different user archetypes? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Is this thing about-this isn't about how you do the persuasion architecture, just in general. Dr. Kath Straub: I think you can tie it back that persuasion will be different based on the archetypes. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I do think that's true. Do you think that's true? Dr. Kath Straub: I do think that's true. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. So when we talk about this persuasion – persuasive architecture at that, of course we don't want to forget all the very usual work like who is the audience etc. So yes, I would say it does, it would be important to have that – to have those personas in place. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay, here's a different one. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Kath Straub: Duplicating the brick-and-mortar experience online, it is going to become more and more important for e-commerce sites to grow in many industries. For example, auto sales are changing completely. We don't have the same relationship with our dealers that we used to. Could you tell us how this sort of thing could potentially be better accomplished or more so than it is today? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: A lot of work to do on this. Dr. Kath Straub: So actually turning the Web experience more into the brick-and-mortar experience. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Making that connection? Dr. Kath Straub: Exactly. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Wow, that's good question. Do we know the answer to that one? Dr. Kath Straub: Well, I mean we talked about it earlier that the idea to get used to, if I wanted to get a recommendation or if I needed a recommendation for someone, I would ask my friends or family. I would go to someone physically that I know and now we are starting to see that sort of happening – that's that white picket fence effect. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: What's the white picket fence in e-commerce? It's the recommendations below the amazon.com. People who bought this book also bought that book. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: In particular, Amazon's doing creative things with some of those things. People who looked at this product also looked at these other products and by the way, they bought this one. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, right. Dr. Kath Straub: So what you're really getting at is effective social recommendations without actually having to interact with other people. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I think it's important too that some of this, some of the basic principles that have been known for a while in sales and marketing that we don't ever forget about, for instance you know, anecdotally, we were going to buy an aquarium for my daughter for a present and we had been you know, looking online at different aquariums and reading up about fish and things. So I had to do a lot of data gathering and I was at these various sites and I was trying to decide you know where am I going to buy that? Dr. Kath Straub: So how did you decide? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And am I going to buy an aquarium which is a large heavy object, am I going to buy one online because you can and they will ship it to you, or am I going to the local store and select which store? Well you know how I decided? Dr. Kath Straub: How did you decide? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well, here's the thing, I was looking at a website and they had a coupon and I am not a coupon person but you can print out and take two to your local store. Dr. Kath Straub: Oh, so the interaction between the website and the brick-and-mortar place? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right so I print out the coupon and I went to that store to check it out. Now what made me – this is really one of those things, what made me really decide, right? I am going to tell you and you are going to have to hook me up to the skull cap that says it's true. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You know my – when I got there, I had a great interaction with a very knowledgeable sales person and then I actually left the store and didn't buy. I went to another store and talked to them. Dr. Kath Straub: (Laughs) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And I didn't have such a great experience so I went back to the other store and bought with the coupon from the place with the guy who knew what he was doing. Dr. Kath Straub: So basically the website in that case was just a teaser to get you into the store. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And it worked but if they hadn't followed it up with a promise, they had to show the promise that they really knew what they were doing. Dr. Kath Straub: But still, getting you in was part of the process. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: What if you had gone back and just bought it on the website? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well, it was their website. Would that have been...? Dr. Kath Straub: No, it's just an interesting question on the business model sometimes is how businesses score their electronic commerce wins against their brick-and-mortar wins. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: And whether those two are competing against each other. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, whether they are competing. Are they often? Dr. Kath Straub: I don't know the answer to that necessarily. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It depends on some things. Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Do you have another? Dr. Kath Straub: I do have another. Do you think the Net generation avoids navigation because they're more likely to use viral navigation or social networking due to experience from blogs, Face book and MySpace? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You know this is, I don't have the science yet to back this up but just in observing how – what they are doing and where they are looking and they just don't pay attention to it. It's like navigation to a Net generation person is wording. They are words. They are very drawn on to images and motion and the left nav is just a set of words. They kind of just screen it out and won't really look, I think it's more that than anything else. Dr. Kath Straub: Here's an easy one. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah? Dr. Kath Straub: Do you want an easy one? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, I like easy ones. Dr. Kath Straub: As part of the 2008 trends I'm surprised to see that localization is not one of them. What trends do you see right now relating to the context of other languages and culture and where might you see that going in the future? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well you know, it's only not there because I can only pick five and I picked these five. Well localization, which has to do – would you like me to define what localization is? Dr. Kath Straub: Sure. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Localization has to do with designing for multiple cultures and / or languages and that making sure that in the particular product, let's say it's a website that you are designing for will it work in that particular context, in that culture or in that geography locally, hence the term localization. It's an area of actually great interest to me and obviously an important one. Dr. Kath Straub: Of course. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Everyone is doing it and so I mean, everyone has got these websites going up online and we are seeing incredible increase in requests for international, like international usability testing on this at HFI and as you know, I see all the proposals that we have that go out to clients and I would have to say you know, just off the top of my head, we have a 200% increase just in the month of January where we normally get these requests for this international work. Dr. Kath Straub: So that seems to suggest that localization is becoming more and more important over time. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: We are getting into this. No, it's very important and you know, one of the favorite things that we are talking about today, one of my favorite topics was how about – based on the book "Geography of Thought", on how people think differently is not just a matter of language, it's just not a matter of you know, images, but the way people think is really different and you have got to take that into consideration as well. So sorry I left that out of this. Dr. Kath Straub: But it was really because you had to pick 5? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I had to pick five. Dr. Kath Straub: Here's one. Can you describe persuasive architecture in a single non-renowned sentence? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It doesn't say non-renowned, I am reading it; it just says a single sentence. (Laughter) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Persuasive architecture is I haven't you know, I am making this up as I go along. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: No chance to think about it. It is designing for the flow in order to have the user take particular actions. Dr. Kath Straub: Okay. So information architecture is an organization that underlies it that gives us categorical structure for where information fits. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You're doing the renowned sentence. Dr. Kath Straub: That's okay. (Laughter) Dr. Kath Straub: Overlaid on that is the persuasive architecture which helps us move people towards our desired, however you define, conversion by looking at the decision processes and making sure that the content level of the site matches the decision triggers that or helps them make the decisions that you would want them make along the way. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. I mean it's hard to do in a short sentence because there is so much involved. Dr. Kath Straub: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Because it involves the information architecture, it involves content and also presentation of the content. It then involves being aware of their emotional state at the time as well as possibly personality traits that they bring as well as the context of why they are there, right, I mean it involves all of this and to try and take that all into account. Dr. Kath Straub: So maybe persuasion architecture helps you find the architecture for putting the right seducible moment at the right point. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Oh, I like that sentence. We'll have to write that down. Dr. Kath Straub: Alright. Having higher levels of interactivity and robust multimedia content have become prevalent with Web 2.0 in the virtual world. Users expect to see some sort of advanced action or video animation on a site, even on corporate websites. You think if this, this slide is well designed, do you think this equates to increased cognition on the part of the audience? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So it's kind of a two part question. Dr. Kath Straub: Yeah right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The first part is having all this level of interactivity is what people expect when they come to a website, is to have all that flash going on. The second question is if that is well designed, is there more cognition on the part of the audience? So let's take the first question first. I think that this is a generational question and I think that the boomers and above do not necessarily expect all this and may not necessarily want all of that interactive multimedia. I think that I am not sure if the Gen X is fitting there but I know that Net generation definitely expect and I think that Gen X probably have more expectation, it would be more often that generation than they would be if the boomers have been revived and so yes, they do expect to see that. Now does that equate increased cognition? I think it has to do with two things, one that if you are talking about the service level coming to the website with a lot of animation and with a lot of flash, I think it has to do with attention that is the most. If you are grabbing their attention and then you are having an impact on that blink type of quick decision making it out of whether they stay, whether they engage and whether they continue. After that potential moment, now that we are talking about them watching a video, yes I think that there is more information that will be transmitted and retained if it is well designed and well done because people will pay more attention and possibly retain what they are learning and seeing in a well designed video for instance, than just from a video page because they are engaging in more than one sensory. Dr. Kath Straub: Wait a minute you said engaging so I'm paying more attention. It may take more cognitive effort on my part but if it is designed well, if it's really engaging I'm not going to notice it at first, in fact more of my energy is going to go to paying attention to the site but not feel that way, that's the whole flow of things, right. Do principles, such as persuasive architecture, apply to the design of applications? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I believe they do. I believe again since this is the seducible moment of the flow, you've got an application and you want people to take a target action on that screen and what do you do to design it to get them to keep going? So I think it does apply. It may be you know, if you are talking about filling out your time sheet every week as we do in England as a favorite web application, we used to do that you know, is that as important as ROI on that, actually you know in our company the ROI... Dr. Kath Straub: It might be. (Laughs) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Is that as important as you know getting someone to buy something or to register a website? You may have to decide that but it might be very important. Dr. Kath Straub: I don't know, I think it is very important because if I have to go to a website or application each week that I really have a hard time with and find troublesome or ugly even, that's going to have an effect on my attitude all along. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Kath Straub: So that's going to be something that affects my other behaviors ultimately as well so making it simple, making it persuasive, persuasive doesn't necessarily mean buying something it means in engaging in a way that I might do a particular task. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And complete and keep going. Dr. Kath Straub: Here's one of our favorites. Our favorite government question - Designing for government involves different generations, different people, and different languages, different places, there is no specific target generation or target user group actually, and how do we handle that design? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right, you want to address that or... Dr. Kath Straub: I'll address that. Well that's one of our favorite things of designing for government is, the user group is the American people and it is not even the American citizens necessarily, so the group is very difficult to capture and the individuals who do particularly federal level work or work almost in a state actually are really trying to get a large user group representative so they have to figure out who the ends of the user group and continue monitoring and when they are doing usability testing they have to think carefully about what constitutes the representative user and who do I need to have this particular tool resource targeted to? The idea of figuring out the user groups for Medicare or Social Security administration that probably is really a challenging and interesting problem and not an easy one. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So in terms of different generations if that falls into, I think it is the same idea, so it can be very challenging to design a site that is used by especially if you have got some people who are in the 18 to 20 year olds and they are the Net generation, then you have got the Gen X, the boomers and the seniors and you have got to design a site that will work for all of them in the way. There are ways to do that and what you need to do is to make sure at the very beginning that there is something there to hook what each of those groups wants so they have something interactive with the video, with the graphic for the Net generation for instance, but to have them in such a way that it is not totally annoying to the boomers and the seniors, to have options and choices about how information is accessed and viewed so I can read about it or I can go watch the video on it . You got to build in these different options if indeed you want to get at all of those generations. But I think you need to stop and ask for this particular part of the application at the site is one of those generations more important than the other. Dr. Kath Straub: Right, so I think in the end what we typically do with the agencies is to help them sort out who they really are targeting and whether that target group really has to represent the ends or whether so for instance, for social security administration if I'm signing for my retirement, chances are that I'm in a fair reprieve. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It's really a narrow end. Do you have some more questions for us? Dr. Kath Straub: I do have, I have one more. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: One more, okay. Dr. Kath Straub: One more - are you aware of any tasks in healthcare online that users want to do but haven't been able to accomplish easily? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: What do you think? Dr. Kath Straub: I would think that actually, most of them. (Laughter) Dr. Kath Straub: The studies that we've got show that some of them are quite easily done, finding sites and finding information is good and people do a lot of it but whether or not they find the right information or they take away the things that the sites are intending them to take away is a completely different question and even today simple things like registration for example that you gave us before, a great program and really interesting opportunity for people but the designers made it so difficult that they can't leverage that application. I would reject that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So you would say that there are lots of tasks that are not able that are not going to help them. Dr. Kath Straub: Unfortunately still, I think they should be fairly simple. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Great well, we have come to the end of our time and so I want to remind everyone, please make sure that you download the white paper if you are interested in the summary of what we have talked about. You can view this webcast; there will be an archived version of the webcast for you to view. It will be up there in a couple of weeks, so if you have someone you can relate this information to and they weren't able to come, you can tell them about that and we do have a schedule of the webcast up at the website for what is coming in the future and we look forward to seeing you in the future webcasts. Thank You. Top