You only really notice the usability of a product when it’s not there. It’s very easy to come up with examples of poor usability, but for the most part, people don’t usually know the reasons for why one product is easy to use, and one is difficult and frustrating to use. Well, it doesn’t happen by accident! Most of the great products out there that we enjoy using have been through intensive user experience design and usability testing.

Here’s our ten most common reasons for why a product has poor usability:

1) Too much focus on features and technology

Many projects start off with project leaders and stakeholders having a strong desire to use latest technology or to develop a product with endless features. Feature development and testing are given a high priority and will often have a dedicated technical team responsible for them. The projects which go wrong are the ones that fail to balance these features against what users really need. Instead user requirements are an afterthought thrown in towards the end of development when much of the interface has already been developed.

2) Designers and developers ’scratch their own itch’

In absence of any contact with real end users, designers and developers have no option than to use their own experiences as a guide.  They end up designing the system according to their own capabilities, understanding and beliefs. Often they will be so deep into the project that they rarely question their decisions. If it works for the way they would use it, then that is good enough.

3) No-one has considered what people really need to use the interface for

It’s easy to get caught up in the detail of a project and immerse yourself in the complexities of how to make a product work well. Sometimes, a project team can be so focused on the inner workings of the system that they fail to step back and question their design decisions from a user perspective. Understanding what users really need, and what situations they are likely to be in when they use the product can completely change the direction of the design.

4) The person with the final say has little or no interface design experience

Often, we will come across a competent and well meaning project leader responsible for the end product who has to make the call on how the product looks and operates. More often than not, this person has little or no experience of user interface design and unwittingly makes decisions without fully considering the impact on the users.

5) Too much focus on quantitative measurement

When a website is doing well, you’ll hear the project team talking about numbers. The number of unique visits, the number of conversions, the number of page views and so on. Unfortunately, the usability of a product or website is not so easily measured. Whilst project teams may know they have a problem with basket abandonment, or low page views on key pages of the site, they rarely understand why users behave the way they do which is key to understanding how to improve usability to fix the issue.

Part 2 of the 10 most common reasons for poor usability will be coming soon. In the meantime, consider this question:

Do your products or services suffer from any of the most common reasons for poor usability?

Related Services: Customer requirements capture, Usability testing, and Customer experience research

I paid for a train ticket over the counter yesterday. As I completed the transaction I nearly walked off leaving my Debit card in the PIN machine. As I turned back to the machine to retrieve the card the chap behind the counter said something along the lines of, “That was lucky. We’ve already had three people leave their cards here this morning.”

Three people, this morning, have walked away leaving their card in the machine. Can you imagine arriving for a day in London and realising you’ve left your Debit card somewhere? Pretty stressful huh?

If your customers are suffering – take action

So having already experienced people leaving their cards, would it not be courteous to remind customers to remove their cards after the transaction?

Since Chip & PIN, all organisations have had to invest heavily in installing new equipment to cater to the new technology. However, I can’t help but ask myself if some of this technology either hasn’t been thought through properly, or is not being used properly.

Technology shouldn’t create customer experience issues

If the staff working behind a counter are unable to see the Chip & PIN machine it would be useful for their screen to inform them that the card has not been removed. They can then prompt the customer. Like most ‘simple’ fixes, it becomes less simple to fix once the technology is complete.

If the full customer journey and scenarios are planned and mapped out prior to build, these minor details will be catered for. And if customers are introduced to the project early, to test a prototype, the barriers will be highlight and dealt with before these ‘simple’ issues become costly fixes.

Do you involve customers in your project process early enough?

Related services: Customer Journey Mapping and Usability Evaluation & Testing

We’ve been trying not to talk too much about the ‘credit crunch’ on our blog because quite frankly we’re sick of hearing about it in the headlines every day. But, if it’s something our clients are worried about, we felt we should provide some ideas on what to do during these uncertain times.

So we’ve created a list of reasons why you should improve your website customer experience:

1)  Rising fuel costs and household bills could mean more people turn online to save money

Instead of driving to the store to shop around, customers are more likely to research and purchase online in an attempt to save costs.  Research suggests that retailers are seeing an increase in online sales at a time when  there is a widespread decline in the high street, making the web a good channel to focus upon during a time when customers are more frugal.

Low cost customer research can yield small changes to a website which can have a big difference in improving customer experience.

2)  Lower numbers of customers with money to spend means finding better ways to improve conversion

With a predicted economic downturn all over the headlines, consumers are likely to restrict their spending and become more considered when making purchase decisions.

Through usability testing you can understand your customers’ newly formed needs and provide an online experience to meet their expectations. This will give you the advatange over yout competitors during this period.

3)  Getting your website in order now means you can have confidence in your site if your budget is reduced

If you have budget now, but you feel it could be sparse in the near future, it’s a wise investment to  ensure the site is delivering what your customers need, and what your board demands.

Understanding the barriers to online conversion now, and knowing how to remove these barriers, will allow you to make strategic changes to stabilise the customer experience.

4)  During periods of restricted budget it is even more important to get your prioritisation right

When budgets are tight, prioritisation becomes a critical decision making tool. All too often, website owners make prioritisation decisions based on business goals and available resource. It is critical to understand your customers’ goals and ensure that you include customer priorities in your thinking.

Having a site which focuses only upon your business goals in our experience is the best way to provide a poor customer experience because you can easily lose sight of customer needs.

5)  When times are tough, people seek experiences which make them feel good

During an economic downturn, marketers have noticed an increase in lipstick sales. The term ‘lipstick factor’ refers to phenomenon where women turn away from the more expensive shoes and clothes towards the less expensive items that make them feel better about themselves. During troubled times people have a greater need to feel better about themselves, so making customers feel good by providing small ‘pick me ups’ during their experience with your site is a way to thrive during the ‘credit crunch’.

Is your website catering to current customer needs?

Related services: Customer Experience Research, Expert Evaluation, and Usability Testing

According to a recent article I read, there are over 5,000 people employed in the UK online gambling sector today. Judging by my recent experiences, few of them have ‘user experience’ in their job title. What amazed me was how most of the sites I looked at were clearly not focused upon the novice gambler experience. Maybe they work seamlessly for a seasoned gambler, but for a ‘newbie’ like me, it was so painful that I gave up in the end.

Betting on the next Chelsea manager

Before this weekend there’s been a lot of debate among fellow Chelsea fans over whether Avram Grant will still be Chelsea manager next season. So much so, that I began to feel pretty strongly about the whole thing and in a debate I was challenged to put my money where my mouth was. So that’s what I decided to do. The idea of going online to place a bet felt a lot less daunting than walking into a betting shop, so I started working my way through a few of the more well known gambling sites. Before long I found myself very confused.

Most, if not all the websites I looked at have no ability to search, which I found distressing as they assumed that I knew exactly what I was looking for and where to find it. Finding the Football or Soccer sections seemed to be a struggle and, even when I did, I found nothing that would allow me to bet on the next Chelsea manager. Overwhelmed by the bombardment of ads, promotions and betting options, I struggled to find a betting site that would guide a new user to make clear decisions. I found that I could bet on almost any competition I liked that was happening now or in the immediate future. I could even bet on who would win the Premiership next season, but there was absolutely nothing on future manager predictions. Since this weekend where Grant was sacked, many of the sites now have clear promotions to the various betting options leaving me frustrated that these weren’t clearly available only a week ago.

Little support for gambling ‘newbies’

Intrigued by the online betting user experience, I decided to continue my investigation by looking at the betting for Euro 2008. Although most of the sites listed the betting options in order, from the favourites to the least favourites, I still managed to get myself confused when trying to work out odds like 13/8. Like most other betting ‘newbies’ I just want to know how much I can win if I bet a certain amount, but very few sites let me work this out without forcing me to take the bold step of actually placing a bet.

Many of the sites listing Euro 2008 betting options required a certain level of understanding of gambling terminology with terms like ‘Antepost Betting’ and ‘Double Chance’. These sites made me feel like I didn’t belong, but even worse, they made me feel stupid. As a new user, I required: good navigation allowing me to quickly find what I wanted to bet on, some tools to help me decide which bets might be sound than others (e.g. links to football statistics), a clear way to understand the different betting options, and a method of clearly working out what I would win on each bet.

Poor online user experience

It’s predicted that in 2 years time, the UK gambling market will increase to £1.6bn with 2.1m active gamblers. This growth can be achieved much quicker if these sites paid more attention to improving their user experience.

Customer acquisition and retention are key in the online betting market with the number of sites competing for business. The sites which take the biggest market share over the coming years are likely to be those investing in customer experience for people new to online betting. I found it surprising the barriers customers have to overcome before converting.

Understanding customer requirements and improving usability is not an expensive endeavour, but all too often we see websites that fail to meet the needs of large groups of their audience, and on the face of it, the online betting market appears to be no different.

Are you meeting the needs of your customers online?

Related services: Customer requirements capture, Usability testing, and Customer experience research

It’s easy to see why retailers are turning to more and more self-service kiosks. They put the customer in control, they can reduce operational costs and they save on staff costs. When they are designed well they can improve customer experience because customers grab their goods and leave the store with minimal fuss. When they are designed poorly, they can be time consuming and frustrating having a negative impact on customer experience.

What we’ve noticed in our research is that many of the problems are due to designers and engineers not paying enough attention to customer needs. What the kiosk developers appear to do is take the service tills used by trained retail staff and then redesign the interface for customer use. Trained staff use equipment hundreds of times a day and learn ‘work arounds’ to their frustrations. Customers on the other hand use the equipment infrequently and have much less tolerance for frustration.

To help you make sure your kiosk provides a smooth customer experience rather than a frustrating one, we’ve put together a list of the most common frustrations customers experience when using self-service kiosks/checkouts:

• Poor product or service categorisation - Most kiosks require customers to identify the item before they scan it. Many kiosks haven’t spent enough time researching which categorisation systems are most logical to their customers, leaving customers struggling to locate the best match for their item. When they have a number of items to process, and the queues are building behind them, this can be a real source of stress for customers.

• Kiosks can’t support the speed of input - When customers gain confidence with the checkout and speed their rate of scanning items and placing them on the conveyer or into their ‘bag area’, the system tends to ‘get confused’ and appears to lag behind, issuing confusing error commands to customers asking them to perform actions they have already completed.

• Physical layout and ergonomics don’t support common tasks - Some of the popular self-service checkouts tend to force customers to shuffle between the main screen, and the payment mechanism placed beyond stretching distance away. Before completing their transaction they need to return to the main screen again. This often leads to customers over stretching or shuffling their bags while they struggle to complete their purchase.

• Touchscreens can be unclear - Many checkouts use touchscreen input and a common source of frustration with these are the readability of the screen due to glare from overhead lighting or from the size of the text on the screen. We have observed customers also struggling to know which areas are ‘clickable’ and which are not.

Whilst self-service kiosks become more popular, we feel it is important that they don’t fall into the trap that many websites did in the early days of web development: to assume that customers will adapt to the technology, rather than adapting the technology to the customers. In order for retailers to gain the benefits from self-service, they must ensure that the technology provides a smooth customer experience by focusing upon usability and customer needs very early in the product development lifecycle.

Does your self-service kiosk frustrate your customers?

Related services: Usability testing, Customer-centred design, & Customer experience research

As a regular user of the BBC website and an ex-BBC employee, I find the new Beta of the customisable homepage an exciting concept. I love the idea of opening up my browser and seeing all the news and content I’m interested in, in one place. So, from my perspective it’s a big thumbs up.However, I am a little worried for the less frequent web user. The new web 2.0 style design with the customisable features on every item seems to add visual clutter and makes the simple task of scanning the page more of a struggle. The design is a little ‘in your face’ with the entire page changing colour when users click particular sections (see below), and the sheer size of the content makes me need to move away from the screen slightly to take it all in.

Being the BBC I’m sure there have been numerous usability tests to validate the concept, and allowing people to explore the Beta version before the change is made final is the best way to avoid the shock and horror usually associated with a major change to user expectations. So, I’m sure the BBC have it all under control, but I can’t help feeling slightly worried that the design of the new homepage has had a little too much focus upon the technology and not enough upon how to help users achieve their goals easier.

Whilst the new homepage can’t be described as offering a poor user experience, I would be fascinated to be a fly on the wall in the usability tests of the slightly older, less frequent audience as I’m not sure they will react quite as positively as I did.

What do you think?

It was only a matter of time before Amazon outgrew their old tab navigation system. They have just launched a new design which maximises the screen real estate while retaining a lot of what customers are familiar with.

The main changes appear to be the navigation where they have used a more traditional left navigation which works well. The navigation minimizes once in a specific section and is revealed by a rollover ensuring they have as much screen real estate as possible. They have obviously done extensive usability testing and conducted a thorough customer-centred design process. Here’s what they have to say about it:

“We consulted the foremost experts in the field: our customers.

We travelled around the world, inviting customers like you to come and try out the new features and design. We listened to their feedback and made changes based on their opinions. Then we asked more customers for their advice, and we made more changes from their feedback. The design you see today reflects the input of many real-life customers of our UK and international websites.”

Overall they appear to have done a great job and I’m really pleased to see that they have continued to offer a good customer experience by understanding what their customers’ goals are. They say that after speaking to their customers they found the four most important customer goals were shopping, searching, saving and buying, so they made those areas a priority. After having a good look around though, I don’t see any big changes which would improve my experience in these four areas so I can only assume that they made minor tweaks as they felt that those areas worked well as is.

Teams which follow a thorough customer-centred design process on their website can be confident that when they launch their new site, customers will continue to have a good customer experience. In our eyes it’s no longer a nice to have, it is an essential part of a website redesign process. How confident are you that your web team will follow a customer-centred design process?

I’m totally new to online grocery shopping. I’ve been curious before but I’ve never really seen the benefit for me over just going to the store. I do hate the shopping experience on a busy Saturday, but I prefer to make informed choices about the food I buy rather than relying on a spotty teenager who might choose the bruised apples, or the mince that looks a funny shade of brown. But, this weekend I have a clear need to use an online service. I’m really not sure what the experience will be like so I thought it would be an interesting experiment in customer experience to record my thoughts as I go through the process.

Before I start, I’ll outline my goals and expectations.

My main goal is to get some groceries for the weekend sent to me as I’m without a car and I’m busy all day Saturday. My sub-goals are:

• to see if this is a more convenient way for me to shop in the future
• to save me the hassle of using a bus or a taxi to go to the supermarket and back again
• I want delivery either today (Friday) or Sunday

My expectations:

• to be able to choose the specific items and brands I want
• to be able to choose products from a range of dates available so I don’t have 2 dinners to be eaten within 1 day
• to have to log in with my details
• to be able to choose specific delivery times
• to be able to order items for same day or Sunday delivery

I don’t feel I’m being too unreasonable with my goals and expectations, so lets take a look and see if the site delivers.

I’m going to use Tesco’s website because thats where I do most of my shopping.

When I hit the tesco.com homepage, the first place I focus on is the Groceries & Wine area which suggests that Tesco have optimised this page for what I assume is their most valuable customer journey. The top left area of the page is where I looked first and where eye tracking studies seem to suggest is a key area for users to focus.

I’m then lead through a couple of clear decision making steps to choose grocery over wine, and I’m a returning user or a new user needing to register. All is well so far. Next I arrive at a page which looses the finesse and clear layout I was used to and instead I’m faced with a large scary looking registration form. Of course I’m expecting one, but the clean layout and the well sign posted decisions to get me here had set up my expectation that it was going to be a smooth process, instead I’m faced with a large form with lots of information to read. I wonder what the drop out rates are like in the traffic stats at this point as my first thought is that maybe I should just get a lift from someone to the store instead.

I carry on anyway and find that the form isn’t anywhere near as scary as it looks and once complete I’m told to check my email to continue. I go to Hotmail and find a fairly pleasant email giving me login details. Unfortunately though, the email misses a small but vital element for me to continue my journey: there’s no link back to the site for me to jump straight to where I was in the process. Instead I have to find the Tesco site again and navigate back to the login page. OK, no massive big deal but not exactly giving me a smooth journey to reach my goal either.

I go back to tesco.com, click on groceries and am pleasantly surprised to find I’m already logged in and can immediately find out when I can get my groceries delivered.

The delivery slot page surprises and disappoints me all at once. I’m happy to see I can get a delivery tonight, but I’m really disappointed to find that I have to pay a fair amount of money to get it delivered. At this point I feel pretty stupid for not expecting to pay this much for delivery, but as it wasn’t what I expected I’m now questioning if I want to continue. The other thing I notice is that Tesco are selling advertising space on their online shop. When I think about it I guess I’m not that surprised, but it goes against my expectations and contributes even more to my disappointment.

Feeling a bit despondent I decide to take a look at Sainsbury’s to see if they will charge the same amount for delivery. Before going through the registration process I want to find out straight away what the delivery cost will be and if I can get it delivered today or Sunday.

Continuing to prove the ‘top left’ theory, the first thing I spot is the ‘buy groceries online’.

Straight away the site feels more friendly and I get a sense of confidence that this site can help me out when I see that I can check whether they deliver to my area. I just hope they can tell me how much and when.

Once again, I’m feeling disappointed and like I’m really going to have to work to find this information. Of course its nice to get confirmation that I can use the service, but what I really want is more information on delivery dates and costs. Where to now? There’s no further information on this page apart from a link to continue shopping which doesn’t help me reach my goal.

As the website doesn’t appear to be helping me I decide to find a phone number and call them instead. Clicking on ‘contact us’ gives me a number. All the options presented to me in the automated system seem to assume that I already have an account, so I choose to ‘hold if you have any other reason to call’. The lady on the other end asks me for my account number or order number and seems a little unnerved that I have neither. So instead she asks for my name and postcode and whether I’m the account holder. I politely explain I don’t have an account yet so she assumes I’m having registration problems. Once we get past all her assumptions I get a chance to explain that before I register I want to know more about likely delivery costs. I’m told that they are between £5 or £6 depending on the store and there is a minimum order value of £25.

At last I can make an informed decision. Seeing as I only need a couple of things for the weekend, and £6 seems an expensive delivery charge to me I decide to look for an alternative way to get to the store which is something I considered right at the beginning.

30 minutes later I’m left slightly aggravated and I still haven’t achieved my main goal.

If I was given the delivery cost, minimum order, and likelihood of receiving a delivery when I needed it on either website I would have had a good customer experience with them despite converting to an online customer. A positive customer experience with either Tesco or Sainsbury’s in combination with the knowledge of the delivery process is more likely to lead me to converting to an online customer in the future. Instead I’m left with the feeling that online grocery shopping is simply too much hassle.

A summary of usability and customer experience learning points for online grocery retailers:

• clearly signposted decision making tools leading customers through their initial journey is likely to build confidence in the service
• the registration process should be clean and free of unnecessary copy
• every step in the registration process, particularly steps which lead customers away from the site (i.e. confirmation email) should be focused upon guiding customers to completing their goals with links back to the next stage in the process
• deliver information on likely costs, availability and minimum order conditions should be made available clearly at the very beginning of the customer journey
• customer profiles detailing likely customer goals, and mapping out customer journeys should be used by online grocery retailers to ensure their website and call centre staff don’t create unnecessary barriers though false assumptions assumptions which lead to barriers
• If Tesco and Sainsbury’s had generated customer profiles and mapped out possible customer journeys to reaching likely goals, maybe they would have anticipated my goal and ensured the website and call centre staff could assist me in achieving it as quickly and easily as possible

Does your website or call centre help your customers achieve their goals quickly and easily?

Just as I was about to post this, I found an article suggesting that over 70% of consumers have not used online grocery shopping before. Judging by my brief dabble here, I can’t say I’m surprised.

I’ve just watched a brilliantly funny but thought provoking talk by David Pogue on the TED website . Their strapline is ‘Ideas worth spreading’, so I thought I’d do just that: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/7

“New York Times technology columnist David Pogue opens his talk with a rousing musical number about the trials of customer support, then launches into some sharp commentary on “The Software Upgrade Paradox” (”Improve a piece of software enough times, you eventually ruin it”). Next he takes on the worst interface design offenders, the causes of “Software Rage.” After a couple of trips back to the piano, Pogue moves to the success stories, offering examples of products that celebrate the power of simplicity.”