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Questions part 6: Aftermath and beyond

Ben — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:51 +0000

When asked about the success of his large company, Herb Kelleher said, “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”

Process and plans are attempts to control the future by studying the past. Trouble is, past experiences are not tomorrow’s work. The popular formula of “discovery, design, execution, and launch” work on paper, but the inevitable bullet points that follow each step only work if you write the points yourself. Even in the same project, client and team will vary over lifespan of development. Creative projects demand improvisation.

Instead of a process, when working on a digital project like a site or an app, I have questions.

Lifespan of the digital project

Is the digital project meeting its goals?
Is the digital project meeting goals that you didn’t know you had?
What questions do you have?
You’re free to ask these questions. You’ll learn more if you ask your own.

Questions part 5: Launch

Ben — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:30 +0000

When asked about the success of his large company, Herb Kelleher said, “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”

Instead of a process, when working on a digital project like a site or an app, I have questions.

During and after launch

Apps: Assuming it’s an iOS app, have you followed Apple’s criteria?
How will you celebrate?
This isn’t trivial. Unexpected, tangible pats on the back are critical for long-term team morale.
Do you have a regular checkup plan?

Questions part 4: Refining

Ben — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:54 +0000

When asked about the success of his large company, Herb Kelleher said, “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”

Instead of a process, when working on a digital project like a site or an app, I have questions.

During refinement

Follow Dieter Rams’ guidelines.
What steps can you remove or consolidate to improve flow and user experience?
“It’s better to retreat a foot than advance an inch.”
Have you documented your work?
Comments in code should not state what the code does, but what you intend it to do.
Have you identified and tested against your assumptions?
Worst-case scenarios often begin with either “huh, I didn’t think of that” or end with “but they weren’t supposed to do it that way.”
Which team members are working on their own initiative? Which team members are distracted?
A creative person can be coerced to work, but not to work well.

Questions part 3: Testing

Ben — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:00:18 +0000

When asked about the success of his large company, Herb Kelleher said, “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”

Instead of a process, when working on a digital project like a site or an app, I have questions.

During testing

In what unexpected ways did people use the digital project?
How did people’s expectations differ from what their experience? Were they delighted or frustrated?
What did the user get done without hesitation?
(Hint: That’s where you’re doing well.)
Did they compliment the digital project?
If so, then it needs more work. But if they focus on getting something done, then you’re doing well. “Nice app” is bad. “Look what I did” is good.
If someone pokes fun at your digital project, pay attention.
The ridiculous can be eye-opening.
Is the team still actively engaged?
Lackluster projects often stem from a team just trying to fulfill a someone else’s requirements.

Questons part 2: Design

Ben — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:30 +0000

When asked about the success of his large company, Herb Kelleher said, “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”

Instead of a process, when working on a digital project like a site or an app, I have questions.

During development

How can the design make information easy to understand or manipulate?
How does the project visually communicate its goals?
What details can you add that people won’t notice at first glance, but won’t detract from the user experience?
Apps: Does the app “feel” ergonomic, unobtrusive and useful?
App design is not website design. Think of the app as a handheld object, like a kitchen utensil or a garden tool.
Does everyone who gets their hands dirty in code/graphics/UX/management have a say in the digital project’s outcome?
A team who works with someone is worlds better than a team who works for someone. “What do you think?” is good to ask. “Hey, I had this idea…” is good to hear.

Questions part 1: Concept

Ben — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:55:36 +0000

When asked about the success of his large company, Herb Kelleher said, “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”

Instead of a process, when working on a digital project like a site or an app, I have questions.

Concept

What problem(s) does this digital project solve?
Great apps make a task easier, or fill a need that people (not the client) have.
Is the digital project more fun or more serious?
The difference will inform its “persona.”
Is the digital project more of a utility or more of a game?
Good utilities fulfill a need; good games hold attention.
When will the digital project launch?
Nothing sets priorities like a deadline with consequences.
How will you promote the digital project?
Word of mouth is great, but often requires a sustained kickstart.
How will you measure the success of (or lack of) the digital project?
On which platform(s) will this digital project run?
There’s a difference in designing for desktop browsers, screen readers, iPhones, iPads, or a combination thereof.
Who is responsible for what?
Do the stakeholders want to educate, entertain or empower people, or do they want an digital project?
Solutions without problems can work, but rarely thrive.
Does the client want to copy the success of others?
“Isn’t there a better way to…?” is good. “I love this app/website/graphic/tool/gimmick. Can you make one?” is bad.

Little rewards and fewer frustrations makes content management less of a chore

Ben — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:16 +0000

I once had a problem with other people’s chores.

My clients found updating their websites tedious. Not that I blamed them, but especially since search engines prefer sites with fresh content, frequent content changes are important. We tried scheduling, hiring out and brainstorming before finding two solutions: speed and humor.

“Like slogging through maple syrup”

At the time, I was building custom content management systems to let people manage their own sites. I was able to streamline the update process. A sluggish system led to lost trains of thought, a common source of frustration.

We also reviewed the CMS’s design. By removing one piece at a time, we discovered fewer than half the widgets on a given page were necessary at any time. Identifying and trimming away extra parts helped people focus on their work.

A little character

But speed wasn’t enough. So on a whim, I added funny sayings to user feedback. For example, instead of displaying “Blog post saved,” the system said “Blog post saved. You’ve just made the world a better place,” or “Blog post deleted. We’re sorry for your loss.” People saw one of a dozen feel-good messages, randomly selected every time they completed a task.

They came to expect it. And they liked it.

Over time people updated their sites more often because they looked forward to those tiny rewards. A few well-placed words made mundane chores bearable.

Lessons from building word clouds

Ben — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:38:20 +0000

When a client asked for a custom word cloud to let people feel they were interacting with the company. Whether or not it would help, I was tasked with creating the cloud for their site.

A “word cloud” is a collection of phrases related to a topic. In this case, the client was asking for user feedback. Working as a web developer for KGBTexas, I integrated a table into the client’s WordPress database and wrote PHP to handle entries. This included preventing people from entering the same phrase more than once, tallying how often the same phrase, and judging between space- and comma-separated words.

The cloud grew larger than I anticipated. Two weeks after launch, we had 150 more words than I originally expected. Fortunately I’d arranged the site’s layout to allow for growth. Also, using CSS, I designed the site’s overall width to adapt to different sized screens, from large monitors to iPhones.
People entered either single words or words with commas. After two days rewrote the entry-checking code to split phrases by comma — but only when users used commas.
People misspelled some words, which counted as separate entries. The client did not ask for me to correct this.
At least one person tried to comment on the cloud by entering their comment in the word field. Lesson for next time: An easy feedback mechanism to report
“Sexy” was the most NSWF word anyone tried to enter. My profanity checking function was unnecessary.
There was no need to organize answers per question. Even after the client changed the question to which they expected replies, they did not want to reset the word cloud. Good thing I didn’t waste time writing a way to do so.

Lessons for next time

Plan for growth.
Save some budget for manual phrase management after launch.
Add a separate “report a problem” feedback mechanism.

A jQuery snippet to hide unnecessary support

Ben — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:10:02 +0000

We had a list of links that wouldn’t sit still. The client would occasionally change the links, including some to PDF files. To accommodate users, we added a link to Adobe Reader. But when the list had no PDFs, the Reader link became superfluous.

Conventional wisdom would have left the Reader link on the page no matter what. Users are free to ignore what they don’t need. But in our campaign against clutter, we wanted to remove the link when the page contained no PDFs.

To keep from checking for PDFs manually, I wrote this quick jQuery function.

Sample HTML

link 1
<a href="test.html">link 2
<a href="test.pdf">link 3
<a href="test.html">link 4

id="pdf_link">Get Adobe Reader

The jQuery

function bt_reveal_support ( condition, support_id ){
	var x = $(condition).length;
	if ( x > 0 ) {
		$(support_id).show();
	}
	else {
		$(support_id).hide();
	}
}

bt_reveal_support('a[href$=pdf]', '#pdf_link');

In English

Count every anchor element (that is, every link) that ends with “pdf”. If there’s more than one, then show the appropriate link to Adobe Reader. If not, hide the Adobe Reader link.

Building a useful not-found search results page

Ben — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:25:00 +0000

Big trucks, nothing found

I once worked with a client who sold trucks. Big trucks. Trucks so big that their “light” vehicles regarded my car as a speed bump. And they sold plenty of them. The first set of data was a 8MB, pipe-delimited text file that, I was told, could change daily.

Writing a script to interpret the data in a timely manner was challenging, but doable. The search tool I wrote handled 237 pages of results, eight trucks per page, on its trial run. But the interesting part came when we didn’t find trucks.

At first, if a search yielded no results, the site displayed a “nothing found” message. But I wanted to do more. I wanted the site to say “that search didn’t work, here’s why.”

Searches worth the effort

I wrote a MySQL query find out how many new and used trucks of each brand.

SELECT
	COUNT(v.id) AS tally,
	CONCAT(make_title,'-',vehicle_type)
FROM
	…
WHERE
	mk.id = md.make_id AND
	md.id = v.model_id
GROUP BY
	CONCAT(make_title,'-',vehicle_type)
ORDER BY
	make_title,
	vehicle_type

In English: Find how many of each truck are in the database. Label them like “Ford-used” or “Volvo-new”.

Once I knew which models were in the database, I could provide links to people that would guarantee results. Even better, the script helped people make an informed decision by revealing how many results to expect.

Clicking a number in the table at the intersection of, say, new and Mack, would search for new Mack trucks.

Unexpected results

This query (modified to remove sensitive data) produced surprises:

The client’s seven brands in stock, the only used trucks were Fords.
Mack trucks were sometimes abbreviated MCK.
Western Star trucks were sometimes labeled “WESTERNSTAR” or just “WEST”.
Some models had been labeled with the client’s first name.

The client used these unexpected hiccups to clean up their data over the next week.

Rather than leave people at a dead-end, the vehicle search tool was helpful, unobtrusive, adaptive and useful in ways we hadn’t imagined.