Mint (ok now Intuit) CEO gets it

live wrote:
> Who convinced and taught this left-brain oriented engineer/CEO that the
> user experience mattered?

In terms of corporate beliefs, shareholder return is all that really
matters. Some days I think the problem is that people in design didn't
take enough business classes and therefore have difficulty making the
business case for the role of design.

--
J. E. 'jet' Townsend, IDSA
Designer, Fabricator, Hacker
design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ
PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8

On Dec 5, 2009, at 7:29 PM, live wrote:

> Good point.
> How does one show value for design? Etc.

How does one show value for quality?

How does one show value for technology?

How does one show value for service?

Answer those questions and you'll know how one shows value for design.

Jared

Great point jet. Essentially what you've described is the difference between UI/interaction design and the design of a cross-channel, cross-modality, over-time customer experience.

It ain't just about the pixels. Our field would be well advised to remember this.

-Paul

On Dec 6, 2009, at 10:38 AM, j. eric townsend wrote:

Jared Spool wrote:
> How does one show value for quality?
> How does one show value for technology?
> How does one show value for service?
> Answer those questions and you'll know how one shows value for design.

Here's an example that's probably terribly uninteresting to most designers: post-sales customer support.

Customer support is a huge cash suck for consumer electronics and software companies. A call to customer support answered by a human can easily cost $10, much more if that human has to be technically sophisticated and do more than follow a script. Let's say you're selling a video game or a monthly service for $50. A single call to CS just zero'd any profit. Multiple calls put you in the negative. If you end up having to "roll a truck" to the customer, you're probably in a world of hurt.

If you can figure out a way to lower the cost of customer support using better design, you will get attention from execs. Find out what customer support is costing them across the board -- returned products, customer retention, phone bank and web site costs -- and show how you can lower those costs with better design. Maybe it's a better help forum, maybe it's a better phone tree, maybe it's better scripts for the CS reps. Sure, making the product better might lower costs in the next release, but that's speculation and not easily measured.

Show that good design can cut costs in a well-understood and closely watched area of the business and maybe it will be easier to convince them of how good design can increase profits on the intake side of the business.

--
J. E. 'jet' Townsend, IDSA
Designer, Fabricator, Hacker
design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ
PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8
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Paul Sherman wrote:
> It ain't just about the pixels. Our field would be well advised to
remember this.

Yup. My current ploy in courses and workshops is to place temporary (but
lengthy -- days long!) bans on discussion of "things" (products, displays,
documents, pixels, etc.). The conversation has to be about people:
characteristics, behavior, attitudes, relationships, emotions, identity,
social life, communication, life stages, complexity of life, and so on and
on. Not that we should ban thing-talk altogether, because of course most of
our work does somehow involve things. But we need a serious injection of
balance -- less artifact, more human outcome.

Our bundle of fields and crafts needs a soul injection. It's amazing how
something like a temporary ban can highlight how badly we have the disease
of, "I say 'user-centered,' but what excites me, what I really care about,
relate to, study, and focus on every day is technology." (What if we set
aside a day of the Interaction 11 conference to be ONLY about people?)

Business conversations can have the same problem, of course: talking more
about channels, pricing models, etc. than about how this all connects with
people's lives.

Here's a dose of balance from Clayton "Innovator's Dilemna" Christensen and
his co-authors Anthony, Berstell and Nitterhouse. Here is OUR message of
strategic design, clearly articulated by a business school professor, with
few uses of the actual word "design."

http://www.innosightventures.com/upload/JobsToBeDone.pdf

Cheers,
Marc Rettig
Fit Associates, LLC

On Dec 6, 2009, at 10:38 AM, j. eric townsend wrote:

Jared Spool wrote:
> How does one show value for quality?
> How does one show value for technology?
> How does one show value for service?
> Answer those questions and you'll know how one shows value for design.

Here's an example that's probably terribly uninteresting to most designers:
post-sales customer support.

Customer support is a huge cash suck for consumer electronics and software
companies. A call to customer support answered by a human can easily cost
$10, much more if that human has to be technically sophisticated and do more
than follow a script. Let's say you're selling a video game or a monthly
service for $50. A single call to CS just zero'd any profit. Multiple
calls put you in the negative. If you end up having to "roll a truck" to
the customer, you're probably in a world of hurt.

If you can figure out a way to lower the cost of customer support using
better design, you will get attention from execs. Find out what customer
support is costing them across the board -- returned products, customer
retention, phone bank and web site costs -- and show how you can lower those
costs with better design. Maybe it's a better help forum, maybe it's a
better phone tree, maybe it's better scripts for the CS reps. Sure, making
the product better might lower costs in the next release, but that's
speculation and not easily measured.

Show that good design can cut costs in a well-understood and closely watched
area of the business and maybe it will be easier to convince them of how
good design can increase profits on the intake side of the business.

--
J. E. 'jet' Townsend, IDSA
Designer, Fabricator, Hacker
design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ
PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help

________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
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Evan Meagher wrote:
> about the complexity of customer service is a good example of this. If
> you stick to solid design and UX principles to make things easy to use
> out of the box, you'll prevent having to screw around with
> unproductive business practices later on.

It's not just about reducing the number of calls, but reducing the cost
of those calls.

I worked on a project once where the less technical customers would call
CS after every software upgrade to let us know the upgrade happened
without any problems.

--
J. E. 'jet' Townsend, IDSA
Designer, Fabricator, Hacker
design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ
PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8