archive.Joe Lamantia.com

In an earlier post on creating Goal Based Information Retrieval Experiences, I offered a list of fundamental user goals that underlays needs and usage of four suggested information retrieval modes. In this post, I’ll share the approach employed to discover the fundamental goals of the users in our environment, with the aim of offering it as one way of understanding goals relevant for other types of environments and user experience architectures.

Since the root user goals we identified are potentially applicable to other environments and contexts, I’ll share the definitions behind the full set of root goals we discovered. Together, the approach and definitions should help demonstrate how capture a systematic and also holistic view of what users have need to accomplish when undertaking information retrieval tasks more complex than searching.

Finally, addressing the perspective of strategic design and user experience methodology, framing broad user goals well offers strong footing for addressing business perspectives, and engaging business audiences in productive discussions on the priority of capabilities and the functionality of the user experience.

Discovering Root Goals
Beginning with raw goals gathered via a mixed palette of discovery and user research (interviews, task analysis, contextual inquiry, or other qualitative insight methods) incorporated into the project, we first called out the different types or objects of information users identified.

Our starting lists of raw user goals or needs looked something like this (though it was considerably larger, and more varied):

• Read operating guidelines
• Review installation instructions
• Scan technical support requests
• Review technical specifications

Identifying the objects in this set is not difficult: technical specifications, operating guidelines, installation instructions, and support requests. The activity verbs are also easy to spot:

• read
• scan
• review

We then compared the activity verbs for similarity and differences, and refined these raw goals into a root goal of “review” that could apply to any of the objects users named.
Recombining the root goal with various objects yields a set of concrete goals:

• Review operating guidelines
• Review installation instructions
• Review technical specifications
• Review technical support requests

This approach is more art than science, but is systematic, and is independent of context and format.

Here’s an illustration of the process.

Discovering Root Goals

Final Root Goals For Our Environment
These are the definitions we established for the root goals we found for all our different types of users. [I haven’t included the objects of the goals, or the concrete goals.]

• To Assess means to make a judgement or decision about, considering relevant factors
• To Compare means to review the similarities and differences of two or more examples of the same type of thing by looking at them in detail
• To Find means to learn the location and status of
• To Identify means to distinguish by the use of specific criteria
• To Locate means to become aware of where and how a thing may be found, and / or contacted. Locate and find are similar, so likely reflect differing but similar usages and contexts in the minds of users
• To Monitor means to track the status and location of
• To Obtain means to acquire and retain for other purposes
• To Participate means to be present and recognized
• To Review means to examine in detail
• To Save means to store and keep
• To See means to be presented with in a manner that makes assumed relationships or characteristics apparent
• To Understand means to consider all available points of view or sources of information on a topic / item / situation, and formulate an opinion and frame of reference for one’s own purposes.

Some example concrete goals for an user experience that addresses travel planning could include:

• Find hotels
• Review hotel accommodations
• Save travel itineraries
• Compare vacation packages
• See optional excursions offered by a hotel
• Identify full-service or all-inclusive resorts
• Locate the operators of scuba diving excursions
• Monitor the price of airline tickets to Sardinia
• Understand how to plan and purchase vacations
• Assess the cost and value of a vacation package

Symmetry and Mental Models
We found the concept of a root goal insightful for helping to design user experience architectures because it is independent of particular user roles, information types, and usage contexts. Being root elements, they point at commonalities rather than differences, and so can help guide the definition of mental models that span user groups, or allow the reuse of an information architecture element such as a navigation component, task flow, or screen layout.

Building numerous concrete goals that are variations on a smaller set of common root goals allows the mental model for the environment to achieve a greater degree of consistency and predictability (we hope – we’ll see what the usability and evaluations bring back). This consistency helps further efforts toward symmetry throughout the information architecture. While most information architects unconsciously reach for symmetry in user experiences by designing repeated elements such as common labeling, rules for layout, and component systems of features and functionality – symmetry is something we should make more conscious efforts to encourage both within environments and across environments.

Speaking To the Business: Goal-based Prioritization of Capabilities and Functionality
With solid root goals and common information objects, it’s possible to build up a simple and consistent grammar that outlines the set of possible concrete goals across user types. This set of goals is a good basis for engaging business stakeholders in choosing the right set of priorities to guide design and build efforts. Systematically articulated goals allow business audiences a comfortable and neutral basis for prioritizing the capabilities the environment will offer users. Of course, choices of capability directly affect costs, effort levels, design and build timelines, and all the other tangible aspects of a user experience. Reference priorities can also help guide longer-term investment and strategy decisions.

Proving that a well-developed sense of humor is required for success in product design — especially for Lotus Notes — Mary Beth Raven, who leads the design team for the next version of Lotus Notes, recently posted a rather funny comment in reply to my suggestion that the Notes Design team offer customers a choice of unpleasant but related user experience themes. She used this as the occasion to invite all members of the community of Notes to users to register as volunteers for usability testing.
I’ve made three postings to date specifically discussing the Notes user experience: Lotus Notes User Experience = Disease, Mental Models, Resilience, and Lotus Notes, and Better UI Tops Notes Users’ Wish Lists. I’m not sure which of these prompted Mary Beth to reach out, but I’m glad she did, because doing so is smart business on two levels. At the first level, Mary Beth plainly understands that while vocal critics may seem daunting to user experience designers, product managers, and business owners, engaging these critics in fact presents design teams with opportunities to build strong connections to users and gather valuable feedback at the same time. What better way is there to show the strategic value of user research?
I learned this at first hand while working on a redesign of the flagship web presence of a large software firm several years ago. Some of the most insightful and useful feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the user experiences I was responsible for came from ‘disgruntled’ customers. The user research I was doing on site structures, navigation paths, and user goals established a channel that allowed unhappy (and happy) customers to communicate about a broad range of their experiences with PTC products and services in a more complete way than by simply buying a competing product, or renewing an existing software license.
Based on these and other experiences building user research programs, I suggest that product managers, user research leads, and user experience designers first collaborate to define a user research strategy, and then define and create a simple but effective user research infrastructure (like registration gateways to volunteer databases, community / program identifiers and incentives, contact management tools, specific personas that technical and customer support teams can learn to recognize and recruit at all stages of the customer lifecycle, etc.) that will support the creation of channels to users throughout the design cycle.
At the second level, it allows the Notes team to directly explore collaboration methods, products, and technologies related to the very competitive collaboration suite / integrated electronic workspace / office productivity markets in which IBM, Microsoft, and several other giant firms are looking to secure dominant positions in the new culture of collaboration. [Note: I’ve posted a few times on Microsoft products as well – Backwards Goals: MS Office Results Oriented UI, and Microsoft’s Philosophy On Information Architecture.]
Members of the community of Lotus Notes users can register as volunteers for usability tests during the design of the next version of Notes at this URL: https://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/usentry.nsf/register?openform.

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I got caught in an on-line opinion survey trap last week. The setup: In exchange for 10% off my next purchase, a Banana Republic cashier told me, I had to answer a few questions about my shopping experience. Retailers often solicit opinions from customers in return for a variety of rewards. It’s common enough that there’s an understanding on the amount of information requested, in exchange for the expected reward. So I thought I was safe…
Twenty screens later, after answering more than fifty questions and with no end in sight, I was feeling a little cranky. Even my wife was irritated; I was holding up grocery shopping for dinner guests. Very quickly, the reward for my time shifted from a coupon, to using Banana Republic as an example of an on-line survey experience that undermines your brand.
The full survey ran more than thirty five screens, and ended with an error message. Very professional.
Thumbnails of the whole survey:

For kicks, I posted the screenshots to Flickr. If you run the slideshow, you can see where I became frustrated and started to give spoiler answers – like wearing a size 98, or spending $10 / year on clothing.
Why was the survey experience bad?
1. They didn’t make clear how much time they were asking for. The opening screen said 10 minutes, this is misleading for a 100 question survey. If you’re asking for my time, respect me enough to be honest about what’s required.
2. They didn’t make the real purpose of the survey clear. From the shopping experience itself, the questions quickly shifted to my age, income, marital status, and education level. This is a transparent attempt to feed data mining and demographic needs that relied on an amateur segue to turn the conversation around and ask for personal information.
3. They contradicted the experience I had in their store. The store staff were nice enough to keep track of the umbrella I left in a fitting room, and return it before I left, which was thoughtful. Consistency is the core of a successful brand, but the survey experience was inconsistent.
How does this damage Banana Republic’s brand?
1. Banana Republic left me with a series of negative impressions that work against their brand values: I now feel I was chosen to participate in a survey under false pretenses, a survey that offers me little value in return for important personal information that is inappropriate to ask for in the first place.
2. Banana Republic closed a growing channel for conducting business with a customer. I may purchase more from their stores — if I have no other retailer at hand, and I need business clothes to meet with a client CEO the next morning once again — but I’m certainly not willing to engage with them online.
Merchants in all areas of retailing work very hard to encourage customers to form positive associations with their brands. Fashion retailers work especially hard at encouraging customers to associate values, such as trust and respect, with a brand because these values serve as the foundation for longer term and more lucrative relationships with customers than single purchases. Every experience a customer has with your brand — every touch point — influences this network of associations, reinforcing or weakening the link between a brand and the feelings that customers have about the products and the company behind it. A simple test any retailer should use when considering bringing an experience to customers is wether the experience will reinforce the right brand associations.
Loyalty programs, and their offspring the online opinion survey, are good examples of the intersections of customer interests and retailer interests in an experience that can reinforce a customer’s perceptions of the brand and the values associated with it. Many retailers manage these kinds of programs well.
Just not Banana Republic.
The error message at the end.
Error Message:

I wear size 98:
Size 98:

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