Katie Buchanan

Katie's bio

Katie Buchanan has 5 years of experience in user-centred design both online and offline. Since joining Foviance in April 2007, her clients have included Nokia, Sky, BBC, Yahoo!, Save the Children, and retail companies Next and Littlewoods.

"I am particularly interested in exploring optimal ways of graphically representing data and producing visually engaging deliverables. Recently I have been using a scenario-based design approach to spark creativity and experience maps to visualise customer journeys."

As a User Experience Consultant I spend a lot of my time designing websites and understanding the value and impact that the Internet has on people’s lives; how they interact with brands and services, shop online, communicate online, and bank online. A personal experience recently has reminded me of participants in my various forms of research over the years; why they and now realising why I, are traditionalists at heart. Read more…

Self-serve checkouts/kiosks are transforming the purchasing experience; some shops are beginning to go as far as replacing all of their staff with self-serve machines. These machines are ultimately asking, or sometimes forcing, people to change their habits of a lifetime. From a motivational design perspective, these machines are a benefit as they promote autonomy – our ability to do our shopping ourselves. However it is absolutely vital that our first experience of using these machines is a good one, otherwise we are likely to lose faith and if we are given the choice, will revert back to staff-operated checkouts. Read more…

The phrase “do you want a cup of tea” is a particular favourite of mine and I tend to utter these words more than others in my office. I’m not moaning about this however, as not only do I enjoy the experience of drinking tea I also enjoy the experience of making it. Whilst at work it gives you a reason to take a break from your computer screen and get away from your desk; I also think it is a friendly gesture to make tea for yourself and others around you. Read more…

I have never been an adventurous cook and on weekday evenings I alternate the same handful of meals. I’m normally pretty hungry so the lack of variation has never bothered me much, until recently that is.
Before Christmas, I got a new flatmate who claims that she never cooks without a recipe. She introduced me to the Sainsbury’s ‘feed your family for a fiver’ recipes, which can be picked up in the entrance to a store or if you shop online can be found under their ‘recipe tips and ideas’ section. These recipe cards provide easy, quick and cheap recipes that are really tasty. Last night we had olive and pumpkin seed pasta, a flavour combination that I would never have tried previously.

Anyway, when I visited my local Sainsbury’s store on Saturday, I picked up this week’s recipe cards on my way in and then hunted round the store to get the ingredients. Often within each recipe is a slightly obscure ingredient that I am never sure where to find (this week it was pumpkin seeds). Whilst struggling to find the ingredients it struck me that it would be brilliant for the customer experience if all the ingredients were in one place alongside the recipe cards. This way you could very quickly get the ingredients for a couple of meals without searching around the store. This would be similar to the online experience where you can add all the ingredients for a recipe from the same page.

I wondered why Sainsbury’s have not done this? They must have thought of it and surely it would only help their customers and increase the use of the recipe cards? But then I thought about it from Sainsbury’s perspective rather than mine (the customer). They want their customers to go up and down as many aisles as possible increasing the likelihood of impulse purchases; in addition to this the ingredients are normally from their basic range which I assume are less profitable for them. This I thought, is another example of the trade-off between the business and customer needs.

I wonder though if there is more of a happy medium – perhaps there could be one featured recipe of the week with the ingredients for this recipe in one place. It would be interesting to see what the impact of this would be on the purchasing of the recipe ingredients.

I have just returned from a brilliant week exploring New York city. This was not only my first visit to the city but also to America. I wondered how I would manage to find my way around. What would the wayfinding experience be like? How easy would the transport systems be to use? How would it compare to London?

Reading my guide book on the way over I noticed the grid system of the Manhattan Roads. People had already told me that once you have your head around this grid, it made finding places simple – and they were right. Within a day or so, I had a good mental model of the city and its different areas. This not only meant that I could find places easier but also that I could fairly accurately know how long it would take me to get to a certain place.

So the experience of finding your way around on foot proved relatively easy, however the same can not be said of travelling on the subway (tube). The usability of the subway map is not a scratch on our tube map (which is somewhat of a design icon). The Manhattan part of the map is extremely cluttered and rather than using names for each of the lines (e.g. like our Victoria or Northern line) a mixture of numbers and abbreviated letters are used (e.g. 1,2,N,R,A). The trouble is that these numbers and letters are just not as memorable. On a couple of occasions I worked out the letter I needed, put the map in my pocket, and then looked up at all the signs with the various letters and numbers on them and immediately forgot which one I wanted.

When you arrive at your platform, there are no maps to reassure you of the line and its stop (unlike on our tube) and I was left hoping I had read the map correctly. The platform also had no countdown boards, informing you of when the next train is due to arrive and what its destination is. I found this particularly frustrating and realised how comforting this information is.

Generally I thought the subway seemed to have less investment than our underground. However the price of travel did reflect this as it was cheaper than our tube, with a simple notion of 2 dollars a ride. I wondered whether this trade off was worth it…would I be prepared to except a reduction in tube fares for a reduction to quality and overall customer experience?

This is the subject of a fairly regular email sent around the office, as I expect it in other offices worldwide. Almost everyone has been in the situation where their mobile phone, which they have become to completely rely on, is just about to die because the battery is flat. This leads to frantic search for a compatible mobile phone charger.

This scenario however might become a thing of the past. Last week 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers (including Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG) announced that they are committed to introducing a single universal charger for all new mobiles by the beginning of 2012. Interesting however, Apple and its hugely popular iPhone (which sports a unique charging mechanism) is not currently involved in this movement.

This move will have both fairly immediate and longer-term user benefits. Firstly, it will provide the ability to use the same charger for multiple items (e.g. work and personal mobile). Secondly, the charger will be better for the environment, since it is going to be significantly more energy efficient than current chargers. I suspect manufacturers hope this will counter the environmentally unfriendly image of the mobile phone industry.

The coming together of different manufacturers/brands to ultimately benefit the consumer is brilliant news,  particularly since it will undoubtedly have an impact on the accessories market.

Wouldn’t it be great if other product manufacturers take their lead? For example it would be really handy to have a universal laptop charger.

Having previously worked as an ergonomist in safety critical industries, I have spent hours conducting detailed task analysis, cognitive workload assessments and ethnographic research in order to inform design development and provide safety assurance. However, since moving into the world of customer experience, I have been surprised by the somewhat haphazard approach that companies take to understanding their customers. The impact of a poorly designed customer experience is significantly less than a poorly designed control centre. However, the understanding of customers can drive innovation and help make the customer experience a core differentiator.Recently, I have become particularly interested in the use of mental models and the idea that you can map out the beliefs, assumptions and goals that are held in customers’ heads. After all, a customer experience exists in the mind of the customer.

A mental model can be defined as: “An explanation of someone’s thought process for how something works in the real world” (Wikipedia, 2008). One of the best books I have read in this area is by Indi Young, titled ‘Mental Models – Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behaviour’. This book explains what mental models are, when and why you should use them and what they can bring to a project. It begins with the belief that good design depends on empathy, which in this case means “that you completely understand what a person wants to get done and that this is distinct from simply studying how a person uses something.” Young outlines a detailed methodology that involves conducting interviews, carefully combing through the transcript identifying tasks, feelings and philosophies, recognising patterns and then building an affinity style model.

Mental models will not only show the tasks that customers do, but also how and why customers accomplish something. Indeed, one of the most important elements is not only understanding customer and emotions but also underlying influencing factors. By understanding these factors it is possible to develop strategies to improve the overall experience. This year, we conducted some ethnographic research for one of our multi-channel clients in order to understand their current customer experience. As part of this research we mapped out the experience shaping factors and how these influenced the cross-channel journey of specific customers. This proved to be extremely valuable and the visual deliverables talked to stakeholders at all levels.

In conclusion, mental models can complement other techniques, such as Personas and Scenario or Journey Mapping in order to provide a more complete understanding of customers. This understanding can be valuable throughout the design lifecycle to align existing products or to trigger new concepts. I believe that many brands will benefit from a more strategic approach to customer research and that through investing in understanding customers’ minds they would develop a knowledge base upon which future design developments would flourish.

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ is a well-known cliché, but in the case of a diagram perhaps this is somewhat of an understatement for two reasons; firstly I question whether some readers would read the thousand words in the first place and secondly, I believe that some complex processes or concepts cannot be adequately expressed in words.

For these reasons, I consider drawing to be one of the most effective tools that a User Experience Consultant has at their disposal. As well as communicating data, drawings can also be used in capturing and recording data, therefore I would define them as the following:

Communicating data: The fidelity of drawings can range from a quick free-hand sketch to a detailed infographic, both of which can be just as valuable depending on the circumstances. A free-hand sketch is most effective in communicating an early concept or idea since it gives the impression that it is still in a changeable state. Also, an infographic can be used to communicate a final vision or concept in a detailed form. One of the key benefits of this deliverable is that it can be mounted to walls rather than the vision being hidden in a closed 100 page report gathering dust on an individual’s desk.
Recording data: Graphic facilitation is a technique where a dialogue is recorded by immediately drawing up the important themes, issues and insights. It is particularly powerful in a focus group or co-creation workshop where those involved can see what they are talking about, translated into a tangible visual form. This can help to create focus and a shared understanding.

At the heart of user experience is the creation of simple, clear and effective products/services and to me, a drawing is often the simplest, clearest and effective way to communicate a message.