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…and you can’t opt out (unless you turn off your phone) you have been warned…

Imagine a world where on walking into a store at the mall you are greeted by a shop assistant who welcomes you by name, asks you how you enjoyed your last purchase of brand X and whether you would to go to your personalised changing room to (virtually?) try on a selection of clothes they have identified as possibly interesting to you based on your last purchases (in store and online) with the company. 

E-commerce sites gather data (now a controversial practice, if the EU is to be believed, and one that is newly regulated) that help them understand out how customers shop, which site they came from, and use this to target promotions and advertising even after they have moved on to another site (Visit Lands End for instance and you see ads from them everywhere else you go online: not a coincidence, in case you were wondering). In the bricks-and-mortar world, similar attempts are made through the use of loyalty cards and store credit cards as well as direct mailings but linking to foot traffic is a lot harder.

Footpath technology has now cracked part of the problem and promises to get retailers at least some of the best of both worlds, by leveraging mobile phone signals. The technology, created by UK company Path, monitors the signal (more specifically the unique ID for the phone – a bit like IP addresses for computers) and uses triangulation to track their whereabouts in the mall, providing insights into traffic patterns. Their analytics let retailers get a measure of, for example, how many people walked past an ad and then went to the store. In the words of the CEO, Sharon Biggar  “Now we can produce heat maps of the mall and show advertisers where the premium locations are for their adverts and perhaps more importantly, we can price the advertising differently at each location.” Similarly in larger retail spaces, as she explains, “We can now say, you had 100 people come to this product, but no one purchased it. From there, we can help a retailer narrow down what’s going wrong.”  

 (graphic from the Mail article)

Indeed. The analysis can reveal how many people went into, say, both The Gap and Monsoon, or how long the average visitor spends at Starbucks – or which areas get very little traffic. All of which is fascinating, but may not be to the taste of all the mall visitors.

The mall owner trialling this system posted a warning on its signage and stress the company does not collect personally identifiable data (in fact the system is not capable of doing so: carriers are very protective of their customers’ data), they just use the “signal fingerprint”. Personally I think the little notice below is unlikely to be noticed by everyone (do you even look at the map when you go to your local shopping centre?) and that there are some privacy concerns here.

The system does give an accurate enough record of the phone’s path. Mall owners could sell other available data such as CCTV footage (bearing in mind some and this could actually be matched malls actually use face recognition software as a preventative measure to deter shoplifting) which retailers could also match to credit or debit card transactional data – and then would be in a position to make very specific targeted offers to customers as they walk into the store.

In fact there seems to be some uncertainty over the legality of the system since although it does not identify individuals per se, it does provide the means to do so to some extent if matched with the right data. That in itself is a data privacy red flag, especially given recent developments in European data privacy and storage laws.

According to the company the system is already used in Europe and Australia and most shoppers do not opt out (though I would question whether the visitors are really aware of it?). Moreover malls have long been tracking shoppers through other methods – people counters, CCTV, and undercover researchers who will secretly shoppers around – which also generated heatmaps, albeit slightly less hi tech ones.

But what happens the day hackers break into the data store (as has happened to a number of high profile companies this past year – Sony, AT&T…)? Path says to protect information they scramble the data twice…which I would not put much faith in, personally. The last word belongs to Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, with whom I agree wholeheartedly on this: “I’m sure as more people get more cell phones, it’s probably inevitable that it will continue as a resource, but I think the future is going to have to be opt in, not opt out”

Updated: December 1st – Jonathan decided to ‘go pink’ instead of green

Men are lucky. We don’t have to buy make-up – it simply grows out of our faces. Most men, like me, choose to remove this make-up every morning in a ritual of lathering and scraping. But could there be an easier way to raise money than to neglect the ritual for a month and “do a Movember”?

That’s what I thought when I began to ‘grow my mo’ on November 1. It was easy enough to grow a few days’ worth of stubble. You just have to be lazy, which is precisely how you end up looking.

Then it started to get more challenging. I decided that, for maximum impact and money-raising potential, I would grow a moustache and sideburns combo that joined to create the shape of a W. The only way I could think of achieving this was by shaving with a naked blade – any foam and I wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing. This resulted in the most uncomfortable razor burn, which has stayed with me through most of the month.

As the facial hair began to come thick and fast, so did the backhanded compliments. Neighbours in Ealing started asking my wife if I’d turned gay; she defended me (I hope). A colleague suggested that I should cultivate hairs on the tip of my nose by shaving there or sprinkling it with hair tonic; his argument that the W wasn’t complete without the apex in the middle.So it hasn’t been that easy. But it’s been worth it, since at the time of writing I have raised £140 for research into cancers affecting men. But I would like to raise more, and have decided that the only way to do this is to make myself look even more ridiculous. Here is my plan:

• If I pass the £200 mark, I will die my moustache and sideburns green on the 1st of December to celebrate the start of the Christmas season.

• If I get £300 in donations, I will hang baubles from them.

Please visit my Movember page here

This year, Amazon.com has brought Black Friday over the Atlantic to introduce rapid-fire bargains to our green and pleasant .co.uk domain.

For those of us who, like me, have never heard of Black Friday, Amazon explain that the name might come from retailers seeing their balance sheets move into the black in the final quarter of trading.  Whatever the history, as far as online retail is concerned it’s all about the search for bargains.

The reason that Amazon are at the forefront of the Black Friday buzz is that they have turned the hunt for deals into a race.

Their site counts down to the start of each new deal to whet your appetite.  Only when the timer hits zero is the percentage discount revealed.  Stocks are limited and with some expensive electronics discounted at over 50% off, the competition is fierce.

A comment on one news article suggests that some customers have gone so far as to download a bleeding edge developer version of the Chrome browser to shave extra milliseconds off of the page load times.  Every little helps when you and your mouseclicking trigger finger are in a duel to the death.

As the shopping experience migrates more and more to the online realm, retailers know that their sites sink or swim based on their checkout process.  The old maxim ‘make it easy for the customer to buy’ is all about the design and usability of a sites product and checkout pages.

Amazon however, are taking this to the next level.  They’re asking their customers to race each other for the privilege of buying!  If that’s the game they’re going to ask their customers to play then the checkout process had better be slick, intuitive and problem free.  Alternatively, those bargains had better be as good as the hype from America would have us believe.

I’ve been thinking about this for a little while and it seems to me that, love it or hate it, Apple and more specifically the iPhone has fundamentally changed the user experience (UX) industry. In this case I’m not talking about the shift to a more mobile device way of thinking, but more to the shift in perception it caused towards the user experience of products. As an industry we’ve never looked back.

Late 2006…

Before the iPhone, the smartphone was a very capable device in terms of functionality, yet the user experience of interacting with these phones was often somewhat poor. Considering that phones like the Nokia N95 or the Blackberry Pearl were thought to be the pinnacle of mobile devices. Perfectly functional phones, but try using one today after using a modern touchscreen.

At the same time, the web user experience was advancing, but it was always a hard battle for the benefits of UX to be acknowledged. We spent so much time justifying why UX was important and when allowed to help were often limited in what we could alter.

To us as practitioners, the benefits of UX are obvious, but the problem is when talking to engineers or decision makers the benefits are distant and abstract. If the solution you have works, why spend the time to make it vastly better?

I now have an iPhone in my hand

However, if you’ve experienced a great user experience, you start to see why it’s so important. The exclusivity of the iPhone to one network operator and the reluctance of corporate IT to let it be used in enterprise slowed its penetration into business, but once decision makers had experienced a well thought through and seamless user experience (iTunes aside), the case for UX became so much easier to make.

First the iPhone, then Android, which sought to reflect what made the iPhone so successful. Android then put an average to good user experience (version and handset manufacturer dependent) into the mass market, raising the bar for interaction expectation. Today, terms like user experience and usability are common in product reviews. The tech press has got the message and even some of the mainstream press. Now that we’re surrounded by better user experiences, people won’t settle for good enough and businesses cannot rest on their laurels.

But what if there hadn’t been an iPhone?

The big question is, would someone else have created something as good? Let’s take a look:

The then market leader Nokia had never managed to master the end to end experience (Ovi desktop applications were painful to use and not in any way integrated). They were also in thrall to the carriers who imposed their own, sub-par, handset customisations in the hope of creating/enforcing customer loyalty. Generally this tended to undo any of Nokia’s good work in creating a clean and usable UI. Nokia’s touchscreen attempts were average, but perhaps when capacitive touch came along they may have created something as smooth as an iPhone or top end Android phone (in reality it took them 3 years to even come close). Of everyone at the time, they had the vision and the research and development capacity to make it happen. I really hope things pick up for them.

If not Nokia, then perhaps a major internet leader might have stepped in. So, without the iPhone would Google have created Android? Probably. Supposedly Android was already in development when the iPhone came out. How much its eventual form owes to the iPhone is a great question (although it is interesting to see Apple borrowing Android style notifications, it’s not all one way traffic). Based on Google’s track record it wouldn’t have been a slick and painless experience though. Mass market is what we’d be aiming for, to get a great user experience in everybody’s hand. The trouble is, Google designs for techies, not consumers. The current version of Android is pretty good, but earlier versions were not so solid. The reason it sells well is because it’s good enough and it’s not as expensive as an Apple product. As an aside, it’s interesting to see how we think so much less about technical specifications of handsets and more about the software they run and the experience they provide. We’re not free of jargon by a long way, but I’m gratified to see that we talk more now about capabilities than processors. Based on their adverts though, Google still hasn’t totally got this.

Then of course there is the other software behemoth, Microsoft. They had already produced their own mobile OS, which could be found on a number of different handset models (most successfully HTCs). However, Windows Mobile was stylus dependent, somewhat slow and had an extremely painful web browsing experience. Everything I’ve read about Microsoft suggests that they would have happily continued down the stylus route, unless provided with a good reason to change.

If we couldn’t count on the software makers, would any of the hardware manufacturers have created anything compelling? Samsung and HTC are the obvious candidates here. HTC has been very good at customising others’ operating systems and Samsung have been pressing ahead with their Bada platform. It’s possible, but looking at their handsets pre-iPhone, they weren’t heading in that direction all that quickly.

Finally, we shouldn’t forget the network operators, who have so much power when it comes to actually getting products into consumers’ hands. Critically Apple wrested control of the experience from them. This was a pivotal moment, as traditionally the carriers have been somewhat lacking when it comes to developing software and UIs. I can’t be certain, but I suspect that without this, we would not have seen a great mobile phone experience, as it would always have been disjointed. Vodafone was probably the most progressive in this regard, but could never totally nail it.

So where would we have been?

Without a great user experience in most people’s hands, expectations would be lower for both consumers and businesses (I know mine were), the case for change would be that much harder to make and we would be putting together slideshows about the ROI of Usability. We’d still have been there, we’d still have been making things better, but let’s face it, it’s much easier when you don’t have to push on the door, but are instead welcomed in.

Thank you Apple. You aren’t right all the time, but looking back, it’s clear just how much of a game changer the iPhone was.

Hands up if you enjoy the retail changing room experience. Hands up if you buy clothes online.

Thought so – and so have a host of other people. There have been two approaches to this – one of which I blogged about earlier which is trying to improve the online experience by using virtual mannequins based on your measurements. Hawes & Curtis has now implemented it and in fact the same company has now released a female form.
The other approach is to set about improving the off-line experience – the dreaded retail changing room.

The latest innovation in the field is the virtual mirror. Possibly the first major retailer to implement a version of this was Macy’s in New York City, who trialled a virtual mirror about a year ago for a limited time. The Magic Fitting Room was set up in the dressing room area and featured a body-length mirror along with an iPad tablet. The shopper stepped in, a photo was taken to calibrate position and body orientation. They could enter their Facebook log-in information, an e-mail address or a mobile phone number on the iPad then browse a (rather limited) selection of tops, bottoms, dresses and jackets. On selecting an item, a digital representation of it appeared on the mirror, superimposed upon the reflection of the shopper as if she were actually trying it on. When they are done, shoppers could share the look via e-mail or Facebook to see what their friends thought. They could also receive a text message or Facebook post indicating the location of these items in the store. “Reaching out to and engaging with the digital-savvy, young consumer is something all retailers are striving to do,” said Joe Feczko, Macy’s senior vice president for innovation.

That’s all well and good – but having gone through this virtual try, you still had to traipse through the store to find the item on the racks and probably try it on for real just to make sure (assuming it was in stock, that is). Not exactly a time saver then.

Style me  has also come up with an interactive virtual mirror, slated to appear in stores sometime next year. It is not meant to replace the changing room but rather augment it or enhance it. After the system calibrates your body size and shape while you stand still a few seconds, the user standing in front of the mirror can browse by brand or clothing item the same way they would with a Kinect (e.g. swiping the air to turn a page, hand hovering over an icon on the screen rather than touching it). The next thing is to try it on virtually – so the item appears “on” you. You can then save, take a picture to share by email or on Facebook, and decide if you want to actually try on or not. It’s an opportunity to share a laugh with your friends, they say. Really?…

I can see quite a few things “wrong” with this. For one, this comes across to me as a “digital savvy young consumer” approach to shopping – an afternoon out with your friends, you try on a lot of things – some quite unlikely – have a giggle, post a funny pic on Facebook. For grown ups, the perspective of standing in the middle of the shop floor virtually trying on clothes probably does not appeal so much – nor do I know many adult women (let alone men) who shop with friends all that much or who have the time, especially those with children, to virtually try on a bunch of things before deciding which to take into the changing room. And if I have to do this in the privacy of the changing room I might as well be trying the clothes on anyway.

I also seriously doubt that calibrating by just standing a few seconds in front of the mirror will provide an accurate enough body image – you still need to try the item on for fit. While I see the sense of having an online virtual me based on my measurements (see above, fit.me) to help online ordering, I suspect the technology is still not sharp enough to make it reliable enough in helping select a size. The one technology which currently seems to offer real benefits in this area is the Intellifit system which actually scans your body to tell you what size and model to buy.

Other companies doing similar things:

Using Kinect:

TC2

Glasses to You

Frames Direct 

Finally, what about men? Would they use this?…

As part of my conversation with Mike Dewar, data scientist with Bitly, we discussed data visualisation. One of the challenges in dealing with large quantities of data is making sense of it, and then communicating the important aspects of the set– telling the data’s story. One way of doing this is by creating graphs and infographics to highlight the important points. Sometimes, though, to make the story clear one has to compromise the scientific accuracy of the graph – meaning, telling a story that people will understand may come in direct conflict with the “proper”, scientific way of presenting the data. Does it matter?

Arguably it depends who you are talking to. Depending on your audience, the scientific way may not necessarily be the best way. Many lay people have little idea of how to interpret a graph, after all and what will really matter to them is the story and whether the graph helps make it visually clear or perhaps memorable. They will not even notice whether the right type of graph and scale was used or not. In user experience terms, making something – a web site, an application – usable may well means sacrificing a feature that only a small number of power users would even consider using.

An illustration of this is that a recent post on the Bitly blog was picked up by people all over the Internet because the story it told resonated and the graph seemed to put it in a nutshell. The post was about the “half-life” of links, which is the idea that different links will generate different levels of attention. In this post a further assumption is made: that a link’s potential for generating attention depends on the site or platform where it is first seen and clicked on. In other words, a link on Twitter may have a shorter life span than one on a blog. The graph below compares how long a link “lives” online on different social media platforms: this graph is the one that was picked up yet from a purely scientific point of view, the axes’ scales are probably not the clearest they could have been.

Does it matter? Not really: the overall picture it provides is accurate and illustrates in one neat package what the blog is saying, which is that links on Twitter or Facebook are much shorter lived that links on YouTube.

The conclusion is familiar to us at Foviance and applies here as well: you can’t be all things to all people, you need to understand your customers and create an engaging experience for them.

A few days ago a friend handed me a card that advertised an exhibition at the V&A Museum here in London. It is called “The Power of Making” and she thought my son (who is 9yrs old) might enjoy it.  As you can see on the right, the front of the card carries very little information –  but the reverse (below) had me smiling.

There was a cute little monster/robot image at the bottom, which turns out to have been a well thought out, functioning QR code! When you scan the code and access the link, it takes you straight to this page.

This is a great example of a good use of a QR codes, in my opinion. It is playful, visually reminiscent of a little monster made of Hama beads (in fact they call it a “beaded QR code”) or canvas stitching. It is in colour, much more visually appealing than the usual black and white ones, and the colours actually match the image and text colour on the card. Last but not least it takes you to the exhibition’s information page on the V&A website, i.e. relevant and useful content.

My only gripe?  The website itself is not mobile-friendly…

We have a very exciting visitor in our office: Mike Dewar, a data-scientist who consults with URL-shortening service Bitly. The company provides a service many people use routinely to share content, especially on Twitter where the 140-character limit makes it essential to shorten links as much as possible.

Mike holds a PhD in Systems engineering and has also completed post-doctoral work in various places using a wide range of data analysis methods – time-series, computer-based video analysis and other complex mathematical modelling – to study neural changes in fruit flies or how T-cells’ response to an antigen expresses itself genetically over time. He is now going to apply similar methods to the analysis of online behaviour – the links people click on.

In fact Mike is particularly interested in predictive analysis  (which link a user will click on next) and characterising human behaviour against that of robots. It turns out that before you analyse all the clicks on bit.ly URLs to make sense out of them, you need to be sure they were “genuine interest” clicks. It could after all have been some random bot scraping around, or a specific attempt at boosting clicks for affiliate purposes. There are in fact companies whose mission it is to sort out this human vs robot issue – pay per click is big business after all, and no one wants to pay for clicks made by code.

What I find interesting, though, is that Bitly’s service allows the company to collect a wealth of information on the content being shared across the web, and therefore gathers great insights from the social web: millions of people use the service to shorten links they share on Twitter for instance. The company has a team of computer scientists engaged in quasi-academic mathematical research to create models of user behaviour that predict what they will be interested in and therefore what they are likely to click on. This could be used for example to help users discover new content by making more intelligent suggestions. The end result would be an enhanced user experience when consuming content online. There is also, of course, an underlying commercial logic: predictive analytics wizardry is being used by online businesses to better target different segments of users, to try and optimise response rates on email campaigns, among other things. This is one of the many areas Foviance’s analytics team combines its expertise with that of our user experience team to bring added value to our clients.

Serendipity was clearly at work: what started as a quick informal chat turned into an hour long conversation during which I learnt that fruit flies carry out a sophisticated courtship song and dance (who knew?) and we discussed the challenges of data visualisation, a topic I am particularly interested in.

Mike – thanks for the chat!