There are many different types of vision disorders that can affect a user’s ability to view web pages and way too many to cover off here. However, to give you an idea, I have simulated how the Foviance website homepage might look to someone with cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. These are four of the most common types of vision disorders. Cataracts is the leading cause of blindness worldwide and in the UK, 2 million people are visually impaired with macular degeneration (40%), glaucoma (13%) and diabetic retinopathy (8%) being the three most common causes.

If the text size on your website is not big, flexible or clear enough, your visitors may encounter difficulties using it. You will hopefully understand from the following images and descriptions why it’s so important that web pages contain text of a decent size and is strongly contrasted against the background colour.

Cataracts can form at any age, but it mostly develops as people get older. It is one of the most common types of vision disorders and according to recent studies, more than half of Americans will have developed cataracts by the time they reach 80. A cataract is a clouding of the eye lens, resulting in blurred and faded vision. Its affect can be a bit like looking at everything through frosted glass and it makes it difficult to read small or poorly contrasted text.

Macular degeneration is the most common cause of vision loss for people over the age of 60. This condition causes a gradual blurring and loss of the central vision. This affects the person’s central area of sight, making it difficult to see objects that are looked at directly. Text on websites can appear fuzzy and small text is particularly difficult to read.

Glaucoma can affect people of any age, although it mostly affects people over the age of 40. Glaucoma is caused by an increase in pressure inside the eye, which damages the optic nerve. The end result is often the opposite of macular degeneration with the loss of peripheral vision and a blurring of the central vision. Having glaucoma can be a bit like looking at everything through a straw and makes reading difficult because text seems faded as well as blurry.

Diabetic retinopathy affects the network of blood vessels lying within the retina causing them to bleed and form scar tissue. The scarring pulls and distorts the retina, causing dark patches in the field of vision. Text appears blurred or distorted in these regions, making web content difficult to read.

So, how do you think your website would look to someone with vision impairment? Do you think your content can be read without significant difficulty? To be sure, you should always include users with vision impairments in the design and development process of your websites, and seek to gather their opinions and feedback on the quality of the designs.

Alfred Dunhill, the mens luxury retailer identified that their online channel is increasingly important not just as a direct sales channel but also as way to create more engagement with its customers.

As part of their ongoing development of their site, Alfred Dunhill commissioned Foviance to undertake some independent research of its online audience to gather quantitative data on what visitors thought of the current customer experience. This would help them identify strengths and weaknesses of their main site and start to build a much richer idea of what their online audience wanted from an Alfred Dunhill site.

Methodology

Foviance developed an opt-in survey from the Alfred Dunhill homepage that recruited visitors with specific objectives for visiting the site. They then completed their journey and were asked a series of questions once they had completed their intended goal.

The survey was launched during the busy run-up to Christmas and was live throughout the festive period itself to capitalise on the increased traffic rates. In addition the exposure rate of the survey was controlled so that is was unlikely someone returning to the site that had declined to participate in the past would be shown the participation message again on the homepage.

Results

Over 200 responses were gained throughout the duration that the survey was live. Overall over 84% respondents said they would visit the site again and a net promoter score benchmark was captured. The survey captured user feedback on the look and feel of the site and allowed Alfred Dunhill to see if these were inline with its brand guidelines. In addition it highlighted several areas where the site could be improved. This has helped develop the business case for additional development work. Alfred Dunhill intend to use this methodology again at regular intervals to help measure site performance and get regular customer feedback as the site develops and grows.

The standout example of this phenomenon is of course the Grand National, but world title boxing fights and the ubiquitous Football World Cup tournament are others. Punters will open an account, place one (in the case of the Grand National) or a few (in the case of the World Cup) bets and then disappear. The vast majority of these fly-by-night punters never log back into their accounts again in the two months after they join.

Other forms of attrition are tied to the highly promiscuous nature of the online gambler. This is a market in which new player bonuses abound. Players will join with the sole purpose of cashing in on the bonus. As soon as it is clears, they are never seen again. In games in which skill is important, such as poker, attrition often occurs because there is not enough support for the rookie player to help them become more skilled to the point they will want to stick around.

Attrition levels are high across all products within the online gaming industry but there are ways to reduce it by understanding at what point action might prevent attrition and that action needs to be. Through the appropriate use of analytics and ethnographic research it is possible to map players’ behaviour over the lifetime of their account, by looking at their habits, profiles, frustrations, motivations, touch points with gambling and gaming brands etc… It’s then possible to timestamp potential dropouts or dithering moments.

By ‘nudging’ players at the right time and in the right way, both the business and the player win. A ‘blanket’ e-mail campaign without proper targeting is both a waste of money for the company and a source of annoyance for players. Likewise, displaying casino adverts to all customers in the hope that some may click on high-revenue games, is a waste of valuable space for players that would never cross-sell to casinos, and could even scare off contended customers. Click-through rates must be monitored and behavioural targeting considered.

Foviance can provide recommendations for creating the optimal user journey from a Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) point of view, mapped against time. In a world of high acquisition costs, using this information as the basis for a CRM strategy will improve profitability by maximising CLV.

This type of information can also be used to define cross-sell and up-sell strategies. By knowing what motivates your players and at what stage of their player life they are at, website content can be easily tailored to suit those needs. Bingo companies are able to promote and games developers are able to sell the right games, or side-games, efficient advert space for cross selling from sportsbook to casino games can be achieved and decisions about whether to cross-sell or up-sell to certain high revenue punters can be made with confidence.

In the highly competitive online gaming space, maximising every player interaction is vital. By using the correct mix of techniques and tools it is possible to pinpoint user needs with extreme accuracy to a time in their playing life. Businesses can then make substantial savings and increase profits whilst providing users more precisely with what they want. Positive experiences naturally follow when they have been tailored to players, and brand attachment naturally follows from that. Everyone wins.

This article was written as part of our June newsletter

Before opening the box I’d already heard the damming reports of the phone immediately losing reception when held in the hand.  This sounded ridiculous and I felt like one of the many geeks who had been over excited by a new gimmick and potentially bought it before all the teething issues had been resolved.  It is true, and I have experienced this problem with reception when on calls.  It’s a hideous design fault and even worse that Apple didn’t uncover and rectify the problem before launching the product.  Apparently, Steve Jobs is instructing users to use tape or nail varnish to resolve the issue – but having bought what is supposed to be such an iconic and sophisticated designed product, I’m not going to be ruining it by plastering over Apple’s mistakes.  I have instead had to resort to buying a case for the phone, which means that I no longer experience the loss of reception, but I am now carrying a beautifully designed product within a not so beautifully designed rubber case.    

Anyway, I’ve managed to get over this major design fault and believe it or not, I’m actually really happy with the iPhone4.

Out of the box, even before switching on the phone, it does feel pretty smart and sophisticated. The stainless steel rim and glass back completely convert the phone from feeling soft and curvy (as on 3G/S), to sleek and sexy.  The phone doesn’t actually feel that much thinner in my opinion and it may be a preconception based on the metal material used on the rim, but I can certainly notice the 2grams of extra weight in the 4GS.

As soon as you switch the phone on, the excellent high resolution screen is remarkable.  Images are crystal clear like photographs and colours are bright.  Talking of photographs, the camera is far and beyond the 3G offering – but as I mentioned in my previous blog, it wasn’t a challenge to create an improvement the original camera. With this great feature and integrated flash, you really don’t need to carry around a dedicated digital camera to take shots day-to-day.  Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to try out the FaceTime video calling feature as none of my close friends have managed to get their hands on this hot new phone, but I’ll be sure to blog my experience when I’ve used it.  

I’ve only experienced the 3GS iPhone as a guest user on a friends’ device, so it’s difficult to compare the speed of the device but I am not noticing the 4G phone to be that much quicker when surfing the web (unless connected through wifi, when it’s super speedy!).  I assume this won’t change dramatically until 4G is available throughout the UK…but for that, we could be waiting a while.  This isn’t a show stopper for me.  It’s great to be able to use the Internet whilst out and about, but I really don’t want to be one of those people that have their phone stuck to their hand; constantly checking Facebook or surfing mindless pages on the Internet.  I’ll stick to a book or the newspaper for that kind of entertainment, but having said that – it will be great to answer all those questions that come up and the only response I’ve recently had is “I’ll Google it when I get home”.  Now, I can Google it, there and then.

Although I realise this isn’t something new to the 4G, one thing I am totally impressed by on the iPhone are the zillions and zillions of apps that are available – there literally seems to be something for everything.  And, now with the iPhone4 new feature you can organise them into folders which is imperative given the volume of apps available.  Initially, when delving into the app store I went into overdrive, installing anything free.  However, in reality I wonder which apps will be really useful day to day and which ones really don’t have any place in adding value to my life.  It’s interesting to see which companies have and have not decided to create a dedicated iphone app.  In my next blog, I’ll be looking at which companies are really missing out from not having an app and which apps really have little to no use.  So, if you have any thoughts about that do comment…if not, watch this space.

So, what are some of the new features of iPhone4 that are going to be so special? For me forward facing video calling, is going to be a really good feature (in the main). A number of my close friends live all around the UK so being able to actually see their faces when we chat will be a real bonus and make them feel much closer. This is great. But, I don’t want all my friends, family and colleagues to be able to utilise video calling. What about when I’m working from home in my PJs? Or not feeling I’m looking my best? What’s the etiquette with video calling  if someone asks you to video call, how can you decline without them thinking that you’re hiding something? It will be interesting to monitor social rules around this feature and how they unfold as it becomes more widely used.

Multi-tasking is an essential feature of any smart phone which was overlooked in the launch of the first iPhone. As the number of functions and apps on such a device is so high, the ability to simply switch between them becomes more and more essential and I have never found the Home button on the iPhone good enough to support this. Parallel to this is the new feature to be able to organise apps into folders. Again, given the huge number of apps that are available this is essential to provide come kind of organisation on the Home screens. Currently I see people swiping through pages and pages of vibrantly coloured icons, in the hope of finding the app they’re looking for. 

iBooks is one feature I won’t be utilising. The Apple advert for this app uses a Winnie the Pooh book as an example where there is just one sentence of text displayed on the screen below a large illustration. The advert looks great, displaying such a simple page of a children’s book, but I moved on from Winnie the Pooh a while ago and I can’t imagine the 3.5″ inch screen being a comfortable reading experience for longer books. I know some people have got into the e-reader craze, but these have much larger screens than the iPhone and I therefore don’t think this is one of the top features of the iPhone4.

There area number of other features of the iPhone4 including a 5m.pixel camera which although will be useful, it’s expected in a phone these days. The original camera on the iPhone was way behind, so Apple are only just keeping up with competitors by offering this and I don’t see it as a super-selling feature. Similar to this, they are promising an extended battery life on the iPhone4 which, as far as I’ve been told from friends was horrendous on the original iPhone. Again Apple are just correcting flaws of the older iPhone and these aren’t unique selling points. I did read today that Apple are patenting solar panels to be used in future iPhones to enable users to extend the power even further by simply using the sun. So do I continue my wait for the iPhone until it includes this feature too? I think not. Given UK summers the use of solar panels is probably pretty limited…

I hope to be the proud owner of an iPhone4 at the end of the month, so look out for my next blog reviewing my new toy.

• Connect to my wireless network. All fine, except main CTA (after writing password) was amongst letters and looked equally grey)
• Watch YouTube videos – Eddie Izzard – great experience with the iPad sitting on my legs, picking it up every so often to show my husband who could also participate at a distance.
• Write document – using both hands, feels a bit weird but improving as time goes by.
• Browse the web to check Sandown racecourse events and buy something for my husband – easy
• Browsed photos – again same as with videos – good experience and easy to share with close by people, but how do you delete an album?!
• Read news – great BBC interface

These are the type of tasks I would be doing on a regular basis. I feel the iPad does what it’s supposed to do: browse content more so than create it. A thing to have on your knee and use in the relaxed environment of your lounge.

I find the most comfortable position is with lying on my thigh as I have my legs crossed and writing with both my index fingers.

I kept picking it up as I watched TV and chatted with my family, either to show them something to do with the conversation or look up something on Wikipedia / Google / Google maps.

The iPad is not a necessity, it’s an indulgence. It’s not a work tool, it’s a lifestyle object.

One call to my bank confirmed it was a simple confirmation SMS, however it was interesting that my response to this device was not a positive one. From a customer experience point of view, what my bank probably considered as an innovative customer-orientated gesture did somewhat backfire in my case. The main reason for my mixed response was that this communication was unsolicited as I had no memory of signing up for such a service; consequently I initially felt it could not be trusted.

From a customer point of view, it seems that my bank has automatically opted me in to a service without the courtesy of asking. My initial feelings were that confidential details (my mobile phone number) had been used inappropriately. My next step is trying to find out how to opt-out of receiving SMS alerts and confirmations. However, interestingly the customer service person I spoke to wasn’t sure if there was a way to do this – watch this space for updates!

Frank Ma, our man in China, offers a fascinating insight into the mobile state of play in his own vast marketplace. Chris Holmes takes Apple’s latest toy home for the weekend but fails to be seduced by its good looks and charming first impressions. Jamie Barnett examines why Betfair is odds-on to turn its first-to-market mobile betting advantage into solid returns. And finally, Guy Stephens explains why ‘on-the-go’ points to a bright new future for customer service.

I would be very interested to hear from you directly with any feedback.

Paul

In this issue:

Mobile habits made in China

My weekend with the iPad

Gaming cuts loose

Customer service ‘on-the-go’

The thing I like most about LOUC is that it serves as a reminder of the perils of hubris when designing and managing complex systems; the peculiarly human folly of believing we can completely control everything around us. This has particular relevance when researching user experiences, as we’re no longer focusing how an individual process or function works, but taking a holistic view of the whole customer experience and the impacts and consequences different channels have on one another. It also has wider implications for our impacts on society and the world around us; thinking laterally, going beyond the problem, extrapolating the long-term impacts, being considerate of others rather than just ourselves. Oh dear, sounds like Socialism! Call the Hyperbole Police!

Plenty of examples of LOUC can be found in the world of gaming, as you would expect from any complex organised system, but perhaps my favourite comes from first person shooter (FPS) Red Faction: Guerrilla. Released by THQ in 2002, Guerrilla appears at first glance to be a fairly predictable (and somewhat mediocre) sequel to the original Red Faction. A staple feature of FPS games is the default weapon, with which you usually start the game and invariably resort to when you run out of ammo. In Doom it was fists, Doom 2 a chainsaw, Half-Life a crowbar, and in Red Faction it’s a sledgehammer. Ordinarily the default weapon has limited value in getting you through the game and, at best, is good for venting frustration on a locked door or sneaking in a couple of cheeky blows on an enemy before he ‘frags your arse’. However, as one wily gamer discovered  (and gaming journalists soon picked up on ), when combined with a reduced difficulty setting, the sledgehammer option suddenly and completely changes the nature of the game play.

Traditionally, FPS’ struggle with the balance between realism and playability: the one-shot kill vs. damage meter debate. Reducing the difficultly level of a game to ‘Easy’ will allow you to take a few more hits before dying, but your reputation as a hard-core gamer won’t be so lucky should any of your buddies find out you’re a wuss. Guerrilla tactfully avoids this problem by replacing ‘Easy’ with ‘Casual’, which cleverly suggests you’re a busy professional who doesn’t have a lot of time to play, rather than outing you as a ‘leet noob hax’ – an individual whose game playing abilities are decidedly sub-par.

Playing on ‘Casual’ mode allows you to absorb more damage meaning you can fight enemies up close and slog their brains in truly awesome fashion with the sledgehammer, no longer have to worry about snipers taking you out with a sneaky head shot and, thanks to the fully destructible environment, you can take out entire buildings at your leisure; smashing the foundations and supports and watching the accompanying destructive orgy from a safe distance thanks to your trusty jet pack. The monumental sales of the Grand Theft Autofranchise emphasise the popularity of sand-box games which remove restrictions and let players explore and interact with a vast world on their own terms…and a healthy dose of unreality via nigh-invulnerability and cartoonish violence just ramps up the fun.

This gets to the heart of the definition of playability and, paradoxically, how difficult it is to define. The usability of an interface can be measured quite effectively using heuristics, and many attempts have been made to compile a set of heuristics for the usability of computer games, but none of them adequately address the issue of playability. Perhaps because, conceptually, playability cannot necessarily be quantified; ‘fun’ is subjective and what one person likes a dozen others may not. Not to suggest that fun is the only measure of playability, far from it, but it is an important one. I daresay the creators of Guerrilla never deliberately intended the sledgehammer/casual game mode combo to be a key mode of play in the game…if so, then one imagines they would have promoted it more instead of waiting for seven years for it to be discovered.

Regardless, the word is out, and thanks to the exponential power of the internet meme, there will most assuredly be a second wind for sales of Guerrilla, and its place will be forever assured in the gaming oeuvre not as the mediocre FPS it was supposed to be but as the kick-arse unintended consequence it ended up.

Social media is opening new channels of communication between brands and customers and there is a lot of potential in the social web that marketers can tap into. For example, a study earlier in the year by Penn State University showed that 20% of all tweets mentioned a brand name. Sales and marketing professionals need to be aware of these significant media consumption trends so they can tailor and target their messages as effectively as possible across a changing landscape.

However, with all the hype around social media it can be difficult to understand where to start. So here is an outline plan of action to dip your toes into the world of social media:

• Set clear aims and objectives.
• Listen to the social world; understand what is going on out there and find out who your audience is.
• Use all the information you have at your fingertips to build up a picture of the social landscape.
• This information will show you how to work with your audience to achieve your goals.
• Then simply measure, refine, repeat.

More businesses should focus on developing social media campaigns relevant to their customers. The days of pure brand ‘broadcasting’ are long behind us. Successful campaigns are now being supported by an online social media component, or taking place exclusively in social media.

As you get to know more about your customers and their social media presence, you will develop a strategy that not only enables you to influence conversations about your brand and win more brand advocates, it will also recruit them as willing foot soldiers in your battle for brand supremacy.

Note: *A Report detailing this subject was written by Jonathan Culling and Billie Andersen for Evaluation Centre. To read this article please go to the crm software, contact centre software and marketing software section of the Evaluation Centre.