User Experience

My Kindle just arrived. It came in a brown cardboard box, Amazon style, except that this was a different model box from the standard ones – more classy, somehow, with its black band across one end. Tear off the strip of perforated card at one end, and the lid lifts up to reveal the object of your desire: THE Kindle. There’s something of an Apple feel to the experience – white, smooth – lustrous, even? – hard, moulded plastic inside, no frills, and the dark matte grey device nestled, pod-like, in the box. Basic instructions on the screen clearly display a diagram of the device, its USB/power cord and how to plug it in – so clearly in fact, I first thought this was printed on the protective plastic film, and so did a couple of other people I showed it to. So far this is turning out to be a rather good customer experience.

With something like reverence, I take it out of the box.

It is thin, it is light and it feels quite solid. Maybe a tad bigger than I expected – one gets so used to mobile phones – but not much. Definitely an improvement on the brick-like paperbacks I’ve carried around before.

Hiding underneath the device, a concertina leaflet – brown, recycled-like thick paper, adorned with a jumble of printed letters surrounding “Amazon Kindle” and “Quick start guide” – a very understated design – which describes getting started. Beneath this, a deeper recess holds the power/USB cable, also in a brown card wrapper. Full marks for branding and packaging.

The first surprise is that the display does not look or feel like a screen – and this was also experienced by the few people I showed the device to – both asked whether it was on or just the “dummy” print on the plastic cover. By comparison, my computer screen seems positively garish. It really is quite an amazing rendering of black and white text and images, very close to what one experiences on paper.

I’m not saying that the device is perfect. By virtue of being so thin, it takes a while to find the best way to hold it, though one’s fingers do tend to naturally be positioned over the “next” buttons on either side. Unlike a book one holds open, with both hands far apart and holding on to something, here both hands are quite close together (both hands need to be involved, since you need to press the “next” button to turn the pages). It is unfamiliar, but not uncomfortable – though this remains to be tested for an hour at a time. One solution is to invest in a Kindle cover: the drawback is the added cost and weight, but the form factor makes it more comfortable to hold, and also protects the screen from various hazards in my purse, such as keys and pens and sundry items.

The books I purchased on the Amazon UK Kindle store are already loaded, with no delay – since the device was on in the box, they must have loaded as soon as I purchased them online, over the 3G connection. I’m looking forward to reading on the Tube tonight…The actual buying process and usability of the device will be covered in my next post – so stay tuned!

A  few weeks ago, I opened the amazon.co.uk home page to find a splashy ad for the all-new Kindle. A few buzz words caught my eye – free 3G, slim as a pencil, 3500 books, read in sunlight, UK-Kindle store…having so far resisted buying one of these devices (see my earlier post) but with both a professional and a personal interest in them, I read on. Call it great marketing or just the product finally hitting my sweet spot, but I was hooked and ordered one on the spot. Seems I was not the only one: the product is already sold out pre-shipping (launch was announced for August 27) and current orders can expect delivery in the second half of September. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 13/08/10 and is republished here with permission.

I don’t know whether the number is right or not but a while back I heard that sophisticated marketing companies such as the world’s leading brands spent about 10% of their marketing budget on research and measurement. Irrespective whether the number is accurate or not, it’s a good benchmark I think – 10% feels about right. Read more…

I have a friend Luke, who is a big gambler, big to me anyway as he’s happy to squander more than a month’s worth of wages over a weekend on horses, football and whatever else is happening at the time. He’s an alpha male, he’s loud, he can down a few pints and he enjoys life.

So when I think about my world of marketing, brand and user experience, I often look at him and consider that he is somewhat absolved from the matter, almost that he is not capable of being understood as an individual or won over as a customer on the grounds of such squandering. Read more…

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to browse a website with a visual impairment? Or wondered how your website is perceived by a person with a vision disorder?

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. Read more…

The topic of whether to allow users to check bets before they place them has come up a few times and often the arguments spread to the wider e-commerce world. Checking the contents of your basket before you make an order is common practice, especially for complex orders. Recently, one of our clients decided to remove the confirmation step from the checkout process to make it shorter, under the premise that “shorter checkout processes are better”. Read more…

At Foviance we’re becoming increasingly involved with gaming clients who are capitalising on new growth technologies – such as mobile.

Some of our clients are still investigating what their users want from mobile games and how and when they will be played. Some have developed prototypes and others are a long way down the path, simply looking for assistance in improving what they have already. Read more…

Of all the idioms, my favourite is the Law of Unintended Consequences (LOUC) – which basically states that when solving a problem, no matter how thorough your thinking and planning, there will always be outcomes that cannot be anticipated or conceived. It is sometimes known as the Streisand Effect, where the attempt to prevent the publication of an article or photo of little or no interest suddenly makes it vastly more interesting and appealing than it ever would have been if no one had made a fuss. Read more…