‘Observe don’t ask’ I seem to bleat endlessly like a broken record (showing my age now, I mean a um… corrupted memory sector) ‘what people do  is often very different from what they say they do’.

When you ask people direct questions (even well formed ones) then they are reliant on their concious executive mind, something they often don’t activate when doing the thing you are asking them about, and certainly not in the way that you are asking them. Also they lie (or confabulate as researchers like to call it) and make stuff up based on their assumptions rather than reality (postrationalise). This is because they don’t remember, don’t want to appear stupid, want to please you, want to appear superior, and numerous other things including they just don’t plain know.

What are you looking at?

I’ve got loads of examples and demonstrations of poor research (not carried out by Bunnyfoot I hasten to add) including disastorous actions that major global companies made because they based their decisions on poor (and expensive and extensive) research – those are for another day. Here  I provide a fun example instead.

Above picures shown to 30 men and 30 women whilst individually eyetracked. Results below - can you tell which was from the 30 men and which from the 30 women?

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The key to good communication is to know exactly what to communicate to your audience so you can help them do whatever they are doing. This focus on audience needs is more important than being squeaky clean with reality. When backed by clear insight into the needs of your audience this means you aren’t really lying at all (that would be dishonest and despicable) – rather you are ‘enhancing the truth’ and communicating well according to your audiences goals.

Lessons from the London Underground

Geographical and the iconic London tube maps

Last week on University Challenge a set of questions for the students was to identify London underground stations on a map which was drawn with geographic accuracy rather than in the iconic Harry Beck 1931 style. Read the rest of this entry »

Today the UK Drivers Standards Agency (DSA) announced that there will be a new ‘independent’ driving section of the driving test. This will be 10 minutes in the driving test where the test candidate will NOT receive step-by-step instructions from the examiner, but will rather be expected to drive unsupervised and without prompting.

Road safety minister Mike Penning said: “the independent driving assessment gave test candidates the chance to show they have the “necessary skills to cope with the sort of traffic conditions they will face every day”.

Making it real is a good thing!

A good move we think – in testing anything, whether it’s a person’s skills or the usability of a website, it is important to make the test as close to reality as possible (some term this ‘ecological validity’ we just say ‘making it real’). When we do lab based usability testing or testing in the field we always strive to make it as natural as possible, and amongst other things this includes avoiding giving prompts or directions and just letting the person get on with what they were doing without interruption.

How far will they go in making it real?

The driving test candidates won’t be penalised for getting lost and can ask for help with directions if they wish – they are being examined not on their navigation (thank goodness otherwise I know many people who would never pass) but how they drive by themselves. It will be interesting to see how far the examiners will go in making the testing more realistic –  for instance will they allow sat navs? -  if so, would the candidates be penalised for swearing at them (as often seems to happen somehow in my car)? And what about screaming kids, and argumentative spouses….?

see:

• BBC News: Driving test change introduces ‘independent’ section
• DirectGov: Independent driving and riding section of the practical test
• Bunnyfoot: User testing services

Image by tgraham via Creative Commons

If something as innocent as baker’s doughy product has the potential for confusion, misinterpretation, class associations and heated argument (yes disputes are rife – raise the issue with your colleagues and wait for the fallback) then imagine the potential for chaos and bewilderment when communicating more complex propositions across national and international markets…. …this is where good customer research with a reach beyond the confines of London can help

Bunnyfoot has been performing customer research and customer usability testing for the last 10 years. We noticed very early on that there were distinct UK regional differences (over and above other demographic influencers) in people’s responses to the same website – and these differences have profound consequences on the websites’ ability to communicate, persuade and convert. Knowing and acting upon the geographical differences (cultural, social, language, attitudinal etc.) dramatically increases the effectiveness of the end result. This is one of the reasons why we set up 5 offices with usability labs running the length of the UK and why we encourage our clients to look beyond the myopia of London when researching with their customers (it works better if you do – simple as that).

But you don’t have to be locked to physical labs, getting out there in the field and observing what real people do in their own environments is a valuable thing to be doing that can reveal key insights. One problem with this is that it can be expensive. One way of getting there without so much cost is to perform ‘remote usability testing’. This typically relies on screen-sharing over the internet, and with recent advances in broadband penetration it is now possible to run usability tests and observe people in their own homes or places of work (with consent!!) from practically anywhere.

Beyond the UK

When your product or service reaches beyond national boundaries then geographical and cultural differences become even more pronounced. HSBC clearly know this and you will know doubt have seen some of their adverts revealing the different cultural, geographical and socio-economic meanings associated with things like colour, gestures, symbols and language.

It goes beyond this too – we have recently been working extensively across Europe, the Middle East and Asia (and a little bit in Africa) we have uncovered challenges associated with extending online communications across these regions. This includes:

• the need for flexible or even completely different interfaces to cope with different languages (e.g. German = long words and phrases, Arabic and Chinese = right to left)
• the fact that in some regions the preferred or only way people engage online is via mobile (Africa and Japan in particular)
• display advertising and contextual advertising is far more effective than search engine marketing in some regions (e.g. Middle East) because of not just language differences but also cultural differences
• ‘western style’ minimalist aesthetic design doesn’t work well in China – and again this is cultural and not just because of the character sets used

We, as an agency, need to take our own advice on board to adopt local knowledge to get the best results. Bunnyfoot employs consultants from across cultures and have recently opened an office in Hong Kong to get closer to international differences. When we test abroad we use a network of quality agencies, it just brings that edge of local knowledge that makes the testing run much smoother.

Tom aged two and a half plays teletubbies – video from 2004 – see if you can see his choices before he makes them – simple demonstration of the power of eye tracking.

This is my son 5 years ago – and my favourite demo ever of eyetracking – I use it all the time and must have show it hundreds of times now – time to release it to the wider world to view. Read the rest of this entry »

We developed ‘mass user testing’ in response to the real world needs of commercial clients and to combat the deficiencies inherent in the most widely used traditional usability testing methods (we have actually been doing this for about 4 years but formalised it last year).

The key to mass user testing is using large numbers of people rapidly and cost effectively – this is achieved through recruiting people ‘off street’ with the lure of some cash (or other incentive – we are quite creative in this regard) for about 15 minutes of their time. Read the rest of this entry »

The BBC news item below shows a report on the UK’s first Internet enabled car – produced and invented by Bunnyfoot in 1999. The car was intended as a demonstration of the essential importance of usability and accessibility … our message got somehow lost in translation in the newspapers and TV shows that ran the story, but it taught us a lot about different communication methods and to always look to the future.

Since then (is it really 10 years ago?) we have produced hundreds of video demonstrations showing usability testing, eyetracking and accessibility in action, our customer experience presentations at seminars and conferences etc, and many will be appearing here in the next few months – but this BBC one was one of our first … and is still a firm favourite.

What is perhaps surprising is that this type of technology and other ‘alternative interfaces’ haven’t really come on that far in the last 10 years- it seemed then (in 1999) that things like sophisticated voice interfaces for all sorts of devices and uses were bubbling just under the surface. In 2009 though you are likely to be annoyed at best, but most probably bemused, by the majority of telephone interfaces (has anyone tried Egg’s?), never mind anything more ambitious. It seems like it should be simple but this type of interface requires just as much research and careful design (perhaps more) than seemingly more complex visual interfaces. I’ll return to discuss this in more detail in a future post.

The point of the Bunnymobile video?

It was meant to demonstrate that usability and accessibility are vital for the interfaces of the future:

• the car used software that blind people use to translate web sites into voice = accessibility
• and needed to be simple enough so distraction didn’t cause you to crash (amongst other things) = usability

It seems we were right, and they still are important … lots more challenging and interesting work to do though.

After many years of fudging responses to the common question “when are the new global accessibility guidelines coming out?” – I can finally give the the answer – it is today (11th December 2008) see the Press Release and WCAG 2.0 Introduction for more info.

The new standard is called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (or WCAG 2.0), it replaces WCAG 1.0 – the previously recognised global standard which had been in place since 1997 (that’s eons in ‘Internet time’)

What does the new accessibility standard mean for you?

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I am often asked how the eyetrackers work (second only to why the name Bunnyfoot?) – so here it is – in essence it is really simple – a digital camera videos your pupils (the holes that let light into your eye) and a computer works out where you are looking based on the video images.

Well there is a little bit more to it than that (not much though):

The infrared diodes shine light on the person in front of the eyetracker (it’s 14 times less strong than that emitted from a TV remote – so doesn’t burn their eyes out).

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How do you measure the effectiveness of your in-game ad investment?
Do you need to know accurate performance and brand engagement metrics?

It is not just about brand awareness or brand recall anymore, the new era of digital innovation provides us with an array of rich media to communicate with the increasingly cynical consumer. Games offer a huge untapped market with a broader profile than typically assumed. 59% of the UK population (26.5million) are gamers and 45% of those are women! Playing games is not just a nerdy boy thing anymore. Read the rest of this entry »