Reading through the blogs on this site, you'll notice a good few mentions of UCD - User Centred Design - as a design practice that we're pretty hot on. Although my colleagues on the Interactive Media teams are much more qualified than I am to go into detail about it, core to the technique is ensuring that the users and their needs are clearly identified and understood, and that the design process is closely informed by this understanding throughout. In this way, an interface can be created which is 100% designed for the user, and theoretically does everything they need without unnecessary complication. My experience of working alongside this process is that it delivers spectacular results.
A recent post by Paul Dawson (which describes UCD from a more informed point of view) got me thinking about the relevance of these techniques beyond interface and application design. Specifically, one of the challenges we've noticed getting more and more significant over the past years is the increasing control the end user (or customer) has over a transaction, and that this trend shows no sign of slowing. Take, for example, the notion of buying an album - somewhat old-fashioned I know, but bear with me.
Whilst reading a review online, or perhaps browsing through my Last.FM recommendations, I might decide to actually buy some music (again, kids, bear with me. We Gen X-ers still do stuff like that). At this point, where a decision to purchase takes place, I'm presented with links to buy said album on iTunes, at Amazon, possibly even at the excellent 7Digital. It's the work of a moment or two to compare prices and formats. Should I decide not to buy it right now, but perhaps find myself passing a retail store later that evening, I can compare instore prices on my mobile with a number of online merchants, and make my decision that way. In short, from whichever point at which I decide to buy something, I'm immediately presented with multiple opportunities to buy, and (crucially) can easily compare all the options in numerous ways, through numerous channels.
So, whereas a few years ago, I'd have a default route to purchase (drop into HMV on the way home, perhaps buy from Amazon), and thus would be constrained in my choices. I'd also have to do a fair bit of legwork to make a reasonable comparison, and for the sake of a couple of quid I probably wouldn't bother. Within 5-10 years, the relationship underpinning this transaction has completely changed, from me being forced to take one of a few options, to numerous options being immediately available to me, with numerous ways of easily working out which is the best. I can do whatever I want; get the best deal for me; take the simplest route.
In today's transaction, the customer holds all the cards.
What this relationship means to a retailer presenting a customer with an offering is simple, but massively challenging. What it means is that unless all my needs as a customer are met, I will not purchase from you. It's no longer enough to set up your (online or offline) market stall and hope people hear you shouting. If you build it, their attendance is no longer guaranteed.
Google provides a perfect example of this. From the very start, every part of their business has been solely focused on attending to the customers' needs, safe in the knowledge that a sound execution along these lines would attract enough eyeballs to make advertisers jump through considerable hoops to get involved. Take search, for example: Google stringently maintain the core search results as ad-free, and frequently change their algorithm to try to outwit SEO efforts which try to second-guess it. Further to this, in increasing the number of added whistles and bells that typically appear at the top of the page, they're actually reducing the amount of results that appear on the coveted page 1. Whilst this is great for the user, providing greater relevance and more search tools, it's horrible for a business trying to get onto that page, in a number of ways. Remember all the other search engines? Arguably too focused on pandering to advertisers' needs, rather than seeing the opportunity in maintaining that laser-sharp customer focus.
When the customer holds this much power, a business model must be built on understanding and addressing their needs directly, and being able to change as they change, go where they do, and do what they do. Existing business models will need a constant process of validation, to refine and re-align them with the changing retail environment. For most, particularly the larger operations, this is a brave move, but one which will pay dividends both in the short term and over time. The results of our tried and tested UCD processes are clearly visible in the work we've done for our clients; to see what this approach can do for your business, drop me a line at dan.wilkinson@conchango.com.