Virality is dead: let's get emotional!

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the Social Gaming Summit in London. Sadly I could only make day one due to clashing conferences (details on the UX course in a forthcoming post) but I did still get to see a number of insightful and thought provoking panels. And one that made me angry.

Day one featured

• 3 great talks (Francis, Wong and Lovell)
• A panel on funding which while interesting was sadly irrelevant to me
• An incredibly depressing panel on distribution (especially if you were a small start-up)
• An important, but oh so dull, talk on the steps you need to think about when planning your game marketing
• A disappointing keynote that proved the importance of always accompanying a marketer with an engineer
• And finally a talk on integrating brands via narrative that practically had me jumping out of my seat and yelling (fortunately for those around me I restrained the impulse, though twitter got a hint of my fury)

The highlight of the day was Nicholas Lovell's talk '26 Minutes: 26 Ways to Make Money from Your Game', which managed to be both entertaining and useful, packing in a remarkable amount of material into just half an hour. There was way too much to list here, but to pick a few choice tips:

• You need to think about ARM (Acquisition, Retention and Monitisation) across your ecosystem. Most companies are okay on A and M but fall down badly on R.
• 0-1-100. Make most of your content/game free. Make it really easy to spend $1. Provide a way for big spenders to spend $100.
• Time is the main asset, not currency. Numerous games let you do things where you have to wait a day or longer for the result, but pay and you can get the result instantly
• Let the user decide when to come back, but it’s okay to penalise if they renege on their promise
• Free means free
• And many, many more….

Celia Francis, CEO of WeeWorld (a social network for teens in the States. Go on, watch it again) clearly knows her stuff (except when asked about moderation). WeeWorld continually experiment with different revenue models for different content and on different platforms, constantly looking to optimise. One of the great things they've learned to do that start-ups simple can’t is to cross sell, pushing from every app to every other app. They've also found a fun and inoffensive way to integrate brands: allow players to purchase branded virtual products and clothes just like standard WeeWorld virtual purchases.

Brian Wong is only 20 years old, is CEO of kiip, and clearly sees himself as a new Steve Jobs. He's certainly got the energy and charisma, with a talk all about emotion. Appropriately, what he lacked in concrete data he made up for with case studies and, most importantly, passion. We need to create and leverage emotional moments, even if it’s the simple satisfaction of completing a level in a game. He was very careful to separate achievements from reward, talking of the delight a player can experience when offered a surprising reward at the point of achievement, the moment when they are most open to brand promotion. He's clearly promoting his own company, but the notion of finding emotional moments in your game/app/campaign resonates strongly.

The panel on distribution strategy (Chahine, Goodman, Laughlin, Pearce, Van Dreunen and Terrill) managed to bring the whole room down with the near unanimous verdict that virality on Facebook is dead. If you want people to find your game, you’re going to have to buy them with ads at $.50-$1.50 a pop, a price they expect to keep rising. Even the moderator (Bret Terrill), trying to throw a bone of hope to the audience, could only manage to say there were some exceptions that have succeeded on virality alone, but these are extremely rare. Admittedly all the panel held positions at companies that would be keen to deter up and coming competitors, but there's a definite ring of truth to their view of virality on Facebook.

As an aside, best put down of the day goes to Bret Terrill, who took a question from the audience near the end of this panel on how mobile would allow better targeting of users because the user base was more niche (question from a mobile games maker of course). Bret calmly pointed out that mobile is in somewhat more widespread use than Facebook, much to the delight of us nearby.

I'll skip the panel on investment (Gardner, Hebel, Helioui, Paanamen, Lovell) as it's not particularly relevant to me or brands and instead move straight on to Lloyd Melnick's talk on 'Beyond Performance Marketing: Survival Tips for Social Gaming Publishers'. And quickly back off it. It's not that the topics covered (the steps you needs to take in planning your campaign) aren't important, but my god was it dull. There was little insight, and the whole thing felt like a reading from a text book. I'm not saying it was terminally boring and sent half the room to sleep, but I may or may not have pen holes in my leg from trying to stave off narcolepsy.

This brings is to the last talk of the day, and the one that unleashed by inner Hulk (it’s not easy being green). 'Integrating Brands Into Social Game Narratives' by Dan Mayers. Advertised as a talk on how to organically integrate brands into social games through the use of narrative, we were instead subjected to a 45min advert for a football player simulator that managed to insult the work of a number of game writers, insult its players, and insult the audience.

Things got off to a bad start when Mayers commented that console games didn't/couldn't do personalised narrative. Hmm, I wonder what the writers and players of Deux Ex (10+ years old), Mass Effect (1,2 and 3), Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Skyrim and many, many more think of that.

Then we saw the in-game footage. A virtual goods shop full of Nike shoes and a live action video of your character arriving in "Niketown". Then came the scene with your agent and a 3 minute discussion of the new Alfa Romeo you’re going to get, complete with POV shot of staring at a magazine spread of said car. Then followed an even longer clip set in the Alfa Romeo showroom. Subtle this ain't. I haven't seen product placement this bad since the infamous "Omega" scene in Casino Royale, and this made that look like it was scripted by Robert Towne (Chinatown Towne, not MI:2 Towne. Jeez that was a bad script). Needless to say, if I was playing this I’d have quit within minutes and left with a bad taste of the featured brands in my mouth.

Finally came the insult to the audience. These video clips kept coming. And coming. And coming. At this point I was contemplating sawing my own leg off in order to have something to beat the speaker with. There was no insight. No exploration of different approaches. No answer to how you could possibly afford the combination of an always on social game with live action *personalised* video in the long term. Now the game itself might be great, but pretty much all we saw of it was an onslaught of video that spent the majority of its running time trying to sell me something. If I wanted to sit through 45 mins of ads for 5 mins of content I'd watch the X Factor. In the end the style of presentation matched the game itself: a repetitive, hard sales pitch empty of ideas and full of product at the expensive of story.

Was I glad I went to this talk? Hell yeh. It reminded me how passionate I am about games and narrative, and how important it is to get it right. There is a place for brands in games but you have to do it carefully and you have to make it genuinely organic. It's not impossible.

All in all, a great day.

In a flagrant attempt to generate some actual comments here, what examples do you think there are of organic brand integration, viral player growth, and/or emotional engagement in games?

Never fear Google+, the brands are coming!

This week saw the launch of pages (as opposed to profiles) on Google+. Finally brands could have the place on the new social network platform they've been clamouring for. That's right, clamouring for. Google hadn't planned to incorporate brands this early, but the proliferation of brands acting as people on the platform has tipped their hand. For all those out there who've already dismissed G+, you might need to start paying attention as brands (and Facebook according to rumours) are taking it very seriously indeed.

I’ll come back to brands later, but let’s take a step back. What exactly is Google+ and what's it trying to do? (with many thanks to @Irina_Higginson for her excellent talk on this at work)

Google+ is a social networking platform where you can form connections with other people, and post and consume content. The shorthand commentators are using is to call it a new Facebook, but this has the unfortunate side effect of making everyone else expect the same features, and write off the platform almost immediatly. For my money, a better comparison is with Tumblr. Google+ is a micro blogging site, filling in the gap between Twitter and a full blog. But surely hat's Facebook I hear you say (yup, still with the Facebook Listen button). Well, not really. Sure Facebook includes photos in a better way than Twitter, but videos are clunky (quick tip, host videos on YouTube and then post a link to them on Facebook. That way you get a view count and the videos work on all mobile devices and tablets) and posts, while longer than Twitter, are still generally very short. What Google+ allows you to be is be very expressive but without having to write paragraphs of copy.

If there's one thing Google+ and Facebook do have in common it's aesthetic. Both are simple with plenty of white space, unlike Tumblr where custom design is a massive factor. It's in this area Google+ really comes up trumps. It's how Facebook used to be. Clean, elegant and extremely pared back. No ads. No long lists of sub menus. No ads. No ticker. Did I mention no ads? It's a clean slate. I'm hoping Google resist the urge to clutter it up over the coming months, caving in to all those demanding the exact same features as Facebook. The point is, it's not Facebook. I currently post the same thing to Twitter as to Facebook, as I don't see what extra Facebook gives me (except for photos, and I'd like to retain the copywriter on those myself thank you very much). Google+ is different. I'll admit most of my posts on it so far have been about the platform itself, but the ability to turn out mini blog posts very quickly and easily greatly appeals. As much as I like writing these I find I hard to summon up the enthusiasm to post a similarly long piece on the new Nook but it certainly warrants a paragraph of thought (I don't know much about it, but I strugg le to see how it's going to be a contender to the iPad in the way I think the Kindle Fire is, without an ecosystem the size of iTunes or Amazon to back it up).

Another major area of strength for G+ is circles, where you are *forced* to place each contact in at least one named group (a "circle"). Whenever you post, you say which circle(s) can see it. Yes Facebook has lists, but for a start almost nobody uses them, and even if you do it displays the name of the list when you post (Google keeps circle names private) which could lead to some embarrassment if you named lists "real friends" and "not really friends". By making circles compulsory, google is putting privacy control at the heart of the platform, forcing you to take control, the polar opposite to Facebook.

There are lots of other nice features (particularly huddles, a group video chat service) but they aren't the main reasons people will sign up to Google+. It's the freedom of posting, the control of privacy, and the feeling of starting afresh that’s going I drawn them in.

Oh, and one more thing. Let’s go back to brands. With brands on G+ you don't have to worry if your friends aren't signed up yet as there's about to be a plethora of content (and likely offers) heading your way. Whether this influx of content buries the posts from the few friends you do have on the platform (yes, sign up has been great but posting hasn't been) remains to be seen, but at least it's real content, something G+ has been sorely lacking.

Should brands be on Google+? Well for most major ones they already are, as anyone can create and name a fan page. Yes Google are going to verify pages (they've already done this for Pepsi) but without a genuine Coca-Cola page the fan ones will run riot (as happened with Facebook but fortunately turned out okay) and consumers will get confusing and misleading messages. Yes G+ doesn't have apps. Yes it doesn't have in depth analytics. Yes there are several page admin issues to sort out (Google are aware of these). But, these factors all apply to Twitter and it’s not stopped brands embracing that.

Whether you’re a person or a brand, Google+ offers you a new way to connect with others in a richer way than Twitter but a simpler, cleaner way than Facebook. I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows and evolves over time, and, yes, posting to it.

Let's just not mention Buzz and Wave.

Android goes dairy, but will Apple prove lactose intolerant

Last week Google announced the latest version of its Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich. The week before Apple released its latest OS, iOS5, to the public (and winner of the most fun name goes to...). There's already a number of great articles listing the features of both systems (Android: here, iOS: here), so Ithought I'd focus on some of the biggest changes and main areas of competition.

Voice control
Let's start with the big one. First a little history. Even if you haven't upgraded to iOS5 yet, your iPhone already supports voice control (for at least everything from 3GS up). That's right, it's already there. For all of Apple’s talk about intuitive controls and gestures, they hide a lot of functionality behind hard-to-guess actions. To access voice control hold down the home button for a least 3 seconds. The control will appear and you can give it a range of different commands, all of which result in you phoning your friend in South America. It even works through the lock screen, meaning your pocket can call South America too (sorry Kate).

The current iteration of Android also supports voice control, though in a very different way. Through the UI are dotted microphone symbols. Tap one and start speaking to see your speech converted to text, and in many cases automatically trigger actions. This can apply to search, visiting a URL in the browser or even dictating whole paragraphs of text in a document. It's not the slickest of tools but it does the job fairly well.

Both operating systems have seen upgrades to voice control. Android’s is the less showy, but I suspect most useful. Dictation is now a lot faster with the system only lagging by a syllable or two at most. It's not public ally available, but I'm definitely looking forward to trying it out.

Apple’s is the all-singing, all-dancing, look at me I'm amazing update, and it's called Siri. Activate Siri in the same way as old voice control (this is my main bug bear with the whole voice approach from Apple. I can open an app and start typing faster than doing the same thing by voice because of the 3s button delay), only now the phone will carry out a much larger range of actions from making appointments, tweeting, adding reminders and more. It will even answer questions you put to it, often in genuinely amusing ways. And yes, it will still phone your friend in South America even through the lock screen.

I've not used Siri yet as its only available on the iPhone 4s (cunning move by Apple there) but at the moment it feels like a gimmick. Sure it's a gimmick that's worked to shift millions of new iPhones, but I'm not convinced, yet, that it marks a major shift in the way we use our phones.

Camera
There’s been some friendly back and forth between Google and Apple on camera speeds (for 'friendly', see 'Christians and lions') with Tim Cook from Apple recently taking a swipe at the delay on Androids between successive snaps, and even in starting the camera in the first place.
Both are now claiming vast improvements in this area, Apple introducing a hardware update of an 8MP camera with 1080p video to the iPhone 4s and a load time of "Oh look that's pretty I'll just start my phone camera and take a picture of it before the moment is lost to eternity. Done", whilst the Android software update will reduce the lag between photos to approximately "Awww, sure would be nice to get another shot before it changes and I spend my life living in a permanent state of regret. Done".

Who wins? Who cares. Anything’s got to be better than my iPhone 3GS (for those keeping track, I've now learnt German and Spanish while waiting for the damn thing to load. With Christmas coming I'm expecting to have Japanese and Mandarin under my belt by boxing day)

Lock screen
It's the turn of Android to have the gimmick, and Apple to have a major security hole. Google have brought out facial recognition. Yup, you can now just look at your phone and it will unlock. A brilliant security update that is totally uncrackable unless, oh I don't know, you hold up a photo of the phone's owner. Office hi-jinx, here we come.

Apple has a similar security issue. It seems you can access Siri through the lock screen, meaning anyone can make phone calls or send email from your phone. Office Hi-jinx 2: This time it's War, here we come again. To top it off someone's worked out you can use smart covers to unlock a whole iPad2 device post iOS5 update. Office Hi-jinx 3: Close of Business.

Notifications
Apple has borrowed heavily from Android here, with notifications now displayed discreetly at the top of the screen and in a pull down menu. Didn't see the pull down menu? Ah, that would be another one of Apple’s 'intuitive' controls then (just to be clear, I like a lot of what Apple do, but their smug attitude is not one of them and opens them up to these kinds of cheap pot shots. Which helps me as I can't afford the expensive pot shots).

I really like the new positioning of the messages but have yet to use the pull down menu. Maybe I don't get enough notifications to make it worthwhile...sniff... (excuse me while I have a manly cough). Anyway, it's a definite improvement.

Android's update here is much smaller, mainly because they got it pretty much right the first time. You can now clear notifications individually, which is going to come in handy just as soon as I start getting more notifications...sniff...

Widgets
Here's one of the areas where Apple and Android differ greatly. Apple only lets you place apps (or more accurately links to apps) on your device home screens. Android also lets you add widgets which show feeds of content from the widgets, like the latest tweets, Facebook posts, or calendar events. How does it manage this? Proper multitasking that lets apps run in the background, something Apple have been adamantly against, allowing only certain processes, such as gps, to keep running even when an app is 'paused'.

Google have improved their widgets even further with the new version of Android allowing you to resize them to show different quantities of content, something I'm going to find very handy on my tablet (yes I'm the one person in the world who bought a Xoom).

The Cloud
Let's end with the other big one. Once again we'll need a little history, and this time some geography as well (get those colouring pens ready). Android devices have had a suite of cloud tools since the beginning: namely Google docs, email, calendar, contacts and reader, syncing seamlessly with their desktop equivalents. For a while now they’ve also had support for music in the cloud, as long as you used the Amazon mp3 app and were in The States (go and watch this. I’ll wait. Damn that man is talented). Google have their own cloud for music too, through it’s also US only and private beta. To make things more confusing, Amazon recently announced the Kindle Fire, a tablet based on Android, which looks to support a full media cloud, though whether this translates to the Amazon app on other devices remains to be seen. Basically, Android is awash in clouds, but they only handle certain types of media and only in certain countries (colour these in blue on your map).

Apple on the other hand announced the iCloud back in spring and immediately rolled it out for apps, allowing you to download the same app to different devices (or re-download to your own) without having to go through iTunes and syncing to a computer. Now with iOS5 they’re released the full cloud with iTunes Match (sync music you ripped). Only iTunes Match isn’t live yet. And the full cloud only works in the US. In the UK we just get the option to re-download music, which as underwhelming as it sounds, makes me very happy. I’ve got more than an iPhone’s worth of music, and having to re-sync with a computer to change it was extremely frustrating. It’s still frustrating if I want ripped music, but at least I can now get the stuff I bought from iTunes a lot more easily.

Want’s really going to confuse the public is when all these clouds are fully up and running and people start asking why they can’t move music from their Android HTC to their Apple iPad. It’s all fun and games until someone loses 64GB of data.



So, that’s it. Like I said, not a comprehensive review, but a few of the highlights. It’s clear Apple and Google are learning from and trying to one up each other, and health competition is good for everyone. There’s no clear cut winner here. Different operating systems are going to appeal to different people in the different ways, but at least now we have a decent choice. Let’s just not mention RIM….

Apple's Emperor's New Clothes Moment?

We've recently witnesses a great presentation from a major brand on their new device that wowed critics. Who'd have expected it to be the one from Amazon with their Kindle Fire and not Apple with their new iPhone announcement.

I'm not an Apple fanboy but I do have an iPhone 3GS which I really, really like. I stop short of loving it due to a number of minor issues (I'll blog about them another day) but I was still planning on upgrading to the all singing, all dancing iPhone 5 when it came out. But it didn't.

When Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage yesterday to talk us through Apple’s new offerings, the majority of bloggers and pundits were expecting him to reveal 2 phones. A major upgrade to the iPhone 4, namely the iPhone 5, and a cheaper, feature-lite phone, probably called the iPhone 4S.

What we got was a single new phone, the iPhone 4S. The outside looks the same as the iPhone 4, but apparently the inside is all new. ‘Cos we all know how much Apple fanboys care about the inside over external appearance (I know, cheap shot). So, what can this phone do that the older model couldn't?

Camera. The camera is now 8MP, with a 3264x2448 pixel resolution and able to capture video at 1080p, so on par with existing phones such as Motorola Droid Basic, 3 and Bionic, and the Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Sensation, and LG Optimus 2x.

You can now take your first photo in 1.1 seconds. Mr Cook accompanied this particular feature with a shot at the slow camera on Android phones. Well Mr Cook, with my iPhone 3GS I could become fluent in French in the time it takes the camera to load. And I'm *really* bad at French.

AirPlay. AirPlay mirroring to Apple TV device. That's the 2 people with Apple TV happy then.

World Phone. It's now a "world phone", supporting both GSM and CDMA. Finally.

Siri. This is the big one. Siri is a voice assistant that responds to your instructions. Book appointments. Get directions. Set an alarm. Now, I know it has its problems, but the voice recognition on Android that's been out for a while now is pretty good. Without using Siri (fun fact, Siri means ass in Japan! I <3 Masi Oka) it's hard to see what it has over Android. Now I'm willing to be proved wrong and find it's the greatest thing since Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman sat down and thought “You know, I've got a great idea for a show”, but right now it's not got me rushing to an Apple store. Or even ambling. Mainly I'm shrugging.

That's pretty much it.

Essentially, Apple have brought the iPhone up to spec with other manufactures current handsets and little else. Oh, you can now make calls with it as they do something clever with the antenna. You know, like having them work.

The best part of the whole presentation was the iCloud, and we were told about that back in the Spring. At least we've got a release date. 12th October. Yes, I'm going to pay the £25 to get my entire music library on there. No I'm not going to tell you want’s in it. It's all cool stuff, honest. Okay, you can stop laughing now.

In short, it was a disappointing launch and a underwhelming start to Tim Cook’s tenure Apple CEO.

Apple are notorious about security, so you could argue we've no one to blame for our disappointment than ourselves. That's a fair point. What I would say it that it's been almost 18 months since the iPhone 4 launched and the disappointment reflects the fact we all thought and expected Apple to have made major advancements to one of their major product lines. It's simply so much less than we've come to expect from them.

As to the secrecy, it's worth noting that rumours that we'd see just one phone and it would be the iPhone 4S started emerging 24 hours before the actual presentation. Unusual for an Apple launch. A cynic might suggest Apple deliberately wanted this to leak to lower our expectations in time. But that would be very cynical...

We're now left with some big questions. Will this affect the Apple share price? (My guess yes, but it'll drop slowly and stay low for longer than we usually see with Apple) What about the wider audience who can't afford the expensive iPhone? (The reason we thought there'd be a cheap version. Tough luck kids, you'll have to get the new, cheaper and potentially more feature packed Android instead) Who will buy the 4S? (Why upgrade when we're all now expecting the iPhone 5 in the New Year)

So was this Apple's New Clothes Moment? Did we finally get a peak at just how little has been going on beneath the surface? That Apple expect us to pay high prices for a phone that does little its competitors can't already, and it should have been doing a generation back? That it harks back to the notorious major iTunes announcement that turned out to be the Beatles?

After all that, I'm going to say no. We've heard enough bits and pieces on the iPhone 5 to expect a major overhaul is still coming and that, as they're famous for, Apple aren't going to tell us about it until it's good and ready. But this is one of those times when the legendary Apple security most definitely worked against them. We'd better see what they've been working on soon, and it better blow our minds. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Three times is enemy action.

Everything you wanted to know about UX (but were afraid to ask)

Given that there are scores of books and websites dedicated to User Experience (UX) there's no way I'm actually going to live up to the promise of the title, but it got you reading this far. And that's the first lesson of UX: get your audiences' attention. Now comes the hard part. Keeping it.

So what is it?

(With apologies to Red Dwarf)

User experience (UX) is about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership, but it also includes a person’s perceptions of the practical aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency of the system. User experience is subjective in nature, because it is about an individual’s feelings and thoughts about the system. User experience is dynamic, because it changes over time as the circumstances change.

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience

"So what is it?"

User experience" encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products. The first requirement for an exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother. Next comes simplicity and elegance that produce products that are a joy to own, a joy to use. True user experience goes far beyond giving customers what they say they want, or providing checklist features. In order to achieve high-quality user experience in a company's offerings there must be a seamless merging of the services of multiple disciplines, including engineering, marketing, graphical and industrial design, and interface design.

Don Norman, inventor of the term http://www.nngroup.com/about/userexperience.html

"So what is it?"

A person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service

ISO FDIS 9241-210:2009. Ergonomics of human system interaction - Part 210: Human-centered design for interactive systems (formerly known as 13407). International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Switzerland.

"So what is it?"

Making sure your audience want to use, can use and enjoy using the website/app/game you're providing.

Me, now

What it's not

UX is not about being "Cool"

UX is not about being "Innovative"

UX is not about having a "Dazzling design"

UX is not about being "Risky"

UX is not about being "Edgy"

All these things can be part of a great UX solution, but they aren't the start of it. If a client tells you they want to see something completely new, something never seen before, UX is not at the forefront of their mind.

How do I test for UX?

If you've already got a website/app/game that you're looking to improve, the first part of testing is really easy: use it yourself. Then ask your friends. Then ask strangers. Ideally who have never used your product before. Here's the hard part: listen to what they tell you.

It's far too easy to blind yourself to poor UX. You know your own product. You know how it's supposed to work. You know why people should be excited about using it. They don't. And unless you're planning on going to every user and explaining it to them face to face (believe me, there's been projects where this has felt like the best solution), your webiste/app/game needs to speak for itself.

It gets a lot harder if you're starting from scratch. Some good starting points are:

• Competitor research. See what your direct rivals, or similar companies but in a different field, are doing
• User research. Go out and talk to your potential users. What would they be looking for in your product? How would they expect it to work? When and where would they use it?
• Focus groups. As a general rule, don't. It's far too easy for a single person to hijack the group.
• Card sorting. If you're building a website, particularly a big content site, it can be worth holding card sorting exercises to find out what content people would expect on the site (give out blank cards) and the top navigation (ask your test users to group the cards into piles of topics that go together). You can also start with pre-written cards and a pre-written nav, to check if your test users understand the terms and group them in the way you were expecting.

Beyond that there are numerous objective and subjective tools and techniques to assess your project which I won’t list here as there’s a fantastic list by Jacob Gube on Mashable.

The key word with UX is holistic. Ultimately you need your IA, design, content, and front and back end development to all work together to provide the best experience possible for your users.

Okay, but what does it really mean for me and my users?

Let's look at 2 examples: Ain't it Cool News and a Facebook fan page.

Ain't it Cool News

Ain't it cool is fascinating because at first glance the site is terrible. The design is uglier than the Hound in Game of Thrones (told you I'd crowbar a reference in), the spelling is appalling, and everything ends in an exclamation mark! Or five!!!!

But, and it's a big but, people flock to the site. I'm not sure if they'd say they love it, but they keep going there. Why?!?!?! (sorry, can't stop myself now) Because, as the old adage goes, content is king. The site houses rumours, opinions and breaking news on all the big film, and increasingly TV, releases. Everyone goes there to find out what's coming up and if it's going to be any good. The site search might be terrible, but most of the time it doesn't matter. It's a real time resource. If you don't see the posts within 48 hours of them going up, it's old news. Everyone else will already have it. All you need to see is what's new in film, what's new in TV, and what's the big story from Harry himself. All of which is readily catered for. In garish orange.

Facebook fan pages

There's a lot to cover here, so I'm going to stick to some of the main UX questions you need to ask yourself if you're running a fan page for a brand:

• Where are people going to see my posts?
• Answer: Mostly in the news feed and their friend's timelines, not your fan page
• Where are people going to interact with my posts?
• Answer: Same as above
• Which posts are the most popular?
• Answer: Depends how you're measuring popularity. Photos and video tend to get the most impressions. Regular text posts, particularly in the form of an open, and usually silly, question generate the most comments and likes
• How do I get people to my new app?
• Answer: Remember, existing fans going to your fan page go straight to the wall, NOT the tab new fans see. Drive traffic by promoting the app in your posts. Also, make sure that the app posts interesting content/updates automatically to the ticker
• What permissions should I ask for on my app?
• Answer: Your drop-off rate increases dramatically for each new permission you ask for. Only ask for what you really need
• How can I contact my fans?
• Answer: The only way is though a status post. You can't contact them in any other way, unless they've signed up to an app. If you want their email address, ask for it as an app permission, but make sure you don't spam.
• How can I solicit and use UGC?
• Answer: Soliciting is easy. Just ask your fans to post photos and video to the wall. Re-using is just as easy, but it's the legality that gets tricky. I'm not going to even attempt to navigate Facebooks Terms and Conditions, a feat akin to rowing up the Amazon in a leaky canoe with one arm tied behind your back and smeared in honey. What I will say is that if you want to be really, really sure you can use something your fans have created, get them to upload it via an app and ensure you have very explicit T&Cs as part of the app.

I'll come back to fan pages more thoroughly in a later post, but hopefully this gives you a sense of the sort of UX questions you should be asking, even if you don't agree with my answers.

For further reading there's a very thorough discussion of all the steps involved in an e-commerce site by Lyndon Cerejo on Smashing Magazine (Part 1 and Part 2).

Last question. What’s the difference between IA, UX and design?

Sign in to Amazon and take a look at a product page, oh I don’t know, say this one (All hail the Moff). See that orange “Buy now with 1-click” button? (You may need to turn on 1-click using the link just under the “Add to basket” button”) Press that button and you’ll instantly have agreed to buy the product and arranged for it to be shipped to your default delivery address by first class post. It’s a brilliant fusion of technology, IA and design. A seamless user experience. So which member(s) of the team decided what it should do, what it should look like, and the fact it should be there in the first place?

There’s no simple answer to that question. There are lots of different job titles and skill sets out there that are increasingly blurring the lines between the different disciplines involved in creating websites, apps and games and ensuring they look great and work properly. So where does that leave UX?

The short answer is there is no single answer. You could assign the UX responsibilities across the whole team or to one specific member. You could bring in a UX consultant or architect. You could let everyone get on with their own individual roles and trust each of them to tackle the UX elements they have control over. You could have a different set up for each different project. It’s a logistical, and political, minefield.

The important thing is that an understanding and appreciation for UX is embedded throughout your team. How, when and who should own the UX on a project I’ll leave to another post, once I’ve figured it out for myself.

Bad UX and the BBC

In fairness to the BBC my biggest gripe isn't against them but with the information architects, UXs, designers, developers and more (I include myself in this) who think that just because brand X does something it must inherently be good UX. Yes, it might be great for brand X but that doesn't make it automatically right for the brand Y project you're working on. Even worse is when the brand X UX isn't even right for brand X in the first place. And that brings me back to the BBC.

Now, don't get me wrong, lots of the BBC's many, many digital projects are fantastic. But other times they've made a colossal camel. ("A camel is a horse designed by committee" is one of my go-to phrases. Also see David Mitchell's excellent soapbox on false collective agreement).

The latest example of this is the new BBC homepage, currently in beta. It's certainly a radical departure from the current site. But that doesn't make it right.





Designed for tablets

The BBC have stated that the site was design for tablets first, and this would be their ongoing approach with other sites. Now, let me ask you, which of these three devices do you think most people use to visit the BBC: computer, phone or tablet? I'll hold my hand up and admit I've not seen any hard numbers, but I'm going to take an educated guess and says it's not the tablet. "But wait!" I hear you cry (Facebook "listen" button again) "they're planning for the future when more people are on tablets". Fair point, but they've not actually designed for tablets. They designed for the iPad.

Don't believe me? Check the fold (the furthest down the page you can see on your browser without scrolling). On the iPad it works great, but on widescreen tablets (as most other tablets are to help distinguish them from the iPad) the fold hides the middle strip of navigation below the screen. To make it worse, the BBC have deliberately made the page 2 screens high. 2 iPad screens. So when you flick to scroll, unless you use the gentlest of taps, the page jumps up to the second screen of content. Which now hides the middle nav above the viewing area.

"Yes" you reply "but most people who have a tablet have an iPad". True. At the moment. But look at the growth of Android. iPhone used to rule the roost. Not any more. Do you really think the iPad will stay in the lead long term? Over the next couple of years we're going to see more and more devices that take bigger and bigger chunks out of the market.

Where does this leave the BBC? Well, we've got a site designed for a type of device that isn't yet that widely used, but specifically designed for the most common version of the device right now and not what could be (Amazon Fire anyone?). A solution that suits few people now and few people later.


Controls

Ah, now here's where things get even more confusing. People swipe when using tablets. They like swiping. It makes them think they're performing a spell on a magical book in front of them, conjuring up wonderful and amazing content. And the Rebecca Black Friday video.

So, how does the big carousel on the new BBC homepage work? You have to click the arrows at the side to scroll. And on an iPad you have to click twice. Yes, that's right, twice. The arrow has a rollover state that tells you you're on page 1 of 3, and changes it to a nice blue colour. Guess what touchscreen devices can't handle. If you said "Rollover states" you win a prize! (If you said "juggling flamingos" you're also right, but I don't think you're helping much with this conversation). Somehow, the BBC have managed to bring it over to the iPad by forcing you to press the arrow once to see this visual delight (HTML5 really needs a sarcasm tag), and then press again to actually scroll. Great, I can't use the technique I'm used to on my tablet, and it takes me twice the effort to get to your content. Thanks BBC!

Now, there is a way around this. A nice way. Make your homepage exactly 1 screen high and have horizontal scrolling. Then use media queries to re-layout your page for computers, sticking blocks of content in a carousel and grouping feeds below it.

Only wait, before we do that, we need to take a look at what that content actually is.


Content

The heart of your site. What you want your users to be able to access, enjoy and share. So why dear BBC, do you feature iPlayer content in your tablet designed homepage that won't play on an iPad? Yes, you can use iPlayer on a iPad, but only if you download the specific app. Click on one of the iPlayer links in the new content carousel and you're take to a single page telling you to get the app. Now, this isn't entirely the BBC's fault. The standard iPlayer needs flash, which iPads don't run (nice one Steve). But the BBC shouldn't be mixing together content that simply won't work on different devices, especially on the device they say they're focusing on.

The rest of the content in the carousel is almost as confusing an experience. There is a hierarchy there, but you have to look hard to see it. A first glance it looks like a mish mash of news, sport, iplayer and more. There is a little more logic to it than that, but having two blocks of content labelled "Headlines" and hoping someone works out that red=general news and yellow=sport isn't making things easy for your users. Go to slides 2 and 3 of the carousel and there's even less structure, with content on vastly different topics sitting alongside each other. Not only does this make it hard to find what you're looking for, it hides entertainment, nature, food and other content.

There's a lot to be said for serendipity, but (and for once an honest, non-sarcastic question) do people go to the BBC site with no idea at all about what they're looking for or their interests? With something like the TED talks this approach works as all the units of contents are 10 minute videos and they're all linked by the theme of telling you something interesting about a field you may previously have known nothing about. I don't buy that users see the BBC in the same way. And I'm not convinced the BBC do either...


Layout

...because if it was pure serendipity, why is there a very clear and useful "Explore" sub nav, and "What's on" TV and Radio ticket on the page. Only they're in the bottom half. Below the fold. To the point where you don't even know there's something below the carousel until after you start scroll. When you think BBC, what first comes to mind? TV? Radio? News? Guides to interesting and, critically, broad topics? My guess is you'll think of all 4, and probably in that order. So why are 3 of these topics buried so low in the page?

I'd love to meet the UX designer who said, "Ah, I see all our site content can be grouped into just over a dozen categories, perfect for sub navigation and guiding a user through the wealth of articles, tips, tools and more. Now, let's stick it in the bottom right corner of the page." It's probably the same one that said, "Millions of people watch and love the BBC. We should tell them what they can watch right now. Let's hide it below the height of most people's screens and give then no indication at the top that there's more information below." Feel free to picturing me slamming my head into my desk at this point.


As you can probably tell, I'm not impressed. But, after all that, it does look pretty. And that's all that really matters, isn't it....

You-oo-oo, Your Kindle's on Fire

Yesterday in New York Amazon unveiled its new Kindle line up. An updated basic Kindle ($79, e-ink), Kindle touch ($99, e-ink, touchscreen), Kindle touch 3G ($149, e-ink, touchscreen, 3G) and, what we've all been waiting for, the Kindle Fire ($199, full colour touchscreen and running on Android).

So, will the Fire will kill the iPad? Of course not. The iPad install base is massive and will dominate the tablet market for the next 2-3 years in the same way the iPhone rules over the smartphone market, but, crucially, iOS no longer does (iOS is the operating system iPhones and iPads run on. Google's Android is the major rival operating system that runs on many, many phones and tablets. It's why you should compare os with os, not model with model). Just like iOS was overtaken by Android on smartphones, Android tablets (in total) will overtake the iPad, and the Fire is quite definitely leading the charge.

What's the Fire got that other Android tablets were lacking I hear you ask? (I installed the new Facebook "listen" button on this blog which automatically turns your computer/tablet/phone microphone on. Okay, I'm lying, but do you really believe it's not coming?) Simple:

• Cost
• Ecosystem
• Familiarity
• Confidence
• Positioning

The cost is going to be the main focus for the next few days and later when the Fire officially goes on sale in November. At $199 it's less than half the price of an iPad and far far cheaper than all other Android tablets out there. Amazon are going to be happy to sell the device itself at a loss (just like the old Kindle) because they'll make all their money on selling you the media to consume on it.

That leads us nicely to the ecosystem. Sure, other tablets have the Android marketplace, but what Amazon can offer is an experience to rival the iTunes store: a single destination with a single log in that lets you download TV shows, movies, music, apps and books with a single click. If you want to know what it's going to be like, download the Amazon mp3 app onto your Android device and buy an album. Seriously, I'll wait. (You can get Pulp: Hits for £3 on there. Yes, I know you've already got Different Class and there's a good chance you've got His n Hers as well, but I bet you don't have This is Hardcore. Got you there, eh.) Right, see how simple that was? And it's even easier the second time when you don't need to set anything up. It's the same for buying an ebook on the current Kindle (like A Game of Throne. Yes, I am going to crowbar in a reference to that in every post. Why? Because it's brilliant) That's what buying all media on your Fire is going to be like.

The other massive advantage Amazon has with its ecosystem is familiarity. Millions already know how to use the Amazon store because they've already been using it on the web for years. And have already set up an account. With their credit card. See where this is going? First time you by an iPad or iPhone you have to set up your Apple ID and provide a credit card. With the Fire you've already done this, and you know exactly how it's going to work.

What about customer confidence? Buying any new device is always a risk. How long will it be supported? What if it breaks? Will anyone else buy one? That's where the Fire once again comes up trumps. The Kindle has a huge install base. By calling their tablet the Kindle Fire Amazon are telling us "it's just like the device you know and love, only even better". No one is going to be worried about buying a Fire.

That leaves us with positioning, and a very smart move by Amazon. They didn't just unveil the Fire yesterday, they sat it alongside 3 new models of e-ink Kindle. This isn't the new iPad, it's an ultra supped up Kindle. Amazon apparently have a 10" model in the works which at a purely visual level would look like an iPad rival, but they deliberately didn't wait for this to be ready. They launched with the 7" version that looked like a Kindle. It's a portable device for consuming media, and for many people that's all they'll want their table for.

As an addendum, I should mention the Fire has a new web browser built in (front end developers are quietly weeping as I write). I'm not technically proficient enough to go into the pros and cons of this, but several commentators are getting very excited about it.

The other question is, where does this leave e-ink? Amazon certainly took a bold step towards answering that with unveiling not 1 but 3 new e-ink devices. If you're a voracious reader, you're going to want an e-ink Kindle over the Fire. But at these prices, you can afford to buy both.