You’re not so different

My scientific selection criteria for this study started and ended with the requirement that someone, recently-ish, had recommended the site. As a result, I looked at the checkout processes of Amazon, Apple, Dell, Gap, Ocado, and Tesco. Those sites cross into a few different industries, but their processes are essentially the same; if we take out the question of account-creation, a high-level model would look something like this:

And there are a few lessons we can take from that.

Ask for what you need, when you need it

Almost without exception, the sites asked for registration at the point that a user clicked ‘Checkout’; before that point, users are free to browse and shop uninterrupted. The exceptions to the rule are the two supermarkets in the study – Tesco and Ocado – who need to know more about you before they let you shop.

If you have to ask, don’t expect an answer

All of these sites have recognised that people giving you money trumps people giving you demographic information. When they interrupt a user’s shopping process to create an account, they make it as quick and painless as possible, and keep it focussed on shopping; most sites just ask for a name and some contact details and do it all under the heading of billing information.

You’ll also notice that most sites handle the account creation process without mentioning registration; it’s simply a question of being an existing customer or a new customer. There’s a great case study from Jared Spool in Luke Wroblewski‘s Web Form Design about just how painful users find the idea of registration:

Without even knowing what was involved in registration, all the users who clicked on the button did so with a sense of despair. Many vocalized how the retailer only wanted their information to pester them with marketing messages they didn’t want.

Ocado is the only site here to ask for broader marketing information, and it has the good grace not to require a user to answer those questions. The form could use some design attention, but the sentiment is bearable; even better would be to put those questions into the account page and let users answer them later.

None of the sites asked the ridiculous questions that used to be on any self-respecting registration form: are you a farmer, fisher or builder.

Focus on selling

I was surprised to see that most sites used a basket page.

Personally, I hate these; I can’t remember ever finding anything useful in the cross-sell areas and I resent the interruption to my shopping. But they do give the sites a good opportunity to promote other products and, working on the assumption¹ that most of the sites in the survey are attracting customers who are primarily buying one thing at a time, there’s no significant downside.

Once a user is in the checkout process, all this cross-selling drops away to put the focus squarely on completing the process. Amazon even kills its own navigation.

What to take away

If you are selling things, you only make money when someone buys them. If you’re going to force a user to create an account before they help you make money, make that process as quick and painless as possible. If, as these sites do, you combine it with your checkout process, the user only has to fill in a couple more fields at a point when they’re already in form-filling mode.

Whatever you do, don’t dial back the clock to 1999 and ask them to select their hobbies.

Eliot, T.S., Philip Massinger, The Sacred Wood, New York: Bartleby.com, 2000.¹

It’s a good time to be a designer. In recent years, the appreciation of good design online has skyrocketed; these days, any client can list a string of inspiring sites that cover the range from beta-only social networks to supermarkets. And, thanks to greater recognition of the value of design in big companies, as well as the swarm of ‘hot design trends’ lists that pop up, our clients are more aware than ever of cutting-edge design elements.

But there’s a difference between being aware of good design elements and being able to create a good design, and that difference is a problem I’ve faced again and again in my projects. When I start a piece of competitive analysis with a client, the sites that I’m asked to look at often feel like a trend list; sites are added to the list because they do something visually special and not, necessarily, because they have faced and overcome similar business challenges.

If I were to plot my average set of competitive analysis sites, the graph would look something like this:

And my clients will generally spend their time looking here:

I call this the Megan Fox zone. It’s nice to look at. It’s where the cutting-edge design elements hang out. But if you spend all your time in the Megan Fox zone, you will create the online equivalent of Transformers 2; a site with bells and whistles but no substance. Bad poetry. Decoration.

A good design is not one that steals all the items on the hottest design trends lists and blindly applies them. And it’s not one that mimics whatever elements push the client’s buttons. A good design is thoughtful; it addresses the unique challenges of a client’s business and delivers value to their customers by understanding what they want. It’s visually appealing and engaging because it’s valuable, not the other way around.

We won’t get to that level of thought with competitive analysis and trend lists. In fact, I’m finding that competitive analysis is making it harder for me to deliver something valuable; as soon as a client tells me about Site A’s task-based navigation and Site B’s account dashboard, I have to struggle to pull them away from designing interfaces. We rush to pretty too quickly to get to right.

And so a plea: steal right. Don’t ask clients for sites they like. Instead, ask about their problems and their plans. Speak to their customers. If Site A’s task-based navigation system really is what’s needed, it will become clear soon enough, and you can make it into something better.

Allow me to start by saying that the stuff you make is awesome. I love my Forerunner 305. I love my Edge 705. I love Garmin Connect. But, well, your Garmin Training Center could use some love.

In the hope that pointless moaning becomes more useful when accompanied by pictures, I’ve come up with some ideas.

First things first

This is kind of awkward, but, well, your icon is jaggy.

Look:

Now that that’s out the way, let’s take a look at the first screen someone sees when they open the training centre:

It’s a little daunting, but what’s odd about this choice is that the information here shouldn’t be something that people need to see all that often. Unless my heart rate zones are changing all the time or I can’t remember my own name (and the two may go hand in hand) I can pretty much set this and forget about it.

What this app is all about is me doing things. And that probably means I’ve either just done something, or I’m planning to do something.

I’ve just done something: home screen and activities

The default way of showing activities is a big list. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the kind of people who willingly hand over cash for a heavy, ugly watch just because it can tell them how fast they’re running are also the sorts of people who are likely to go out and use said watch. A lot. So the big list quickly becomes a very big list, and with no way of filtering by activity type, date, distance, duration or any other of the many, many useful metrics you have, the very big list is quickly filed into the ‘This is Terrifying, Ignore it’ box.

Which is a shame, because there’s a lot of good stuff lurking under that list. Wouldn’t it be great if I could auto-compare all the times I rode a route? Or if I could annotate workouts? Or rate courses?

I’m planning to do something: workouts

I’m not particularly into scheduling workouts on a calendar, but I’d love to have better management of the things I do. Whether they’re workouts, courses or activities¹, some smart folders grouping them by sport, as well as the ability to create custom folders for training type would do it for me. I know we can already create folders, but I’m really not sure what they’re for. They don’t seem to do anything good.

Taking it with you: device management

Oh boy. It’s really weird that you’re a device manufacturer and the whole device management side of things feels like an afterthought. Here’s a for-instance: I do the odd ride. Sometimes I do running intervals, for which I create a workout with timing and distance. And that’s great. What’s not great is that every time I plug my 305 into my mac, I have to choose which things to upload to the device because there’s not enough free space. And every time, I have to de-select the same things. And all I really want on there are my running interval workouts. Imagine being able to pick a folder to automatically sync to the device. Or, better yet, imagine not being able to do the equivalent with your iPhone.

And, while we’re on the subject, let’s make it easier to get activities out of the Training Centre and onto Garmin Connect.

Really, though, thanks

Even though I moan a lot, I only do it because I care. I’d enjoy training a whole lot less without your gear.

Mmm, purty.

Myself, I’m a Garmin man; I’m a particular fan of stealing other people’s riding routes and getting to race them watching them disappear into the distance through the Virtual Partner feature. And the huge infographic geek in me just loves the route player.

Put this on

A web series about dressing like a grownup.

A Continuous Lean

A Continuous Lean is about things. American things, good looking things, well designed things and all sorts of other things.

Secret Forts

This blog is as it says, a collection of good things. Images, videos…things that interest me. I don’t write about them. I let it, each post on its own and as a collective whole, speak for itself. This collection of things is me. And this is my secret fort.

a time to get

The good, the bad, and yes, even the ugly. In a world that has no time for anything, there is always a time to give, and every once in a while…….. a time to get.

The downside is that a lot of my work is secret, so I can’t share it. A portfolio full of NDA makes finding work somewhat challenging, but it’s also frustrating to have put so much work into a project and to have to wait years to see it come to life. At the moment, I have 4 projects, representing the vast majority of my freelance career, somewhere in the concept development limbo.

I can’t wait for them to launch. Until they do, I’ll settle for sharing some of the less-secret secret stuff I’ve done.

Last FM iPhone app wireframes

I love looking at other people’s wireframes.

Mr Eaves Sans and Modern

I’d tell you how excited I am to see this, but you’d definitely lose respect for me. Mrs Eaves was one of my earliest favourites back when I got to play with typography for a living, and this companion is simply gorgeous.

The world’s worst cycle lanes

A collection of badly design bike lanes that’s bound to ring a bell if you’ve ever been on a bike. My personal favourite is this stunning example of clear road markings.

FPO: The Blumenthals’ Anniversary Book

A great idea, beautifully executed:

Traditionally the first anniversary gift is made of paper. I was inspired to do this many months ago while reading through our old text messages — I was just cracking up, and realized this would be a great source for a diary or journal project.

Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off | Video on TED.com

Looks like I need to take more time off. Seven years’ of fresh work from one year of thinking? Sign me up.

Exclusive: Rapha to launch riding holidays | Rapha

And maybe here is where I can spend some of that time off.

Derek Powazek – Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists

The problem with SEO is that the good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work, and it’s poisoning the web. I’m going to tell you about the problems, and then tell you the one true way to generate traffic on the web, based on my own 14 years of hits and misses.

the impossible cool.

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”

kung fu grippe: Read All Day

I studied English at Cambridge and I cannot tell you how hard I pushed for the study of sentences that created forts made of sofa cushions. And now it seems I’m not the only one for whom they have a special significance.

The Best Decline Letter of All-Time: Edmund Wilson

I’m so impressed by this that I’m currently sketching out an index-card based conversation simplifier to be deployed at my wife. Stay tuned for progress reports, pictures of me being evicted and possible desperate offers of bits of me for cash.

That something’s name is Vodafone 360. I worked on it for 9 months, leading the concept design work on the PC product before crossing the line into detailed design for a few months. Bizarre contract rules meant I couldn’t stay on the project for more than those 9 months, so I only have a small idea of what the final thing will be like. It sure is pretty though:

This is the first book I ever made that had the good grace to remain made for any period of time. It was a birthday present for my wife (before she became my wife and allowed me to stop doing things like this), and it was awesome.

It even had detachable pages.