AIAIO: Our Blog

So here’s the thing about going to a UX conference (and the reason Josh had me join him): with UX on the brain, everything exudes an experience.

The experience of my canceled flight and frantic rebooking. (More on that later.) The experience of the first class/Clear security line. The experience of my swanky modern hotel room. The experience of attending a forward-thinking conference in a deliberately old-world venue. The experience of eating lunch. Even the conference itself gets scrutinized–the packet, the registration booth, the timing.

Properly aligned, user experience really does impact all aspects of a consumer-driven society. It certainly makes its home online, where the experience is a heavy majority of the overall opportunity; but the general concept carries through elsewhere. Like customer service phone calls. And ecommerce home deliveries. And….

Josh and I are on our way to UX Week in San Francisco. I’m looking forward to seeing my old friends at Adaptive Path and soaking up the collective wisdom of our young industry.

Twitter doesn’t seem to have a with_friends feed anymore, so check our own feeds (Josh / me) for live updates–yes, Josh, that means you–and check this space for longer thoughts as time allows.

Some user experience examples I’ve seen lately, all while eating and drinking:

Good: JambaJuice’s queueing system. Unlike Starbucks, where one has to remember what the heck one ordered, then scan the baristas as they call out your drink (me: “tall caramel frappuccino light no whip”), if Jamba Juice has a wait, the cashier asks the buyer for a name. That name gets put into the order system, so the Jamba Juice drink preparers look at the screen, and say, “David?” Only after they’ve identified me do they check that they’ve made the right drink.

Bad: These pizza boxes with ads on them. Good for the advertiser, and fairly innocuous on the consumer end, but a terrible thing for the pizza parlor.

I got lunch from a place that handed me one of these boxes today. I then brought it to a conference call, where my coworker so loved the look and smell of my lunch that she got a slice for herself. But did she go to my pizza joint? No, because when closed, my pizza was from Blockbuster By Mail Get Discounts On In-Store DVD Rentals. A good marketing opportunity wasted.

Good: The widespread adoption of CRM systems at local restaurants. Thanks, no doubt, to the success of sites like OpenTable and SeamlessWeb, the majority of restaurants in Manhattan keep computer systems that maintain lists of phone numbers with addresses attached to them. Now, when I order a meal from a usual spot, I don’t have to reiterate cross streets or apartment numbers; my phone number is all they need to identify me.

Bad: Styrofoam plates and cups are still routine with many of my deliveries. We need more green delivery.

Good: The just-right chewiness of Ricola Breath Mints.

Bad: Those breath mints’ side effects.

My wife and I went shopping this weekend for a product about which we know virtually nothing. We hit four stores to look at varieties and learn how it works. This is an item where first-time buyers usually go in cold, so to the retailers, we were typical clueless shoppers.

Store #1 was full of customers, employees, and stock. We spent a long while (15, 20 minutes) looking around the overstuffed sales floor and were never approached by an employee. Finally we asked for help, and the woman behind the counter shrugged, and said, “Maybe in a few minutes someone can help you.” She did not offer to help us herself, nor did she attempt to ease our wait. As soon as she turned away from us we left.

Store #2 was as busy as store #1, but had clear aisles for browsing and an inviting atmosphere. Sales clerks had their hands full, yet when we made eye contact with one, she responded with, “I’m with a customer, but I’ll make sure someone gets to you as soon as we can.” Moments later she approached us, saying, “My client stepped away for a minute, I’m still with her, but can I help you in the meantime?” She worked with us until the client returned, politely refocused on the other customer, then came back to us a second time when she was free. She patiently walked us through different products, pros and cons, noting her favorites–which seemed unbiased by price point or commission.

Store #3 was quiet, and a saleswoman approached us immediately. She answered a few questions, then faded into the background, letting us explore without pressure. Each model was on display in several colors and with varying options, making it easy to compare styles. A few minutes into our shopping, the saleswoman returned to us with a print catalog and handy photocopies of each product’s dimensions. On the sheet she had handwritten the prices of each item we were considering, too, so we could review at home and make a decision on our own time.

Store #4 had the smallest display collection we’d seen. Half the items had no tags displaying product names or pricing. The store seemed to have very few sales staff, and after a few minutes, we shrugged and left.

At home, we reviewed our one piece of printed literature, and spent time measuring and discussing our options. We looked around online sparingly, since we’d seen so much in person.

Guess which stores are most likely to get our business.

So I went to my friendly neighborhood Bank of America ATM this weekend to do something I’ve done many times before. I need to move a little bit of money from an account with another bank into a BOA account. The easiest way to do this is to just withdraw cash from the other account and deposit it into the BOA account. So the procedure is:

1. With ATM card from other bank, withdraw money from other bank via the BOA ATM.
2. Place money in deposit envelope.
3. With BOA ATM card, access BOA account and deposit cash.

Simple, huh?

But this week was different, because BOA had replaced their ATM with a shiny new model that was “envelopeless”. This one counted cash. As in – you put your cash directly into the machine and it counts the money.

I can image the BOA execs thinking this one through: “We have a problem with people depositing the wrong amounts of money in their deposit envelopes. We need to do something…”

So I withdrew the money from the other bank accounts as normal, noting that the ATM fee had been raised to (sound of sucking breath) three dollars! Fine. Then I took the stack of twenties that had just come out of the ATM, switched to the BOA account, and attempted to deposit them back in.

One of the twenties was rejected. “Sorry, we cannot accept this bill.”

In my mind this violates a principal of currency that’s thousands of years old. If we’ve just agreed that this unit of currency is an acceptable part of a trade, you can’t then turn around thirty seconds later and claim that its not acceptable. You can’t have it both ways.

I’ve basically liked by experience with BOA so far, and I’ve found that generally they’ve been a fairly progressive bank. However this is a pretty good example of a technology upgrade that reduces the value of the bank to me: dealing with them has become more expensive (ATM fee price hike) and more hassle-prone (cash counter doesn’t accept the bills that they’re distributing).

Bank of America: At least address the latter issue – its insulting. If you’re going to eschew envelope deposits and insist on having a machine validate each bill, then you had better stock the dispensing cartridges with perfect bills – preferably new issue, super crispy bills, but at least something that is guaranteed to be able to round-trip back into your machine. You can’t have it both ways.