The BBC’s recent 'Virtual Revolution' carried warnings of internet addiction in South Korea spreading to the UK.

The world is undoubtedly changing and debate centres on whether it is changing for the better or worse. Statistics from South Korea were intriguing – 62% of 3-5 yr olds regularly using the web for up to 8 hours a week, twice the exposure of British 5 year olds and stating that web addiction is affecting 210,000 children – 80% on medication and 20% hospital admittance.

I’ve continued to wrestle with the polar opinions of two of the programme's commentators. On one hand the genius and ever-opinionated Stephen Fry extolled the virtues of the wired world, saying that anyone "not appreciating that we had the knowledge of the ages gathered for us to browse in our pockets – should be slapped!" Then there was a political scientist from Cambridge University discussing the difference between long-term and short-term reading, stating that students these days groaned when told that they had to read paper books.

As I considered these points, I got a bus to Old Street and found myself opposite a sample of student-looking types. What struck me was their varying reading matter. These students all appeared to be in the same age bracket. One was reading a substantial text book, the girl sat next to me was reading a print out from the internet, including some pages of Wikipedia definitions, and next to her was a chap using an Amazon Kindle. There was a final student type surfing on an iPhone. In short, there was a snapshot of young people using a wide range of approaches to accessing information.

In truth, it seems that we assimilate new technologies as they appear, finding new and better ways of putting it all together for our benefit. Personally I find it exciting not frightening. So I guess I’m with Mr Fry on this one.

I like spending my money online...

...so why do some sites make it so difficult! I recently set out to buy some flowers online for my Nan, a task that should have been quick and simple. To my annoyance, I was hindered by the number of sites that required me to ‘register’ before I was allowed to purchase. I can’t ever remember having to ‘register my details’ before heading to the till in the local florist so why should I online?

Whilst there are obvious benefits to getting your customers to register: marketing data, customer profiling and fraud prevention; it should not be to the detriment of the user experience. Ask your customers about registration and they’ll probably tell you it’s an unnecessary hurdle before purchase. The very reason they’re online is to save time and energy and it’s unlikely that there’s space for ‘signing up’ in their mental model of the shopping process.

Retailers who fail to recognise this are setting themselves up for a fall, a fall in sales to be more specific. Make it difficult for your customers to purchase and they’ll go elsewhere, the internet is full of choice after all.

Instead be smart, registration doesn’t have to be a painful process, it doesn’t even have to be registration at all. Your customers are already registering as they move through your purchase process; all that you need to do is give them the opportunity to enter their own password at the end. Encourage your customers to do so by selling the benefits of becoming a ‘returning customer’:
• Track status of order
• Speedier purchases in future
• ‘Member’ discounts

So don’t create an unnecessary barrier for your customers to spend their cash, incorporate registration as part of your purchase process and everyone will be happy, including my Nan!

Have our schools lost touch with industry? Do they understand what skills businesses need graduates to have? Having recently visited a local college and also presented to IT students at an event, we’d say the resounding answer is ‘no’.

When it comes to IT/digital we persist in stereotyping our technical-savvy ‘geeks’ into neat groups and by doing so, at a subliminal level, filter this through to our young people. IT/digital is now a huge industry with a massive range of jobs requiring a variety of skills – it’s not just about being a ‘techie’ anymore.

Take Foolproof for instance. Our consultants work directly with clients, more often than not from a senior level, which requires strong communication skills. At the same time they will be project managing research for that client, which demands organisational, planning and leadership skills. They will then be dealing with the general public conducting interviews, which requires a different range of social and communication skills, plus reporting and presentation skills.

The world of digital is hugely exciting and the government’s Digital Britain report shows how important it is to our national economic strategy. But that enthusiasm doesn’t seem to be shining through the students – certainly not those we’ve come across at recent events.

In a climate where scores of students are leaving university with degrees, but where jobs are scarce, surely we should be arming our students better for the demands of organisation in the new digital economy.

Less than 2 years ago, Apple Inc. released the App Store. Since January 27th 2010, at least 140,000 third party applications have been made available for your downloading pleasure, with a total download of more than 3 billion instances. Whilst such statistics appear impressive, just how useful are those 140,000+ apps?

I’ve been downloading apps since day one and, admittedly, I have over 100 third party apps on my iPhone 3GS. What’s come into question, both personally and professionally, is just how many apps are worth downloading.

Of the 100 or so I have, at least 50 are games. From the remaining apps I use 7 at least every day - usually more than once. I have another 6 which I comfortably use at least once a week. What about the 37 or so others? Were they worth downloading and, in some cases, paying for?

The AA Route Planner app, currently priced at £1.79, baffles me somewhat - aside from the fact that this is an “introductory offer” suggesting the price will go up. I can appreciate the appeal to existing AA customers but it offers little to distinguish itself from all the existing features of Google Maps for iPhone/iTouch.

According to Marketing Magazine, “Marketers should resist the temptation to rush into mobile”. This is an important point. So many companies are releasing apps with the belief that they are doing the right thing, but in fact their releases are far from useful or popular. What kind of effect is this having on the brand and how much are companies wasting on an app flop?

As the market becomes saturated brands need to carefully consider both the usefulness and usability of their apps.

What a fantastic campaign. I logged onto an agency website only to find the site closed and this message:

So I progressively clicked the link, each time going to another closed website belonging to an agency supporting the campaign, to reveal the next part of the message.

Turns out this is a week-long virtual campaign staged by Belgium-based advertising agencies against multiple agencies becoming involved in elaborate pitches, which are costly and timely for everyone involved.

Agencies such as LBi, Publicis and Ogilvy have dedicated their homepage to a 24-page declaration against the demise of the Competition Charter.

Genius. It really makes you pay attention, and each time you click to another agency site gravitas is given to the campaign. It’s a great show of solidarity, simple but effective.

We recently completed a study which was a mix of lab-based and in-home interviews. Context of use was an important consideration so we conducted part of the study on respondents’ home turf.

Users can be more articulate when they have familiar tangible objects in front of them. By this, I mean being in front of their own computer set up (e.g. external storage, a printer + copier + scanner) helps users recollect past experiences – simply by pointing at the device/software/website in question.

At times, we even gathered much more than the feedback we were after. In particular, when a respondent’s house cat climbed up the desk and walked across the keyboard obscuring an update notification on the screen – not a scenario I had expected!

To sum up, here are a few points to remember:

1. Allow more time than lab interviews – Locating a respondent’s residence, setting up recording equipment, and sometimes even the respondent’s computer set up can slow things down

2. Keep the session fairly open-ended – Before getting into a task based evaluation, ask the respondent to describe their daily computer activities. This will give you a sense of timing and importance of the activity in question

3. Observe the user’s environment closely – This will help you understand what distractions they might have whilst carrying out tasks

4. Watch interaction carefully – Users may have a certain way of doing things. You’ll unearth workarounds that you never knew existed

5. Future functionality – Being in a personal environment, respondents can be more elaborate about what functionality is being missed. Close the interview with an exercise to get a list of useful features that could be added


Because it’s not possible to conduct as many interviews in a day, compared to the lab, in-home research is more expensive. In this case the approach gave us a cost-effective mix. The home interviews certainly allowed us to see things we would never have in the lab.

In previous posts I’ve talked about Facebook’s growing influence over direct response and brand advertising. A little closer to home for Foolproof, we’re also excited about the possibilities that the platform offers for organisations trying to gather user insight.

In particular, Facebook has a number of attributes which could be extremely valuable if you want to gather insights as part of a user-centred design project:

• Scale – 350 million users worldwide is a heck of a panel to pull respondents from. Yes, there’s a bias towards younger users, but practically speaking any and every type of socio-demographic is well represented already within the Facebook membership.
• Network effect – this huge respondent resource is inter-connected and willing to share interesting content across groups and networks. With the right seeding, research projects can reach a mass audience without huge costs.
• Collaborative – unlike most traditional research formats there is an opportunity for peer-to-peer interaction. Respondents can share thoughts and knowledge between themselves; formal moderation can be less intrusive and even in some cases be ceded to respondents themselves. It’s perfectly feasible to co-opt active participants into the management of discussions.
• Data – the crown jewels of Facebook. The responses and contributions of fans or group members who allow profile access can be analysed in real depth. Access to profile data immediately means you don’t need to ask the boring basic questions (gender, age, location) which typify the rather dull experience of completing a market research survey. Beyond that analysing respondents’ social graph allows you to see patterns in response which simply aren’t available in any other research context.
• Ease-of-use – both for the moderator and participant. Facebook was designed so that anyone can create social interactions. It also has language, design and layout conventions which are universally known and understood.
• Speed – once you have a group established around a particular project or subject it’s the work of a few minutes to mobilise a new enquiry or discussion.

However there are some problems or objections which need to be considered:

• Targeting and recruiting respondents: the viral approach to survey recruitment is risky – will you hit a specified sample to a specific deadline? Advertising seems to be a way around this but it can be expensive and difficult to manage.
• Polling tools: current polling apps are limited and Facebook recently took away profile access from its own house app after abuse by advertisers, so there’s nothing out there that allows rigorous research as well as access to respondents’ profile data.
• Research survey style isn’t suited to Facebook: people don’t come to Facebook to participate in research. The precise wording and coding of a rigorous survey clashes with the informal style of Facebook and the fun-seeking nature of its users.
• Not private: everyone is on Facebook, so you have to conduct each study in the public gaze.
• Facebook doesn’t allow you to create a session ID on Fanpages which would link advertising response data (if you’re recruiting via Facebook advertising) to survey answers.

Happily, we’ve developed a research approach which neutralises these problems. When I get the chance I’ll add posts looking at each of these in turn.

In the meantime it means that we’ve now got the capability to conduct structured, rigorous research projects on Facebook fanpages while offering an interesting, rewarding experience for respondents. And we’re pretty sure that no-one else has figured out how to do this yet. Although if I’m wrong, let me know! I’d love to swap notes.

The research world has seen increased numbers of people making research participation a paid hobby. While the majority of reputable online panels have processes in place to prevent respondents from being over used, they cannot control the number of surveys provided by other companies that the respondent may choose to participate in.

This rise in hobbyist respondents has been fuelled by the advent of sites containing links to companies that pay for participation in online surveys. This realm is becoming so sophisticated there are even review sites for paid surveys, where professional participants rate and review online surveys on topics such as the quality of incentives and overall experience.

Some would argue that this is a good thing. Increasing numbers of people willing to participate in market research is a researcher’s dream. Witness interviewer’s frustrations as people shuffle past, eyes averted, or mumble ‘I haven’t got time’ before ambling into the nearest Starbucks. Traditionally, focus groups have always offered incentives to encourage participation. So who is it really hurting?

The industry and our clients, chiefly. Obvious serial respondents have traditionally been excluded from focus groups for a reason. Familiarity with research, its language and processes skew the results and can bias other group members. The result is not true, honest opinion; it is what the respondent thinks the moderator wants to hear. Equally, if they have a glut of online surveys to complete it is unlikely they will take their time and give measured, thoughtful answers.

So, how is it possible to prevent respondents from signing up to multiple panels? It isn’t, is the answer. But a glimmer of hope lies in the formation of the US-based Online Research Quality Council, established by the Advertising Research Foundation.

The aim of the Council is to draw up a set of standards for buyers of online research, to ensure quality control across the board of companies offering online surveys. While this may not curtail multiple panel membership, by encouraging companies and their panel managers to scrutinise their own panels more carefully, and focus on the survey-taking behaviour of respondents, they can help ensure there are no hobbyists lurking.

As for clients commissioning research, the safest way to ensure the results are as realistic as possible is to use online surveys run by professional market research companies, with screening processes in place to minimise this problem.

Responsibility for tackling the problem of multiple panel membership lies with the providers of online surveys in employing safeguards to weed out hobbyists, and by joining forces to employ industry wide standards of quality and professionalism. This seems to be the only way to help eradicate the problem before it spreads further, and to safeguard the increasing popularity of online surveys.

It would seem that every marketing or e-commerce team in the country is being challenged by the board (or senior executives) to “get them an iPhone app”.

More worrying is that “Just get me one” seems to be the most common reason for having an app right now. In a panic not to get left behind, the normal rules are being bent, and everything we have learned about sensible, evidence based web development has been thrown out of the window.

When it comes to mobile, it’s like we’re back in the dark days of 1999, when a similar cry from the board was “bring me a website”.

However, the mobile app environment is a very different world to that of the early web, and the need for a good customer experience is hard-wired into the browsing.

The vast majority of mobile apps are iPhone apps, which are distributed by iTunes. This environment places customer ratings and reviews at the heart of the store. The best rated apps get promoted. The lowest rated apps quickly disappear from view, along with any brand or revenue aspirations.

And customers know their stuff. It doesn’t matter if it’s free or paid for; the public is quick to voice criticism and vote with their feet. Yes, this acts as good feedback, and fuels enhancements for the next release, but can your brand really afford to do all that learning in public?

So many of today’s apps could have been improved, or delivered ‘right-first-time’, if the basic principles of user-centred design had been applied, and the main interactions tested with real users prior to rushing it out on iTunes. The principles are the same as designing a new website:
- Does this meet a genuine customer need?
- Do we understand the context in which this app will be used?
- Is the interface simple and easy to use?

Testing this stuff is easy, and there’s specialist kit to make this easier still. Ensuring that your mobile site and app development embraces a few simple principles of validating with customers will go a long way to avoiding an awkward conversation with the board, because although they may have said “Get me an App”, you can be pretty sure they didn’t say “Get me a one star app”...

On my recent travels to Brazil I was able to experience working with a local UX agency and also had the chance to meet two other Brazilian UX agencies.

What pleased me the most was how universally skilled the agencies were that I came into contact with. They thought and acted in a very similar way to Foolproof, to the point that one agency even had an almost identical reporting and output structure to Foolproof.

Everyone seemed to be in the same thinking space; this was often down to common sources of education and training, and I saw the same books adorning the shelves of offices. It’s good to know that the language of UX seems to be one around the world and I could see that our partner agencies in Brazil were facing the same battle we’d had in the UK the last couple of years – trying to be involved in a UCD project from inception as opposed to a final sense check of a design-led approach.