The other day, an urgent job landed on the table. When the client came around the office to deliver the project briefing, I asked him – as I occasionally do – why he had chosen our agency.

He explained that one of our former clients had recommended us to him, saying: “These guys are no-nonsense and know what they’re doing“.

To me, that’s the highest ranking recommendation Spoiled Milk can receive.

As a service company, we’re only around for as long as our clients are around. If we sit in endless meetings and sell solutions that look marvellous on the paper, but disappoint once executed, we would probably no longer be in business.

We thrive, because we avoid the fluffy talks and focus on the action that brings measurable value to our clients. As simple as that.

We have virtual meetings every day. Two offices and quite a few freelancers and co-workers spread around the world. We work together via mail, videoconferencing and still use the old beloved phone. The reason why we have offices is because we like to be around each other when we work. We prefer the company of a great team compared to just sitting some isolated place transferring data.

Nothing can replace “real” human contact. Sitting in the same room, sensing the same temperature and following each other’s faces. Many small details can be enhanced if one can meet and communicate in person. Details that can make the difference in any project.

Then, a lot of time gets lost in travelling to meetings and after leaving many of them and reflecting back, one is not sure if all that time and energy was really necessary. There are definitely times when it is more effective to work alone and not have to travel and lose time to meet someone in person. Especially if it is a one-to-one conversation.

A good connection and the right equipment is necessary to have a good “virtual” meeting. If the connection is bad it can be a terrible and frustrating experience. Spoiled Milk has clients spread out mostly across Europe and we have successfully set up projects without seeing our clients in person even once. We have experienced that it can work.

One must carefully balance when it is vital and important to meet in person. Nothing can replace the human contact. But very often a mail will do the job and a videoconference can spice it up.

(Photo by Chase Hoffman on Flickr)

Usability studies (qualitative)

You sit down individually with anywhere between 5 and 20 people (preferably all in your target audience, though this isn’t vital), and give the subject a task to complete.

You then observe how they complete this task and ask open-ended questions along the way.

Good for:

• Testing preliminary designs and drafts. Your can even test hand-drawn drafts.
• Understanding your customer’s behavior and reasoning. During the test you can (and should) ask your subjects why they reacted the way they did.
• Testing out structural changes and see how people respond to them. Because you can observe how people use your site and can ask them questions about it, you get a good idea of what information structure makes the most sense to your users.
• Uncovering points of failure. Is a certain form field overlooked constantly?
• Unveil your customer’s expectations. Often your customers will expect your site to work in a different way than it was designed to.

Pitfalls:

• Don’t care about your subject’s opinions. The sample size is waaaay too small to provide any meaningful data on stuff like what colors to use (use a/b split testing instead), so ignore whether your test subjects like the design or not.
• Be careful not to influence your subject during the test. Leading questions and constant interruptions will result in bad data.

When?

These studies should be done during initial drafts and before final design.

A/B split testing (quantitative)

You show different versions of the same page to those people visiting your site, and then measure which version converts the most visitors (convert can mean anything from buying a product, signing up for a newsletter, contacting you, etc.).

Once you have a statistically significant number, you choose a winner and show that version to everyone. You then repeat the process, testing something else. Continual improvement.

Good for:

• Testing specific features. It can be anything:
  • Copy: should the button on the product page read “Buy” or “Add to cart”? Should we write long or short product descriptions?
  • Color: should the headline be black, blue or red? Should we color-code our menus?
  • Images: should we use the image with the baby or the one with the half-naked lady or the one with the 30-something man reading a book? Should the image be big or small?
  • Price: how much do sales decrease if we raise the price by 30%? Do they even decrease? Perhaps they increase because people perceive it to be better.
  • …
• Getting insight on how your customers actually behave. The data is based on what your customers actually did in real life, not what they said they would do during an artificial study.
• Proving one thing works better than another. You will with high statistical probability be able to say that green headlines are better than blue for this site, and be able to show real data to back up your statement.

Pitfalls:

• Can be technically difficult to set up because it is a complex matter juggling around with multiple versions of the same page and making sure the same user sees the same version every time he visits that page.
• Requires a decent amount of visitors to yield statistically valid data which can be a problem for brand new sites from unknown brands.
• Many will neglect to do a/b split testing because it is done post-launch and takes patience to conduct.
• You need clear goals to test. If your goal isn’t directly related to selling a product, you need to look at all parameters and not just “time on site” or “pages visited” as your indicator for success.

When?

These studies should be done after launch (whether it was launch of the entire site or just a specific feature that made its way into production), ideally in a never-ending cycle.

The traditional publishing house, Penguin Books, has decided to look in the direction of the iPhone/iPad application market with what they call “iPad Imagineering”. They’re not producing applications nor prototypes, but simply ideas for what to do when they have to go digital with their content. There’s definitely a few intelligent and great ideas within these different iPad apps they are presenting.

Wired Magazine (in collaboration with Adobe) also recently released a video of their ideas for how to transfer their printed magazine to a tablet device.

Have you got any other good examples of traditional media which is trying out new things with upcoming devices?

UPDATE: Also refer to an old blog post of ours on the Future of the magazine

Now that’s an easy one.

The good website is found right away. One click and you are there.

The simplicity and clarity is striking. In only a flash of a second you have a clear overview of the structure, functionality and purpose.

The browser loves the code and displays it accurately and so fast that there is no waiting time involved.

The copywriting short and to the point. The content placed with thought. The design clear and beautiful. Before you know it, you have acquired the desired information.

There are many types of websites – all with different goals and purposes. Sometimes you visit only once, sometimes you visit on several occasions. You stay for seconds or spend hours. Your agenda can be reasons of fun, work, information, entertainment, shopping – you name it.

Either way, you are never in doubt when you find yourself visiting a good website.