Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Simon Griffiths

Simon Griffiths — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:35:51 GMT

I would hesitate to call yourselves change agents if only for the same reasons as Terry mentioned above. Yes any IA work will cause change, but lets face it, so does pretty much any work. If I fill up my car with petrol, am I a change agent? I am, but I wouldn’t like to call myself that. What do I think would be a good term? I hate to say it but user experience designer seems about right to me.

In other ways I agree with both Terry’s and Matthew’s conflicting points on who should change. In the case of the farmers mentioned at the start of the article, obviously it is the ability of the process to change to the way the farmers will work. However if you are designing software to improve efficiency internally, then it will need to be the users? The difference is the purpose of the design. One is designed to improve business processes and is in many ways mandatory, the other is purely an optional thing that people can use, or not. In the former case you are more likely to get resistance, in the later it just won’t be used. How you approach the work should then reflect this.

Simon

Simon Griffiths — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:33:13 GMT

Great post, and comments! There is a lot to think about here.

I agree with the comments that adding too much cross selling actually loses you customers. The ideal form is focused in my opinion and leads you to an end point with the minimum of confusion. Too many options, and you start to confuse users with what to do next. However, it may well depend on the site. Amazon may have that issue, but applying for a bank account may not.

BTW – the BoA security system of showing you an image (apparently you can also load in your own) is fundamentally floored. As phishing sites just plug your username and password into the real BoA site, and pass that image along. I believe that they are going to abandon it soon.

Simon Griffiths — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:36:40 GMT

I totally agree, but you have to consider that the norms might be there for a reason, and these reasons should be considered in the first place (never thought I hear myself saying that). There is little point in change for changes sake, only to increase efficiency and reliability.

On the point of going out to the customer. I would again say thought that it depends on your market. Say you have a new tool for the IT industry. They are probably more able to cope with a different interface design. However you look at farmers (and apologies to all the high tech farmers out there) or a better example is say pensioners, and you would need to develop something that would not be too confronting, or so different from a standard web interface that they are not prepared to go further.