UIE Roadshow Comes to Minnesota

Your education and travel budget has been cut to near zero. Your company is considering layoffs and you wonder what you need to do to improve your skills, widen your experience, and be marketable in case you need to find a job fast. The company I worked for not long ago closed down my entire division and I felt pressure to line up another job fast. I was glad hadn't been out of grad school too long and had recently attended a major conference in my field. I felt prepared to interview and was successful at lining up work quickly.

With the economic outlook a bit bleak, I've been thinking about ways to continue my education at a low cost to my own bank account and to my employer. The UIE Roadshow is a great way to spend a day learning some new skills or honing your already extensive experience. When you're conference budget's been cut, you can still learn more about user experience for under $500.

Date: February 19
Time: 8:30-4:30
Location: Minneapolis Airport Marriott in Bloomington, MN

The agenda includes:
The Dawning of the Age of Experience
Learn what factors contribute to successful experience design by looking at successful companies like Netflix and Apple.

UX Level-Up: Taking Your Team to the Next Level
Learn what successful experience design teams do that sets them apart from those that struggle.

The Making of a UX Vision
In my opinion, this one is most critical. What's the vision for your team? Is your team in agreement on where the direction is heading?

Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusions to Simplify Design
Looking at design tricks and illusions to reduce perceived complexity, learn to create enjoyable experiences.

Join me, because you know if I'm going, so should you. Of course, the fact that Jared Spool is speaking doesn't hurt either.

If you're in Portland or Atlanta, the UIE Roadshow is also coming to your area so don't feel left out.

The Best and Worst of Finding Customer Service Information

My mini-research session on finding customer service contact information online grew to a lengthy list of random websites, becoming too broad and unfocused. I restructured the task, limiting the website list to those which sell clothing and have both online and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences. To keep my evaluation a reasonable length for a blog post, my focus is on the three best and three worst experiences across eight websites.

The Task

I made one visit each to Sears, JC Penney, Kohl's, Walmart, Target, Old Navy, Abercrombie, and Express websites. I counted the number of screens I had to view and the length of time it took me to find phone and email contact information. I did not complete any contact forms or call the stores, limiting this study to the experience of finding the information, rather than working with customer service representatives.

The Best

1. Express

What works for Express is the consolidation of contact information on one screen with clean, modern design. The use of whitespace clearly defines each section avoid a graphic-rich, text-heavy experience. They've kept it simple so that users won't feel like they have to dig through a long list of phone numbers or hunt through several website links. This page comes up in one click from the home page. Check out Express' customer service page.

2. Abercrombie

Although Abercrombie's website fails for this task in a number of ways, the site has one aspect that sets them apart. Like Express, contact inforamtion is just one click from the home page, but users don't actually leave the page. A contact form pops up with a simple design featuring a minimum number of fields. It's quick and easy. Unfortunately, finding phone contact information is not quite so simple, but in my non-scientific twitter survey, most people felt that email was preferable to phone. Visit Abercrombie's website and look for the contact link below the large image to see their design.

3. Kohl's

I like Kohl's because they realize that people don't want to sift through a long list of contact options. Here you won't find a list of 15 customer service phone numbers or a drop-down with 10 "reason for your email" choices. You get a phone number and you get an email address. It's that simple. Curious? Visit Kohl's customer service page.

The Worst

1. Walmart

One of the biggest challenges with the Walmart website is the lack of visibility of their customer service information. The home page is long and customer service can be found at the very bottom, tucked into a large group of website links. I understand that many companies place the customer service link at the bottom, and for many that works well, but when mixed with several other links, it just gets lost. Visit the Walmart website and scroll down for the customer service link.

2. Sears

The Sears website fails because they try too hard to help the customer. To contact customer service, users must wade through a list of more than 20 links, some directly related to contacting customer service, and others not as much. What seems like an attempt to reduce customer service calls by providing FAQs masked as customer service only serves to slow down and frustrate the user. Check out the Sears customer service webpage.

3. JC Penney

JC Penney owns just slightly more stores than Kohl's in only two more states, plus Puerto Rico. Why then does their customer service contact information need to be substantially more complicated than Kohl's? JC Penney has separate phone numbers for reaching a Spanish operator in the United States or an English operator in Mexico. While other company call centers use one phone number and let the caller request a Spanish-speaking operator by pressing "1", JC Penney requires a separate phone line. Too many choices make the process of contact customer service just plain annoying. Visit the JC Penney phone contact page.

Finding Customer Service Contact Information

For the past few days, I've been exploring various websites to learn more about how they guide (or don't) guide users to contact them. Imagine you have a question for a company. You may or may not be sure which department is best. Perhaps it's for product support or maybe you want to call a local store, regardless, you are looking for a phone number or an email to make contact. How quickly can you find that information? How many clicks, screens, and popup windows must you endure?

So far, I haven't witnessed too many horrors. There are definitely inconsistencies both within individual websites and among several different ones. While there seems to be a couple of standards with terminology, the workflow is inconsistent. The worst offender I have researched this week is Walmart, which asks the customer to select the reason for their email using radio buttons. After making a selection, a new screen appears with fields for the customer to enter their inquiry details. What is also on that page is a dropdown box with selections for the type of inquiry the customer is making. Seems like they really didn't need that first page, so why force the user to complete an extra step?

Walmart.com Contact Form

At this point, I've looked at Best Buy, Sears, Walmart, Network Instruments, Apple, Old Navy, and Kohl's. After reviewing a few more sites, I'll gather my thoughts and post on the most and least successful aspects of finding contact information on these websites.

This could make a good white paper.

Related Posts:
Online Shopping Evaluation

Online Shopping Evaluation

Over the next week, I would like to review the user experience of one aspect online shopping but I'd like your input. Which would you like to see:

1. Finding an item
2. Registering for an account
3. Contacting customer service

Feel free to suggest other ideas. I'm open to almost anything related to online shopping.

Test Facilitator or Researcher

I took a few weeks off from blogging to clear my head. The only thing that's been on my mind, in a professional capacity, is that I sometimes feel like a test facilitator, not a user experience researcher. This isn't a big deal when I am working on side projects, but when my full-time job is my only job, I occasionally feel like I am not honing all my research skills.

Most projects I work on involve one or two rounds of usability testing. I try to fit in a heuristic evaluation when possible, but with tight budgets and deadlines, clients want as much usability testing as they can afford. I can't argue with that since the best way to understand whether users are successful with the product is to put it in front of them and see if they can complete representative tasks, but I start to lose interest after a while. Continuous test sessions crammed in a week start to feel monotonous and tiring. I yearn for alternative research - research done before the product has been developed.

I do get these other opportunities now and then. There's an occasional diary study, cognitive walkthrough, contextual inquiry, or keystroke-level model. I crave those experiences because from my perspective, it's my wholistic research background that sets me apart from the usability test facilitator. I do more than run tests and I want to demonstrate those skills as much as time and budget allows.

My most recent project was primarily focused on usability testing but I've found a way to use my creative energy to help resolve what amounted to 100+ recommendations. I'll be partnering with one of my company's most talented interaction designers to create a complete solution, off the books. Not only will this allow me to do a little extra research here and there, but I'll get to put on my designer hat for a while. The best part of this method is that a solution will exist without worrying about the budget. This means working beyond my normal schedule, but for me, this opportunity is well worth it.

I want to know what other researchers and experience designers do when faced with project after project of testing. How do you incorporate more creative methods into your work to stay motivated, envigorated, and creatively challenged?