By , Head of Strategic Research

In the Trends section of the London Evening Standard on Monday, Joshi Herrmann (@JoshiEHerrmann) wrote an interesting, and in places amusing, article about his and others’ attempts to cull the number of friends they have on their social networks. He mentions David Shing (@shingy) from AOL who last month said that ‘the age of treating the web as a popularity contest is over’. Shing apparently ‘predicted that the next phase of online usage will be unfriending and unfollowing, as people try to reduce the noise of their social networks and make them more relevant again’.

So what criteria do people use when deciding to cull? Herrmann, in getting rid of 300 ‘friends’ used ‘the social pint formula’. Would he enjoy sitting down for a pint with this person? If not – the chop! On this basis one must assume that Herrmann doesn’t have any brands as his friends, and if this trend is in fact that, and not just a journalistic aberration, then it seems feasible that not many other people do either. This appears to be the case according to a recent ‘Digital Life’ survey by TNS; nearly two-thirds of Brits don’t want bothering by big-name brands on Facebook, Twitter etc.

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By , Head of Research

It is with a sense of relief, and not a little gratitude to my colleagues, that I can formally announce the launch of our latest sector report: Integration or isolation? – The digital landscape for UK financial services.

I have been producing big reports into various sector websites for over ten years and the title of this one had me reflecting on the process that we undertake to get these reports ‘to press’.

As always the research and data collection is really the easy bit. It can be done in isolation. Just put me in front of a computer, leave me alone for a few weeks with a spreadsheet and ‘the job’s a good ‘un’!

It’s the concept, design, proofing and coordination of the people who help me bring the reports together that presents the biggest challenge – the integration.

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By , Consultant

At our recent #UsabilityFail seminar Mark Russell and I spoke about why you should stop wasting your marketing budgets on bad usability, covering the functional and organisation barriers that inhibit organisations from providing good online customer experience.

According to a recent report by e-Marketer by 2015 an estimated $51b will be being spent on online marketing each year.

So much money is spent and so much hard work is involved in getting people to your site which is fundamentally wasted if the experiences customers have on your site are poor. You should also be concerned that bad user experiences hurt your brand.

It’s easy to look at sales figures (or whatever success means for you) to quantify how well you are doing. With pride these figures get marched (well, sent) off to the senior management team where everyone pats themselves on the back for a job well done and left with the impression everything is going to plan.

But while this tells a usability story of sorts does this really indicate anything about the usability of the site and how satisfied your customers are with their experience on it?
For many years I worked for a website that failed to address the usability flaws in one of the most popular areas of the site because it provided the “least profit”. Investment was instead piled into those areas that were on paper the “most profitable” even though they were less visited.

This lack of investment where a larger percentage of visitors were most engaged ultimately turned people away from the profitable areas of the site. Why? Does a bad experience resonate with users much more than a good one? You can be certain of it!
We as website users take good usability and experiences for granted and so we should if you want your business to succeed online. Poor usability resonates with us and makes us more likely therefore to leave, complain and never return.

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