Swipe this way
You know you’ve overlooked basic design research when your customer can improve your product in a few seconds using a pen and some tape. This is the case with these three payment terminals. The design usually includes a discreet symbol to indicate which way the card should go through the slot, an interaction that occurs [...]
Tune in to customer behaviour, or you’re buggered
With technology and the way we consume all types of media advancing at a blinding pace, following changes in behaviours, motivations and expectations of customers plays a critical part in informing and providing a great user experience. It’s nice to think we kiwis are up to date when it comes to technology and that our [...]
When less is less and more is too much.
This Honda trunk-lid has been simplified and streamlined so much that the owner has crudely screwed on a ‘hardware store’ handle to make it easier to use. This Mazda door entry has gone the other way by adding complexity; a key-code entry, which looked to me like it had never been touched, whereas the standard [...]
UX in the physical world
My latest project allows me to work on some interactions with a different kind of digital – gripping fingers and thumbs, … it’s taking me back to my surfboard building days. It’s with a kiwi company developing a new type of mouse. I’m using UX methods to help refine the design, starting off with some [...]
Prepare to be disappointed. Customer service in an over-subscribed city
I’m en route to London and am bracing myself for the reality of ‘the nation of shopkeepers’ London shopkeepers’ best intentions to deliver great customer experience are challenged under the weight of the massive demand. With this volume of customers to serve, there’s no time for the personal touch. And from a shop workers viewpoint, [...]
Kiwi teacher’s User Centered Design approach wins over students (and Microsoft)
A geography teacher from an Auckland school is hailed as the ‘most innovative teacher in the world’. Delivering lessons via students mobile phones. Nathan’s approach: Understanding his audience Observing their behavior Building empathy with their needs Harnessing their input …and ultimately innovating learner experiences in an education system stymied by tradition. Here are some cues [...]
Customer experience pilgrims: Experience economy brings a new kind of tourist to NZ
Some Kiwi brands are attracting their global customers back to the source of their product, creating new customer experience touch-points as well as fuelling tourism. Companies exporting products ‘made from NZ’ are seeing their customers make pilgrimages to experience NZ brands at the source, connecting with the origins of the product. Tourists have journeyed to [...]
Those who adapt, survive.
When it comes to adapting, we Kiwis are experts. Our ‘Number 8 wire’ attitude sees us modify, improve and invent products out of necessity, or just to ‘make do’. This Wellington cyclist shows Kiwis are not afraid of some prototyping to find a solution, and stay safe on the road. Businesses wanting to survive in [...]
A sign your User Experience needs a reality check
How can it be that a sign-writer, who arranges letters day in day out, can make a spelling mistake? A mere series of stickers applied to a board, but somewhere along the line, the very purpose of the sign, the word itself became an abstract series of tasks within a task. Happily beavering away up [...]
Trademe changes age-old roadside selling behaviour
The ubiquity of Trademe in New Zealand is well documented but this ‘advert’ changes the way we do things. Not long ago a roadside for sale sign would include make, model, service history, price etc. …but here, it assumes that you’ll simply go to the website, enter the make and model of the car and [...]