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Insights & Blog_In Here and Out There
Our observations of the world around us
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Memo to online dating sites: you can do better
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Being a user experience expert with a degree in psychology gave me highly qualified insight into…my recent attempts at online dating. And if there’s anything I can offer these website developers, it’s that a different approach is needed to portray a more “honest” perspective on what the experience will likely entail for new users.
In my experiences with research, a redundant theme is that users don’t want to be lied to — they don’t want sunshine where the sun don’t shine. Users want a realistic expectation to be set about the experience into which they’re about to drop some serious coin.
So, I’d like to translate into plain English some of the standard slogans, tactics, and promises that Match.com uses to “lure” people to join the site.
“Worlds Largest Online Dating Service” Translation: we aren’t selective at all so if you aren’t either, this is the place for you.“We guarantee you’ll meet someone in 6 months or your next 6 months are free” Well, therein lies the rub. You need to do some rigorous emailing and be pretty aggressive to get this deal, which they do not advertise. This makes it much more difficult to be selective about who you talk to on the site. If you are, this deal is not for you.
Winking. Simply put, very annoying. “Winking” at someone, an online nudge designed to get your attention, should be limited. As a young woman, I received over 10 “winks” a day from people I like to call “serial winkers”. Match.com should not allow people to wink at others if they A. don’t meet my specifications for someone that I’m looking for (e.g. men under 32) and B. They wink at more than 1 person a day on average. Limitations on this specific feature would make for a much less aggressive environment and would allow women specifically to feel much less attacked and annoyed.
I must qualify my cynicism with one caveat: I did meet someone interesting on match.com. So overall, I’d say the site did its job. But as far as user experience is concerned, online dating sites as a whole can do much more to improve the experience. Matters of the heart are sensitive, so be sensitive to your users’ needs by making it the most comfortable environment possible. If you need help, Lextant would be happy to do your research and redesign.
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The Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, Part 1: Anticipation
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We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the newest addition to our data collection and analysis quiver: the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. And just in time, as Justine and I headed into the field (Raleigh, N.C. and Denver, Colo.) to learn about the new home buying and customization process. Our primary task will be ethnography: lots of observation, inquiry, video capture, and note taking, all within limited spaces. The challenge, as always, will be making sense of the pages of notes during observation. We’re hoping the Smartpen makes it a little easier.
The Smartpen is just that – a writing instrument that does much more than put ink on paper. It helps give context to all those scribbles. Here’s how USA Today described it recently: “[It] writes in ink like any ordinary pen. But your Bic can’t perform clever stunts like this. You can record audio while you sketch or scribble, then play it all back through a built-in speaker with a tap of the pen…”In the past, we’ve had success using other text analysis tools. One of my personal favorites is Concordance, an app that allows for proximity searches and high frequency word analysis of transcript text documents. I love the results and even more so love the casual tone of the messages you receive throughout such as “This is a very large file and will produce a huge concordance. Proceed anyway?” (You’ve gotta love R.J.C. Watt, web pioneer and the author of the app.)
But this next project has an aggressive timeline and we ‘re hoping for a quicker way to “relive” the experience without having to use Concordance or go back and watch video to sync it with our notes. Chris Rockwell came across the Smartpen and ordered it for us. We can’t wait to discover the data analysis goodness we hope it will bring. For starters, we hope it will:• Keep us from having to track time codes while we are busy observing.
• Give us good quality audio without having to carry around a separate piece of technology.
• Help us to better make sense of our messy notes—and faster!
• Attach quotes to images/words stimulus chosen during the participatory exercises.
• And, of course, let us be the first in the office to use such a cool new device. (Professional rivalries here? Nooo…)Stay tuned for our follow-up post, “The Livescribe Pulse Smartpen: Part 2: Judgment Day.”
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