This photo was taken a couple of weeks before Christmas; I was standing at a bus-stop across the road from this woman who was dressed in vivid colours, dancing and jingling her bucket in time to a boombox blasting boppy Christmas music at an intersection. I was immensely impressed by her success rate. She would score a donation from every second or third car each time the lights turned red.

Contrast this to an experience I had just the week before, where I was walking east on a main street for some 10 blocks to take care of an errand, and ran into —not two, not three—but six “foot soldiers” from the same non-profit organisation seeking donations. They were uniformed, polite, and obviously not having much luck. By the time I was accosted by the sixth foot soldier, I told her she probably really ought to have a word with her supervisor about how to observe the movement of people and spread the team north-south where they would have a higher chance of encountering new people. On this street, everyone walks east-west because it’s a major local shopping street, so spreading the team east-west only meant the whole team would likely encounter the same people, who would in turn get rather tired of them. (I guess no one had ever thought a bit of “end-user” observation would come helpful for fundraising, had they?)

There were probably several factors against them, despite how well presented and genuine they were. For one thing, the weather sucked. Everyone was walking fast to spend as little time outdoors as possible. Secondly, well-intentioned, polite foot soldiers always have this way of making you feel guilty. They would read you the earnest mission of the non-profit they are working for, and try to tell you why you should donate. They always seemed… too pure. And you’re not feeling very pure yourself today. You want to give to them, but you don’t know at this point (out there in the street when your mind is on something else) whether you could spare the cash, especially if they wanted regular donations. And you certainly don’t want to be receiving their campaign newsletters in the mail by surrendering your home or email address—all this, despite the fact that you actually want to give. Out on the street on a bad-weather day just wasn’t the time nor the place.

I tweeted:

a street musician once told me people are more generous on sunny days. if you are a charity, don’t send your foot soldiers out in the rain.

Seriously, it was a waste of resources.

And yet, today, this brightly-dressed woman was having such a success on a day with substantial blowing snow. Her secret? I think she made everyone who stopped their cars at the lights want to be as happy as she was. She made you want to be dancing to bouncy, boppy Christmas music on a busy intersection on a cold, windy, snowy day—just like her. By scoring smiles, she scored donations. It was she who won the money, not the mission of the non-profit she was fundraising for.

To those of us who live and breathe the web, and who have grown up with the cacophony of various media all going at the same time, “transmedia storytelling” seems like a fancy name for an experience that we have come to expect. For example: how the movie Avatar had a game that was a prequel, or that Batman is a framework where you can begin to experience the story through many entry points — various films, TV series and the comics. One other great but lesser known example is the film “All About Lily Chou-Chou”, which began as an online novel and forum, and thereafter content from the forum was used in the film. So for me, today’s event was somewhat a reminder that the majority of more established industries such as film (the primary audience today) — and publishing — are still trying to figure a way forward.

I didn’t have the foresight to live-blog the day and I had to leave the afternoon panel session early, but here are a few thoughts that came to mind based on the discussion between panelists, and comments/questions posed by the audience:

• There is this impression that it’s a case of “we know best” (more traditional marketing/branding strategies) vs “our audience knows best” (the web 2.0 that social media experts advocate). In reality, the basis of designing a good experience is the balance of the two. This balance may not always be exactly tipped the same way for a website, a TV show, a mobile app, or even across different media. We need to balance what our audience want to know and do, against what we want them to know and do — and there is no right formula for these individual design decisions.
• It’s not just about which demographics we need to talk to or not, but about taking a look at the broad range of user segments based on their motivations, which would resemble a gradient of needs rather than a black and white picture. Julien made the very valid point that it’s not about which audience we choose to speak to — we don’t actually have a choice — it’s about who wants to participate.
• In a many-to-many conversation that’s created around a story and content, the emphasis has to be less about the content and story you have to tell, but more about the voice with which you speak. Being able to craft a consistent voice would allow for a more cohesive presence that’s easily identifiable regardless of medium. In a way, we can think of this as relinquishing control, but we are shifting control to a broader parameter. It’s like deciding what first impressions you want to make before arriving to a party (and therefore deciding on how to dress), but letting go and allow conversations to flow without controlling what gets said between you and people you meet.
• There is no right process, because there’s no right answer. However, there are plenty of problem solving frameworks we can adopt and refine.

You may recognise that these four points also apply to user experience design for more innovative, social applications. I know it seems a bit of a downer to say “there is no right way”, but imagine what possibilities we have at hand to explore and to find out what works for each type of project! Having no right answer simply means we have the space to dream.

We talked a little about web standards, user testing methods, how branding intersects with user experience goals, and discussed examples of sites that had well-designed (or badly designed) information architecture and content. Everyone was a Facebook user, and they would prefer to have things advertised or referred directly to them through Facebook or Tuenti. And no, they don’t watch television anymore, unless it’s on their laptops.

It reminded me of some research done by Solutions Research Group that I have seen quoted (but not directly available online), presented at NEXTMedia Toronto last year. While this research referred to the US/Canada market, it is interesting, though perhaps not surprising, to note that Millenials in Spain have similar characteristics. Because the idea of “destinations” on the web no longer quite exists in the same way in their mindset, they wonder why there’s any point in building more brand-contextual/niche social networks that are in competition to where they spend their time — Facebook and similar networks. I find this very fascinating. I don’t think this means we should build everything over Facebook Connect, but it’s hard to see an alternative model.

At that juncture, the class and I discussed about how technology moves fast, and with it, many user habits change, that different generations exhibit different levels of comfort with technology and different usage patterns. With this broad scope, it really does comes down to answering the question: who are you designing for?

There wasn’t time to go into detail about profiling users, but we identified iRobot as a company that’s getting things right, targeting “people who don’t have time to clean”, and “people with pets”. A few of the students actually had Roombas. Again, I was impressed.

Many discussions surrounding the evolution the book revolve around the impending doom of the bricks-and-mortar store as it loses out to the online experience — where our measure of “online bookstore” is unmistakably Amazon, followed by mega-bookstores like Barnes and Noble. A new brood of e-readers recently released at CES heats up the conversation that began with Stanza, the Sony e-Reader, and of course, the Kindle. Then, there is a whole lot more talk around the changing role of the publisher.

However, in this post, I just want to discuss what kind of world around books we can design for ourselves so we don’t lose the romance of serendipitious moments (whether with other books or readers), or the delight of the chance encounter, as books — and our experience of buying, reading them — evolve towards being primarily digital.

When we discuss the online/offline store experience, we often talk about convenience vs. instant gratification, or factors of searchability, choice and cost. When we talk about devices, the discussions tend to circumnavigate what’s the acceptable cost of an e-book, whether it’s a good reading experience, and now, whether it should be a device for reading only, or a do-it-all platform.

It strikes me that we’ve forgotten a very simple thing about the book that lends itself to be such an irreplaceable object: how the design of the book lends itself to serendipity.

The case for serendipity

From Bob Stein’s article: “A clean well-lighted place for books“:

“Brick and mortar bookstores are much better for (un-directed) browsing than online stores. This is probably mostly a function of bandwidth, i.e. I can see so much more in a bookstore than I can on my 2D screen. This will change as the web and its attendant hardware/software develops over time, but my guess is that a satisfying browsing experience of the order i can get in a great bookstore is many, many years away from practical. On the other hand if you know what you’re looking for, online shopping excels at simplifying the process of making the transaction. In fact, in every sense except immediate transfer to the buyer of the object they’ve purchased, online buying is vastly more efficient. When the bulk of our book purchases are in electronic form, and therefore delivered instantly, the significant advantages left to the bookstore will be the superior browsing experience, the help desk and the cafe.”

There is value in that browsing experience that is liberating: the ability to walk through a bookstore until something catches your eye and calls out to you out of the blue. It’s about the delight of finding something that you weren’t intentionally looking for. What about chance situations where you may meet someone walking along in the street with a book that you’ve read before tucked under their arm? Or someone reading a favourite book of yours on a bus? Do you get a flutter of excitement, despair, a wander down literary memory lane? Random situtations like these provide the opportunity of a human connection that wasn’t sought, hence provide a level of delight or emotion that digital guess work will not easily replace. Not only does it connect us to other people, but it also allows us to reconnect with our past selves.

While we have begun to emulate these kinds of connections in the social network space with projects like Shelfari, Library Thing or BookGlutton — it’s not yet something amazing that just happens to you as you are off picking up some milk at the corner store.

In the bookstore

We are familiar with how Amazon has done a very clever thing by reusing the analysis of their sales statistics to enable them to make associations such as “Customers who bought this item also bought …” However, Amazon tailors to the fuzzy reader profile that they create around what books you have bought and what you are interested in: that is, it is still based on your previous buying, rating and perhaps browsing decisions. If you create an Amazon.com account afresh today, it asks you to rate things you care about until it manages to get enough data to set you up with recommendations. (It takes just about 2 items to start profiling you. Scary, huh?)

There’s an interesting statistic tucked in the middle of a post last year at Follow the Reader on book-buying patterns: “31% of all book purchases are impulse buys”. These numbers appear to be US-only, but this is undeniably an astounding figure for any market. Of course, impulse buys can mean sales resulting from Amazon recommendations — or as avid book-buyers know, it’s quite likely to also mean what catches your eye in a physical bookstore.

Serendipity amongst the shelves

So, thinking about it for a moment: the physical bookstore is usually categorized, so that you are likely to find books you like in a space common to the sort of books you already like. However, unless you know the entire layout of the shelves, chances are, a good book may be never in your direct range of sight. This is where we are compelled to make a journey from point A to point B that may lay your eyes on an interesting title that you may not have otherwise come across before.

How could this fit into where we are headed digitally? Take 10 mins to watch this video (in French), which cleverly shows a way a content creator or writer can use reading devices as much as a reader can. At 1:41, the writer walks into a bookstore, picks up some books he wants to purchase, downloads them by touching his device onto the back of the books — one presumes there’s a unique identifier, whether enhanced ISBN or book-specific RFID technology. After a conversation with the bookstore manager who recommends him another book, they go to the cash register where the writer confirms he’s buying everything, and the manager verifies his selection and finalises his purchase.

I’ve been buying predominantly digital books for over a year — I now only buy paper books only when they are richly illustrated books that I know I will refer to time and time again. Recently in bookstores, I’d begun the habit of picking up books that look interesting, then using my iPhone to check reviews online. If I liked the reviews, I would proceed to see if the books are available digitally. Right now, neither books nor digital devices allow me to perform this decision-making and purchase process seamlessly. (After looking up my fifth book, my iPhone began to get hot…) There’s plenty of scope to explore in terms how we want to use a physical bookstore as something that helps your buyer make decisions based on the richness of information and data available online.

(A related statistic from the aforementioned Follow the Reader post: “67% of readers say they find reviews online vs. in traditional print media”.)

Serendipity on the street

Consider that serendipity around modern books are established on the basis of its portability and the visibility of the cover that you can’t just “turn off”. (That is, unless you’re Japanese, in which case, you’re likely to have a polite-looking cover over it anyway). Can this characteristic be easily duplicated with digital devices? Imagine if you could peek at what book someone is reading on the Kindle because the title is visible somewhere external on the device. What if there’s a possibility of devices that can display a digital cover? What if there’s a possibility of devices broadcasting (with users’ permission, of course) what they are currently reading, or what’s in their library? This is not a new concept, remember Nintendogs’ “Bark Mode”? This would be similar to an iTunes shared list on a network, except in this case the network is everywhere.

(Aside: in the evolution of the book, book covers have not always been the most important, therefore not the most attractive. In early display of books, spines were treated as functional as a door hinge and therefore, books were displayed with their spines inward. How did you find out if a book existed? Presumably, you asked a librarian, and presumably, you’d have to be monk or a scholar of some kind, as these books weren’t available to just anyone. Just gives you an idea of how lucky we’ve been in recent decades.)

Making it human

Whenever I visit someone I don’t know well — whether at their home or their office — I have a somewhat possibily irritating and nerdy habit of doing a quick browse of their bookshelves. For a book fanatic, someone’s bookshelves tells you plenty about a person and their interests, it also tells you what topics you can connect on.

This is similar to how the musically-obsessed connect over what’s in their iPods. On a recent trip to Paris, over an awkward group dinner, I suddenly noticed my fellow dinner-mate’s t-shirt as being that of a favourite band. Before too long, three of us on this end of the long table looked like we were having the time of our lives connecting over indie music, with our iPods out and browsing each others’ collections, with every recognition of a band name becoming a new talking point and an inherent measure of how closely your taste related to someone else’s. For us, iPod swapping was only necessary because we couldn’t see each other’s lists any other way. A digital book device that enables us to electronically share our book lists publically would result in a very similar conversational connection.

Obviously, there are many more unexplored scenarios. Considering that digital reading and book-buying are becoming a reality as the market expands, yet our needs are always partially constrained by physical contexts, how can we continue to create designs that delight, surprise, that enable serendipity?

This article is cross-posted at “Begin With An Idea“.

So, generally, there are two problems to overcome when a user encounters a multilingual site (imagine many languages) that may or may not be serving the correct language to them by default:

1. a user needs to know how to switch to a different language
2. a user needs to choose the correct language (their preferred language)

Bear in mind they are likely to be looking at the site in a language they don’t understand at this point.

My idea is more inclined towards solving the 2nd step. What if you could serve an image of a common object, and let the user type in the word they have for that object? The “common object” example I have here is an apple, but you may conceivably use images of the sun, the moon, a tree, etc.

The interface could look something like this:

(In the top right corner I’m using a language selector that I’ve used in past designs, using the presence of different languages — in this case, Chinese, French and English — to convey that there are further language settings, an attempt at addressing problem #1).

Basically, we provide a way for the user to type into a textbox the name of the object they see. The idea is that they would do this in whatever language they are already comfortable in. (In my example sketch, I’m writing “epal”, the word for “apple” in Malay.) There are languages where some nouns are similar, so this may need to be repeated a few times for an accurate detection.

There are obvious flaws with this visual language detection method:

1. if you can’t see the image — if you’re not a sighted user or if you’re using a device that cannot render an image — this cannot be used
2. choosing culturally-neutral images might not be trivial
3. there needs to be some way of indicating (with little or no text) that you’re supposed to type in the name of the object you see, and that’s a hard concept to convey
4. from a user flow perspective, this could be very confusing to be suddenly served an image of an apple…

Some good things about this:

1. you can conceivably make a decent language guess if you have a few images, and you only need a fairly limited corpus to search through
2. a user won’t have to wander through a big list of languages they don’t care about in order to find the one that matters to them