welterweightUX

I haven’t posted in a good, long while. Maybe you’ve noticed. But probably not?

I don’t really have excuses for it, other than laziness, the impending birth of a daughter, and the general fog-headedness that comes with searching for, interviewing for, and getting a new job.

So thaaaaat’s what’s bringing back into the blog realm. I have a new job. And I want to tell you about it.

The past: tech writing
4 years ago, I started as a technical writer at Trisept Solutions. I have a degree in Technical & Professional Writing. But up to that point, I’d just worked jobby jobs. Things to get by, pay a few bills. I wasn’t putting my degree to use at all.

In 2006, my wife (then girlfriend) was finishing up acupuncture school and we decided to move back to Milwaukee from Chicago. Cheaper cost of living, closer to friends/family. That sort of things. And I landed my job at Trisept, where I’d actually use the education my parents paid so much for.

Enter UX
Several months in, the company hired a Usability Specialist. A really great one named Deborah Sova. I had no idea what usability was. But Deb and I quickly struck up a rapport and she graciously took me under her wing, involving me in all her projects. Heuristics, user testing, the works.

It was the best, most intense education I’ve ever had.

About a year later, Deb left for a different and her role was handed to me. I continued to hone my skills, work on different types of projects, and just generally grow the UX practice within the company.

The freedom I had to learn at Trisept was astounding. I dove in deeply and lost myself in the nooks and crannies of UX. I got really excited about the field and realized that it’s exactly what I want to spend the rest of my working life doing.

Need for a change
After a few years in the UX role, I started feeling the need to diversify. Trisept creates technology for the travel industry. Both B-to-C  and B-to-B sites. Great stuff, but you need to grow to stay relevant, right?

The departure
So I started shopping around for new job. Keeping my ears open.

My good friend, colleague, and mkeUX co-conspirator, Mike Kornacki, had recently been hired as UX Architect at Johnson Controls (JCI). He promised me and Steve Grobschmidt that he’d keep us in the loop about any expanded UX needs at JCI.

Within three months of his hire date, he had us in the door.

I started as Information Architect a week and a half ago. Steve started as UX Lead earlier in July.

New things
I’m totally stoked about learning a new industry and continuing my UX education in a new domain. I’m also super excited to be on a UX team with people I genuinely respect and like personally (Gretchen Thomas is also part of it!). We’re being empowered to create the organization’s UX process from the ground up. Exciting stuff!

I’m sure I’ll be telling you more about it as I get settled. And hopefully the change of scenery will kick start me back into blogging!

This week I’ve been thinking about funnels. Not funnel cakes or anything tasty like that, but UX design funnels. Especially as they relate to homepages.

Too often, the homepage is looked at by stakeholders as a key area to ensnare audiences. It’s where you sell every morsel of yourself, make everything sing and be heard.

If you’ve sat through user testing, you’ve seen how overwhelming this approach is for real people. Even with the most kick-ass information architecture.

Funnels are fun!
Simple as sounds, stakeholders too often look at a homepage like it’s a funnel turned right-side-up. Like this:

Plop everything in front of your visitors, they think, and narrow as the experience progresses.

Really though, a site should look like an inverted funnel. Like this:

This means that the homepage should be narrow. Then the relevant information should pick up speed and grow as the user progresses though the site.

How to invert your site’s funnel
Research your users thoroughly before wireframing. What’s most important to them? Research similar sites in the industry. Which elements and information are given prominence? Do they match your customer’s needs? Where’s the crossover?

Based on this research, prioritize what and where information needs to go on your homepage.

Push back at those who say, “Well, this is important for x, y, z, double and triple z.” Yes, there has to be compromise for the sake of branding and merchandising. But if you toss too many sharp tacks at your users’ feet as they’re sprinting toward their core tasks, you’ve lost. Lost your customer and your mind.

Of course you never want to flood users with information - that’s not what should happen when you invert the funnel.

Never make your users fight to find what they’re looking for. Just be tactical and logical in the way you open the doors to things.

Vomit on pages
At the end of the day, strategic clicks are more appealing to users than informational vomit on pages. So let’s turn our funnels upside down. Start narrow, then open up. Like a fist un-clenching.

Anti-redesign
There’s been a lot written lately about shirking comprehensive site redesigns in favor of slower, incremental roll outs of enhancements.

The reasons for this are simple: You can be nimbly reactionary. You can test out a concept outside the usability lab (which has has its inherent awkwardness) to see how it performs. If it does well, you can sit on it. Or better, refine it further to make it even better. If it fails, you can scrap it, start from scratch, then roll out something altogether new.

And then continue the circle.

I’m an advocate of this. It makes sense. Keeps you on your toes and honest about the fact that good enough can always be improved.

A different idea altogether…
A few weeks ago, I was the website of a local optician, Optix on Downer. I’m not sure how long their site has been live, but if you look at it, you’ll notice the following image in the left gutter near the page footer:

When you click it, you get the old site. Strange, eh? But interesting.

Part of me likes this idea. It says: Visitor, we know we may have thrown you a wrench by changing stuff around on you, but we like you, so we’ve provided you with an out to get back to the site you’re used to.

Part of me hates this idea. It says: Visitor, you’re a stodgy, unchanging beast. We want to make you happy with our new site, but you’re awfully hard to please. Also, we know there’s something wrong with this new site, so here’s an out. Feel free to never take the time to explore this new thing we spent so much time and money developing. We’re not going to make enhancements anyway.

Pros and cons of offering an out
Optix almost certainly doesn’t have a dedicated web department who can review analytics, do heuristic reviews, or use the bevy of other techniques out there to determine what’s failing and respond to it.

They’ve come up with an interesting approach to the full redesign, by allowing visitors to access the older, possibly more familiar site. But by doing this, they’re making new users ask too many questions: What am I missing on this new site that was on the old one? Do I have to troll that one, too, in order to find the info I’m looking for?

The new site has crisp, concise content, a sensible content architecture, and is pretty dapper looking to boot. Optix should be happy with how they’ve evolved and not focus on continually paying homage to the flashy dinosaur wreckage of their past.

The truth is, sometimes a full, significant redesign makes sense. I feel kind of icky saying that, but I guess occasionally you need to come face-to-face with the alteratives before you can face the facts.