Tonight I got a postcard from Jeremy Wells. The last time I saw Jeremy Wells was at a cinema on Queen Street. When she saw him, my wife grabbed my arm and whispered – excitedly, and a little too loudly – “is that Newsboy?!”. She was tickled to be watching a movie with a celebrity. We don’t get out much. So imagine our surprise to open the mail tonight and see Jeremy’s stern face glaring at us:

Far from inviting us to join him for another movie, Jeremy was writing to let us know how gutted he was to hear we were intending to leave Meridian. I was flattered that Meridian had let him know about our intention, and that he’d taken time out of his busy schedule to not only follow up with them directly, but also to get my details and to write to us. Here’s his note:

Just in case you can’t see that clearly, here it is in plain text:

Dear Hayden

I went on TV saying how great Meridian are. In fact, I’m so convinced by what they offer that I even put my name to their brand.

But now I hear you’re leaving them.

That didn’t sound right. In fact, it sounded distinctly wrong.

So I called them up and asked what the flip is going on over there. They apologised, said they weren’t sure, but that they’d do everything they could to set things right. In fact, they said if you called 0800 866 374 (11.30am – 7.30pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays) by 2nd August they’d offer you something to make you stay…

I thought that sounded alright.

Yours faithfully,

Jeremy Wells

Well, I thought that this act of solidarity and sincerity deserved a response. Unfortunately, I don’t have Jeremy’s address. So I hope he – and you – won’t mind if I publish my response here on this blog. Here goes:

Dear Jeremy

Hayden Vink

Ah, that quintessential conversation starter: “So, what do you do?”

I dread it. Here’s why: the ideal response is a succinct (i.e. couple of words or less) summary of what you do that the other person will understand, and that clearly describes what you do.

“I’m a doctor” passes that test. So does “I’m a teacher”. And – god bless MasterChef – so does “I’m a chef”. And/or “I’m a television celebrity”.

“I’m an ideas man” does not. Nor does “I turn dreams into reality”. Yes, I met someone who said this. Responses like this will generally cause most people to think you’re a bit of a dick.

You can sometimes get away with saying that you work in a particular industry – i.e. “I’m in I.T.”. Oddly, that particular example seems to satisfy most non-I.T. people. But if the person is genuinely interested in you or – worse – is actually in that industry, you will invariably be asked to be more specific.

Made-up job titles like “Pusher” (sorry Mark) are unfortunately not much better – at best, they’re like an ‘in-joke’ that only a few will be prepared to hear.

But what if what you do can’t easily or clearly be summarised in a few (acceptable) words?

Here’s what I do: I’m a director of three companies, and on the boards of two non-profit organisations. The companies and the organisations are not particularly large entities which means, in typical Kiwi fashion, that I get pulled into all aspects of running them. I manage finances (thanks Xero), including payroll (thanks SmartPayroll). I manage staff, and interview prospective new employees. I advise on everything from long-term vision and direction through to whether we should put money into that term investment or the other one. Lately, I’ve spent a fair few hours looking into the dubious activities of an ex-committee member. That person is now facing police charges, so I’ve become reasonably familiar with various new legal terms and processes. I’m preparing myself for any media scrutiny that may come. I hope it doesn’t. And then there’s the actual work I do. Which is mostly in the online space (from strategy and user research through to development) but frequently also includes brand strategy and communications. Recently, I’ve learnt a lot about bananas, banks, electricity, tax, and telecommunications and wine. I also know a thing or two about manufacturing plastic cups and other items. I’m looking forward to visiting an organic cotton factory in India in December.

See my dilemma?!

The thing is, I don’t think this is a particularly unique situation – and a quick scan of my Twitter friends list seems to validate this. As a nation, I think we Kiwis have always tended to be jacks of many trades. But, in this age of Google/hosted apps/Twitter/iPhone, it feels like many of us are wearing more hats than ever before.

All of which can make for an awkward start to a real conversation. And infrequent blog posts.

If you’re reading this, chances are you know exactly what I’m talking about.

So, what do you do?

I just spent the past hour catching up on a few RSS feeds. Of the 800+ items I skimmed through (does anyone really read anything these days?!), Dan Saffer’s post on Design, Art and Advertising caught my eye.

In it, Dan asserts that:

“. . there is a crucial difference between design and advertising, and it is the same difference as between art and design, and that is intent.”

He goes on to say:

“At its core, however, advertising is about two things: making consumers aware of a product, and convincing them to purchase/use said product. It is about about what can be gotten from the consumer, using their wants and needs to make a product desirable . .

Design, however, is about what can be done for the user. It is a service, really. How can I make this person’s life easier, more efficient, better? Advertising promises this, design has to deliver on it. The reason for doing design is different than the reason for doing advertising. Design doesn’t just use customer needs for gain (although profit is assuredly a by-product of doing design well), but tries to address them for the user’s benefit.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And yet, the most puzzling thing to me – as someone who works in the design business – is why so many companies continue to put advertising at the centre of their businesses. They are happy to spend fortunes on ‘promises’, but under-invest in the products that are their users’ reality. It staggers me that so many people (particularly senior management) seem to believe that long-term brand equity is built through promise rather than product/service (and customers’ experiences with these things).

I recall a conference in Wellington a few years back where, after a suspiciously endearing presentation about SISOMO and the future of advertising by Saatchi & Saatchi’s NZ CEO Andrew Stone, Sam Morgan took the stage and boldly stated that TradeMe didn’t believe in advertising. There was much cheering from the crowd. And yet, fast-forward a few years and advertising still gets the lions’ share of corporate spend compared to design.

Why?

• Is it because our universities teach our business people how to market rather than how to make?
• Is it because we humans find it easier to focus on the short-term (Mmm – tasty burger!) than the long-term (Sheesh – look at my gut!)?
  (And am I right to associate advertising with the former?!)

Well – what do you think?

Disclaimer: Mad Men is one of my favourite TV shows.

On the eve of this weekend’s UX Barcamp, I thought I’d share a few thoughts I have about the future of ‘usability’ – or perhaps more specifically, the future of the ‘usability practitioner’.

For the best part of a decade, I’ve been involved in New Zealand’s ‘usability’ community. I still recall enjoying a beer with Sam and Trent a few days before they set up their successful usability consultancy, Optimal Usability. They were true pioneers, bravely knocking on doors and convincing people to give this ‘usability’ thing a go. And their hard slog paid off – their client list is an impressive who’s who of New Zealand businesses with significant online presences. It’s hard to meet anyone in the industry who hasn’t worked with them, or know someone who has. They deserve most of the credit for putting ‘usability’ on the New Zealand map.

Shift is another stalwart – one of New Zealand’s most established specialist ‘online’ agencies. Various friends and colleagues have spent some of their careers at Shift, and they have often reflected positively on Shift’s early integration of usability practitioners into its team.

There are many other people I could mention; all of whom have been instrumental in establishing and growing New Zealand’s usability community and, perhaps more importantly, the demand for usability services.

The barcamp’s attendee list is a pretty good list of the key people and companies who make up the New Zealand usability community today.

For my sins, I set up a small consulting company called Hansel in 2001. Over the years, we did our share of usability projects, but we soon came to realise that (good) usability was just one part of a greater whole . . and that companies actually wanted the ‘whole’: good product, service and/or business itself. A little book called “The Inmates Are Running The Asylum” was the catalyst for adopting the philosophy and practice of Goal-Directed Design™, and Hansel became known for its expertise in interaction design.

Hansel merged with DNA in May 2007, and since that time it has been a privilege to work with Gren, Ben, Darryl and the team to inculcate ‘usability’ and user-centred design into DNA’s process and upskill our designers. I’m proud of our capabilities in the area of digital product design, and the amazing projects we’ve delivered of late.

My background and experience have led me to the following conclusions:

• Usability testing is a way to gather insights about the quality of the experience someone has with something. It is not a substitute for proper planning and up-front research (users, domain etc.). It is also not user-centred design in and of itself.
• Experiences are the results of people interacting with ‘things’ (and other people). You can only really ‘design’ the experience by designing the thing/s people interact with.
• Usability is not design; it is an attribute of design. Generally, if something has poor usability, it is a bad design. In my experience, talking about ‘design’ rather than simply ‘usability’ problems is better because (1) it suggests that more and/or the right people need to be engaged to solve the problems; and (2) it reminds everyone to adopt a more holistic view. Jared Spool’s 2006 blog post about this was – in my opinion – spot on.
• There is usually a vast chasm between discovering a usability problem (e.g. “overall, most users failed to achieve task x”) and coming up with a design solution that will solve this problem without causing others. This chasm is usually wider and harder to bridge if the person who discovered the problem was not part of designing the solution from the outset, and/or won’t be responsible for designing the solution moving forward.
• The term ‘UX designer’ seems to have been borne out of a desire for usability practitioners to say they are doing more than just usability testing, but not wanting to say they are designers in the traditional (user interface, visual etc.) sense. The problem here is that many ‘UX designers’ are not so good at the other aspects of design (beyond mere usability and IA), yet they often take the lead role in shaping the solution.
• In so far as we want to distinguish between someone who designs furniture from someone who designs digital products (although the chasm between these two disciplines is getting increasingly narrower ), I am comfortable with terms like “digital product designer”, “user interface designer”, or simply “online designer”. But for simplicity’s sake, I’m just going to refer to “designer” for the remainder of this post.
• Designers – not usability practitioners – are the future. By designers, I mean people who can completely ‘design’ a digital product; from research to framework/information architecture/concept to launch. This means that usability practitioners had better get good at ‘design’ (well, all of the other aspects of it including such ‘trivial’ things as colour and typography) or designers better get good at ‘usability’. From experience, the latter is a much easier transition, with greater likelihood of producing a great practitioner you’d want to have on your team.
• There may be a role for ‘specialist’ usability practitioners in large teams, to complement the core design team (facilitating usability tests etc.) but large teams are not the norm in New Zealand and many other places around the world.

I look forward to discussing these conclusions with barcamp attendees this weekend and, of course, on this blog. What do you think about the future of ‘usability’?

There was an interesting article in the Herald on Saturday:

• Banks: your new best friend

Apparently, there has been as been a loss of customer trust in the big banks. In order to win it back, the big banks are engaged in do-good programmes to get more involved in the community, and remind people of their ‘kiwi’-ness.

I have no problem with banks getting out there and doing good – hell, I was heavily involved in one such programme myself.

But ultimately, I think banks are going to have to do a whole lot more than this to keep their customers long-term.

You see, I don’t want a new best friend. And – dare I admit it – I don’t want a ‘kiwi’ bank either. I want a better bank.

But is this a big ask? How can banks be better than they already are? And how would you know the best bank if you saw it?

There frankly isn’t a lot of differentiation at a core service level. All of the big banks offer the following:

• Transaction accounts – my pay goes in, my money goes out
• Savings accounts – I put money in, and earn some interest
• Credit cards – I use the bank’s money to pay for things now, and have up to 55 days to pay it back before I start getting charged interest
• Term deposits – I put money in, and you the bank offers me a slightly better interest rate than a normal savings account if I agree not to withdraw it for a certain period
• Personal loans – I borrow a certain amount of money and pay it back with interest over an agreed period
• Home loans – like a personal loan, only involving a big asset, more money and more interest over a longer period of time

A transaction account at Kiwibank is no different from a transaction account at BNZ other than the fees I pay to move money in and out, and for having the account.

Contrary to what its ads say, I don’t think Kiwibank is successful simply because it is a ‘NZ’ bank. It is successful because it is straight-up, cheap (low fees) and convenient (located in every Post Shop, and open whenever Post shops were – as opposed to when banks traditionally were). If you want simple, convenient and value-for-money banking, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better bank than Kiwibank – and they’ve won awards four years running to prove it.

I wager that the main reason more people aren’t switching to Kiwibank is because they have home loans at other banks. If break fees weren’t so high, it would be interesting indeed to see how many people remained loyal to their current bank.

So . . back to the question at hand: “How can banks be better?”

I think the lessons found at the end of Lance Wiggs’ recent post on Trade & Exchange’s demise, and in Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae book lead the way to some of the big answers:

• Redefine what it means to be ‘a bank’
• Deliver a more personal level of service
  (extra challenge: with fewer actual people to deliver it)

I plan to explore these answers in more detail over the next few posts. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’m keen to hear from you: If you were a big bank CEO for a day, what would you do?

(Disclosure: BNZ is one of my clients at DNA. I am a customer of BNZ, Kiwibank, BankDirect and ASB.)