Marketing is deadLong live UX!

Dawn EllisNeil Allison

CIM Higher Ed Market Interest Group Conference 21 March 2013

Twitter: #hemig6 #ux

Welcome

Dawn EllisDirector

@DawnEllis

Neil AllisonUX Manager@usabilityed

University Website ProgrammeThe University of Edinburgh

www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme

Overview

• Context and background– Our philosophy

• Intro to user experience (UX)– Personas

• Case studies

• Conclusions and questions

ProfileInfluential Alumni and Staff:

Charles Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Clerk Maxwell, Alexander Graham Bell, James Simpson, Adam Smith, Walter Scott, David Hume, Ian Wilmut, J K Rowling, Stella Rimmington, Peter Higgs, Katherine Grainger, Chris Hoy…

Founded:

1583Global Ranking:

Top 30

2002 – 2012 Growth

Students:

21,438 30,423

The University website

• 250,000 web pages– 45,000 published with central CMS– Around 600 supported CMS users

• 5 million unique external visitors in 2012– To the 45,000 pages we monitor

• Diverse range of audiences– Demand for content in cycles

Operational fit

• 2006: Established as a project– To “Roll out the CMS”

• 2008: Embedded as a programme– Managing the CMS– Focus on web publishers’ skills

• 2012: Website & process enhancement– User experience, analytics & website appraisal– CMS review, focus on web publisher experience

University objectives

• Attract the best students

• Improve conversion rates

• Enhance the student experience

• Increase revenues for the University

Reality of University web publishing

• Devolved & probably always will be

• Significant skills gap– IA planning, web writing & comms, usability

• Very little time available for web management– Even less for local strategy & coordination

Reality of website user behaviour

• They scan, they don’t read

• They’re task driven

• They want quick answers

• They don’t care about what you care about

Our philosophy, where we’re heading

• It’s about process not project

• People and collaboration first

• Technology is a cog, not the steering wheel

Intro to UX

What is UX?

What is UX?• UX = User eXperience

– Or CX – Customer eXperience– Should we be talking SX?

• It’s the sum of all experiences a customer has with a business

• “A star to sail your ship by” – Jesse James Garrett

• “A flag in the sand on the horizon” – Jared Spool

Advertising and UX

“Advertising is about getting the customer to love the company.

UX is about getting the company to love the customer.”

Whitney Hess

Usability and UX – a scenario“The customer, looking for a new digital camera, goes to the large electronic retailer’s website. She quickly finds the camera she wants, puts it in the cart, and without incident, pays for it using the option to pick it up at the store that same day. Quick, easy — she is pleased and excited to receive her camera.

When she arrives at the store, she initially doesn’t know where to go, as no visual clues present themselves. After a ten-minute wait at the customer service desk, she’s told she’s in the wrong place and needs to find another desk, this one labelled “Online Receiving”. Once she finds that desk, the clerk, who obviously can’t wait for his shift to end, sighs and says the camera she’s purchased is out of stock. She can buy a different camera at this point, but to receive a credit for her original online purchase, she needs to call an 0800 number. She ends up leaving the store without a camera and a charge on her credit card she needs to resolve.”

Jared Spool

Website usability

User experience

Usability, UX & Brand

Intro to UX

Why does UX matter?

Marketing has changed

In the golden age of mass communication

Image = Reality

In the new fragmented, aggregated age:

Reality = Reality

Foolproof.co.uk

Roles are reversed

"The customer is now the advertiser. When they search they are placing an ad.

Traditional marketing is about getting attention, while web marketing

is about giving it.“

Gerry McGovern

Google’s philosophy

From “10 things we know to be true”bit.ly/google-10things

“1. Focus on the user and all else will follow”

Econsultancy.com

• But what does this mean in the Higher Education environment?• Applications? Conversions? Repeat study? Brand perception?

Why should UX matter to you?

• A strong marketing campaign for a product with poor UX can ultimately be damaging

• If the aim of marketing is to create a customer then the aim of UX is to create a happy customer

Intro to UX

Communicating UX

3 steps to an effective UX vision

• Step 1: Focus on Research – Must be grounded in reality

• Step 2: Focus on Experience – Express for the user, not the product

• Step 3: Share the Vision – Everyone needs to share and buy into it

Jared Spoolwww.uie.com

Personas – essential in the UX toolkit

• A stand-in for real users – Representing the needs of user groups

• Identifying the user motivations, expectations and goals that drive online behaviour

• Based on knowledge of real users

• Helping us keep the user experience at the forefront as website content, features & services develop

But what are the

benefits?

How personas can help

• Personas bring focus

• Personas build empathy

• Personas encourage consensus

• Personas bring efficiencies

The User Is Always Right by Steve Mulder

Personas are not market segments

• Segmentation identifies and measures the size of different groups at a high-level

• Personas provide understanding of the user context– Needs, motivations, behaviour &

associated design challenges (or opportunities)

• Market segmentation provides valuable input into the persona generation process

How to share a UX vision

• Tell a story

• Draw a picture

• Create a video

Tell a story

• Easiest to do

• Easy to collaborate on

• Storytelling is an ancient and universal activity

UX narrative: University of EdinburghUX cartoon: David Travis, Userfocus.co.uk

Mood-time graphs

• Because everything doesn’t happen at once

• We can lose and gain user goodwill along the way

• Prioritise the biggest pain points

cxpartners.com

uxmatters.com

Some user journeys are complex…

Graphic: bit.ly/adaptive-path-journey

• …involving multiple channels and iterative decision making

• UX consultants Nomensa recently reported on the undergraduate applicant experiencebit.ly/nomensa-ug-ux-report

Video

http://youtu.be/ByuFqQBPn8c

Intro to UX

Measuring UX

How can I measure UX?

• It depends on what you’re looking to find

• There is no silver bullet– No single tool or approach can do everything

• Analytics + enquiry monitoring + market research + user research

= Greater than the sum of their parts

• Build the means to calculate ROI into your metrics

How many blind men are there round your elephant?

Regular reporting is key

Define user groups

Agree business requirements

Establish user needs

Prioritise needs & requirements

Implement changes

Evaluate changes

Business requirements

User needs Agreed priorities

Rating

Prospective postgraduate (taught)

1. Check entry requirments

2. Check fees3. Get in touch4. Make strong

application

1. Course structure

2. Career opps3. Funding opps4. Fees5. Apply

1. Entry req’ts2. Fees &

funding3. Structure4. Contact5. Careers

BC+

FCA

Based on the work of Lou Rosenfeld: bit.ly/rosenfeld-redesign

From prioritisation…

To a report card:

Case study

Enhancing the prospective postgraduate experience

Our aims

• Identify trends in prospective student behaviour

• Monitor behaviour & introduce metrics

• Measurably enhance the UX

• Communicate the UX

• Collaborate with academics & administrators stakeholders throughout– Hand over for ongoing enhancement

What we did

1. Generated personas with stakeholders– 3 programme areas

2. Agreed ideal UX for each persona

3. User testing role playing the personas

4. Website analytics & offline data review– To check user testing findings

5. Website & process enhancements

The student personas

• All 3 colleges

• International & UK

• Distance learners& on-campus

• Full & part time

Findings & trends

• All programmes broadly wanted the same things from their personas

• Personas represented a range of focus based on recruitment & enquiry management priorities:– Strong candidates– Non-standard applicants– Weak candidates

• Same issues observed across all studies– Participant frustrations with generic high-level content

and looping journeys – Programme aspirations for UX some way from findings

UX pain points

• Multiple contact points– Additional issues for research applicants

• Some essential central information caused difficulties & dissatisfaction

• Profile & ranking content unconvincing– “It’s easy to say you’re great…”

Next steps

• Full review of enhancements– Anecdotal results so far excellent– Unnecessary queries down– Quality applicants up

• Further website & process tweaks based on follow up research findings

• Hand over ongoing process to programmes

• Case study & promotion of methodology

Our challenges

• Organisational politics & silos– Our users don’t care about these

• Devolved website management– Easy to lose perspective

• Available time and expertise– Ongoing support & promotion needed

CMS UX

A final thought

Process is vital

• In website development projects, the content and the journey is often an afterthought

• These critical elements are left to the non-specialists who have no time

• We need to stop managing web projects like print projects

So what do we do?

• Optimising the CMS UX encourages:– Better content– More active management– Fresher content

• Saving CMS users time frees them up for other activities :– Audience engagement– Social media mgt– Conversion activity

• Think beyond the initial website delivery

Conclusions• UX is your brand

– You’re being talked about, word-of-mouth has a long reach

• In a world of limited resource and non-specialism, it’s about sustainable process & iterative improvement

• Marketing is social, so it’s in the hands of front-of-house colleagues

• Break out of the boom-and-bust cycle– A new design doesn’t (necessarily) solve anything

• Marketing still important, but now there are more pieces in a bigger jigsaw

Thank you

Questions?Twitter: #hemig6 #ux

Dawn.Ellis@ed.ac.uk @DawnEllisNeil.Allison@ed.ac.uk @usabilityed

www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme