dek's blog

There’s been an explosion of location-based services lately, with even Facebook hopping in on the action, and frankly, I’m underwhelmed.
Before I go on though, I should make something clear. I don’t have one of them fancy new-age phones – I use a Nokia 6500-s. I have data on it, but no apps, so my opinion of location-based services is coloured by using their WAP sites.

Most of these services are focused on broadcasting where you are, listening in on friends’ broadcasts and simple gaming (check in, collect a badge, trade virtual goods etc). I feel that this gets boring really quickly. After the initial rush of unlocking badges and becoming the mayor of places on Foursquare, I became completely apathetic towards it. Getting a badge these days makes me go ‘Meh…’ and the only mayorship I really want is that of Red Rock Coffee or of a friend’s house. (cos let’s face it, that’s hilarious. :P) Oh, and don’t even get me started on FB Places. I checked in there once and lost all motivation to click through again.

What I’d really like is more practical use out of these services. Some ideas:

Location-based recommendation (idea A):
When I check in somewhere, show me what’s available around me, not just which of my friends are around me. Would be very valuable when I’m travelling or in an unfamiliar area. The tools I use to do this right now are either crowd-sourcing via Twitter or browsing Google Maps.

Location-based recommendation (idea B):
Keep track of the types of places I check in to and recommend similar places when I change my location. For example, I check in a lot at cafés around Mountain View and Palo Alto. When I’m in San Francisco, give me café recommendations! My check ins are a valuable insight into my preferences and habits. Use it to keep me interested and informed.

Event planning functionality:
My location doesn’t only exist in the now. It has a past and a future. An event isn’t only about when it is. It is also about where it is. Merge these aspects and allow me to plan or schedule in my location-based service. This is what we have to do now – event discovery -> rsvp on a service like Eventbrite -> add to calendar -> get reminders via email -> check calendar/event site for address -> attend event -> check in. Why not bring parts of the whole process together? I’m thinking Plancast infused into Foursquare.

Discovery:
Slightly related to the first idea listed above. As far as I can tell, the only way to find new locations is to browse where your friends have been or to check out the newly-crowned mayors list. If I am in City A why not show me a list of places with the most check ins, with the most tips, with the highest mayorship turn over…. You’ve got all this information, why not lemme at it?!

Location-based irl social networking:
Facilitate irl connections between people who have checked in at the same location. Guess what? I’ve done this by simply searching for a location on Twitter. People tweet that they’re where I am, and sometimes I reach out with an @ reply, and we connect irl. Or allow businesses to connect with people who check-in regularly. This already happens irl (with attentive businesses) and via Twitter. Once again, this information is out there. Just make it easy for us to use it.

I have a few more ideas which need to be fleshed out more, so I’ll leave it at that. Also, most of these aspects could be monetised. I’m running out of time – it’s time to check out of Red Rock – so might leave that for another day.

Happened to land on a group’s page today and decided I wasn’t interested in their endless updates and I wanted out. After I finally found the path to ‘adios amigos’ (fyi – it’s a tiny link under the left side bar) and clicked on it, I got this:

Notice how it changes from ‘Leave Group’ at the start of the path to ‘Remove’ in order confirm that’s the action you want to complete. It made me pause. It made me stop and think “Hang on, I thought I was leaving the group. What am I removing??”

Once again, it’s small stuff. But it interrupts my flow. Don’t do it. Unless Facebook is doing it on purpose, to make me stop and think, maybe change my mind in the process…. Hmmmm…

So, Hot Tip: Keep your terminologies consistent throughout your app please.

Disclaimer: In case my bro sees this post and gets the wrong impression – the group used in the screenshot, Plato’s Cave, his venture which I totally and fully support, wasn’t the one I was leaving. That screenshot was taken purely for demonstrative purposes. 😉

Some of the most common issues I come across on the web are the most annoying to me as a user yet hard to keep track of as a producer. These are what I refer to as the small stuff. The stuff that isn’t primary functionality, and easy to overlook in testing. The stuff that you as a regular visitor to your site might never encounter.

Example 1 – Dead ends:

I was trying to sign up to Anno Books, and I used a plus-address in the e-mail field. Of course, they had a ‘Verify your e-mail address’ step which I forgot to anticipate. (For the record – END THE SIGN UP VERIFICATION MADNESS!) They sent me the verification link, I clicked on it, and I arrived at this:

Few issues:

• ‘Oops we seem to have a problem’ isn’t helpful. Was it my fault or yours? Do I need to do something to correct it, do I have to just wait for you to fix stuff? Web makers, please make your error messages as informative (and obvious to the eye) as possible.
• This page is a DEAD END. What do I do now? Where do I go?? Think about it. Somehow I got to your page, was convinced to sign up, went through the sign up and verification process – and now I’m stuck. I invested time and effort, and this blank page is the difference between whether I ever come back and visit you or if I move on and never look back.

The fix: As much as possible, inform the user about what went wrong. If there’s something they can do to fix it, let em know. If it isn’t something they can action, give them a path out of the situation. A link to contact support, a link to check an FAQ, a link to your blog, where you put up downtime notices… something, anything!

Example 2 – WTF moments:

I added a secondary e-mail address to my Paypal account, and clicked on the verification link (in this case, verification = good) This is where that took me:

The issue:
My brain goes – EGADS!! What have I done?!?!?! – and alarm bells start ringing. It tells me I have activated my ACCOUNT, linked a credit card AND to proceed I have to link my bank details. Really, W T F?? I actually did think I did something to create a new account, which of course, was not what I was trying to do. And the call to action, the big yellow ‘Continue’ button would mean having to give more information I didn’t want to. My eyes didn’t even register the little ‘Go to my Account’ link on the bottom of the page.

The fix: Don’t FREAK ME OUT YO!! Make sure your links lead to the relevant pages. I’m sure that account created page works well for newly created accounts, but in this case, I should’ve been taken to a page that simply said ‘Email verified, Go to Account’.

The ‘high level’ fix:
The thing is, as producers, these things are easy to miss. When I first started at Tangler, I usually only found out about these when our members told us about it. That’s a great first step – listen to your people. If there’s a small issue, fix it, and this is key – add a test for it in your testing process. That ensures that any subsequent annoyances will be picked up.

The other thing I learnt to do as a product person was to take some time out and focus on the small stuff. I’d go into the system and sign up, change details, break things on purpose etc, just to see where an error led, if we could do anything to improve the landing page, or if indeed we had a dead end in a sequence. It became a fun past time, something I’d do between big releases to unwind. Doing this became key when we released TanglerLive. We all know it’s crazy times going live with a brand new product, and the small stuff is often forgotten amidst the madness. But that’s ok. No one expects you to get it right at first go. Just keep your eye on the small stuff as you go.

I found this waiting for me in my inbox this morning:

Seriously, how cute is that?! First it made me laugh, then I read it again and went Awwwwwww. And now I’m sharing it. Compare this to most ‘come back’ emails which I open and barely read past the subject line. This not only got my full attention, it compels me to go back to hollrr.com and use it again.

So yes hollrr, I guess your flirting did get you somewhere… see ya back at the web app! 😉

I was at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane a couple of months ago with the primary aim of seeing Ron Mueck’s works on display. Before we hit the Mueck exhibition, we walked around the main gallery, where there were an assortment of works on display, from old furniture to paintings from all genres. As I went through I couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied, and I sent this out:

My beef isn’t just with galleries. I dislike museums, zoos, exhibitions – anything where one is expected to just walk through a space and observe an artefact. Look and move on.

I want to experience these objects. Personally, the sense I struggle to control the most is touch. I practically have to restrain my hands in order to curb the urge to feel the texture of a carved wooden chair, or the feel of an oil painting. (Don’t tell anyone, but some times I touch the edges of a painting’s frame just to somehow connect with a work)

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I’m well aware of the preservation issues facing curators. But as I thought about it, I realised that we can extend the ‘observe’ model to traditional media – print, broadcast, film. All of a sudden the ~insert country of choice~ Idol phenomenon made complete sense. It allowed the audience to break the ‘sit and observe’ model and actively participate in the program. The more one votes, the more one feels they have a say in the outcome of a series. That the creators of the show recognised and monetised that is just genius. (I will now reduce my scorn towards reality shows like Idol)

This is where social media’s real ace is. It allows us to experience events, instead of just being observers. Q&A is a great example of that. The panel and the things they say usually annoy me, yet I watch it because there is very engaging discussion around it on Twitter. The same thing happened with other tv shows, like Iron Chef, sports events, and even events unfolding (I will NEVER forget the day we waited for Pres Obama to be declared the winner. Nor the day the Mumbai attacks were in progress.)

This is what I’m now gonna say to people who question my use of social media, or who tell me they don’t get it – I ceased to be an observer through social media. Involvement leads to engagement and all of it lends to an experience. It is what I’m gonna say to businesses that ask me why they should bother with social media. The Old Spice campaign was a great example of engagement on a large scale, but I do believe every business can apply the ‘experience’ model on a small, everyday scale.

So, back to the spaces I started off this discussion with. Dear museums, zoos, galleries, ya know how you have programs for kids where they get to be hands on and have fun? I want that. For adults aren’t all that different from kids. Have a Picasso on display? Have a spot where I can have a go at painting in his style. I would treasure that experience, link the memory to your display, and certainly return for more.