This resonates. Fluid’s philosophy on designing customer experience is that sometimes it’s good to go outside.

When you do, stop by REI’s Seattle flagship store in Seattle. A 3-story high climbing wall dominates the entry. There’s a rain room, a bike trail, a hiking boot test course, and a JanSport play treehouse swarming with marauding children. The interior design and finish details are rustic and rough-hewn, evoking a carefully architected outdoors experience.

Virgin Megastore in Hollywood has 100+ interactive kiosks that offer as much entertainment value as they do access to inventory. And it’s a great place to see bands. And, of course, there’s always Apple. You get the idea.

The point: these elements of the in-store experience are not about thrusting product at the consumer at every opportunity.

Rather, the objective is to create an “emotional moment” with the customer — immersive, uniquely branded and entertaining. Experiences designed to meaningfully connect with the customer. And, by doing so, foster a deeper relationship with the brand, a gratifying experience, and eventually more sales.

Most online retail sites aren’t especially fun. They are usable, clean and bright. Super functional, searchable, and safe. But compared with real-world shopping, they are sterile. Today’s e-commerce sites are like retail spaces 25 years ago: white boxes, bad lighting, uninspired fixtures. Products are well organized and findable but there’s not much retail therapy happening.

The evolution of the in-store experience will absolutely be echoed in the digital realm in one form or another and then taken further than it can be in the physical world. It is inevitable. The online store will soon be the ultimate “full price” flagship, a store experience fueled by interactivity and media, free from the constraints of square footage and physics.

Proof points: Fluid’s recent launches for Vera Wang Princess and Craftsman Customizable Tool Storage

Whether or not brands are ready to embrace this point of view, consumers are demanding it.

My initial goal was to research and write a blog on sneakers, the sneaker culture, and what drives a ‘sneakerhead’ to seek the most limited/hard to get/wait-in-line-for-2 days type sneakers. But as I set out on my task to contribute to the Fluid blog, I stumbled onto the site miadidas.com. I say ‘stumbled’ because I have not heard or seen much about this site. I knew about NikeID, YourReebok(formerly known as RBKCustom), and the newly updated Vans Custom site among others, but was surprised and somewhat disappointed about just discovering the custom site for Adidas shoes. I’ve seen the in-store experience at the Adidas store in San Francisco, but was not aware it was migrated to the web – or at least a version of it.

With that said, I decided to focus my attention to the site and give my personal review.

OVERVIEW

“In 2008, adidas Originals successfully introduced its in-store customization tool, mi Originals.  Now, mi Originals is taking steps to broaden its product offering for the streetwear community with the US launch of miadidas.com.”

The site launched in February 2009 with the Superstar, ZX 700, Stan Smith, and Gazelle. Since then it has added the Stan Smith CF and Forum Lo to the Originals line along with a ‘Sport’ line which offers 13 different types of models catering to Basketball, Soccer, Running or Tennis. Prices range from $95(Gazelle) to $240(Predator Power Serve – soccer shoe), which is about 20% or so above the retail price of its inline version.

HOMEPAGE

The home page displays three models for each line – Originals and Sports – located at the bottom of the page. Clicking on any of the shoes brings up a nice hero shot and some quick blurb of its history (Originals) or quote by an ‘athlete’ (Sports). There is navigation at the top which filters the products either by Gender (Men / Women) or Line (Sports / Originals) or by All Products. There are also links to Help, an E-newsletter, a Store Finder (which I wasn’t sure why since this is about making/buying custom shoes and not inline) as well as a My Account page.

Still on the homepage, I did notice some inconsistency with how you were able to start customizing. If you click on any of the ‘Sport’ shoes, the hero shot includes a link to start customizing, but the hero shots of the Originals do not include this link.*

*Update – This has now changed from my initial review. There are now links to ‘Start Customizing’ for both Sports and Original.

If you decide to see all products, you will be taken to another page that has Sport and Originals separated into two columns populated with various shoe inspirations – about two or so for each model. A ‘Details’ link beside each custom shoe will take you to a page specifically for that model providing description, three different shoe views, and additional inspirations for that particular shoe.

At this point, I was ready to start customizing. I simply clicked on the ‘Customize’ button which is visible at various areas on the page. I decided to go with the Superstar II for various reasons – nostalgia, love for the ‘shell-toe’, love for RunDMC, or love for the 80s – not sure, but I digress.

GETTING STARTED

The main customization area is one screen separated into three vertical sections. The left side is split into four panes – Side, Top, Bottom and Personalize. The middle section is the information or selection area. This is where you select your size, gender, colors and materials for the different parts of the shoe. The right side has an image of the shoe being customized which updates as various selections are made. The shoe is a 3D model image powered by Holomatix Blaze3D, or so it says when I right-click on that area.

You are able to rotate the shoe 360 degrees by dragging your mouse in a specific direction. There are also links at the bottom which allow you to change Background (white or black), change views (Top, Bottom, or Side) and Zoom (you can rotate while in Zoom mode which is pretty cool).

Once you’ve selected your size/gender, the left panel becomes ‘available’. It starts grayed out until you select size/gender. Before I dive in, I want to spend a few moments to talk about the Size selection. You are asked to select a Gender, Size as well as Width. With the Originals, the Width is usually always ‘Medium’. With the Sport shoes, you are able to choose a specific size and width settings (Narrow, Medium and Wide) for both the left and right foot. As the site says:

“Every foot is different. Even your own two feet are not alike. So instead of making your feet fit into some average shoes, why not make the shoes fit your feet?”

Believe it or not, there are some people that have this need. Both the left and right foot can finally be happy together.

Brilliant.

CUSTOMIZING

So back to my Superstar customizing – I start with the ‘Side’ which opens up another panel with various side images of the shoe, each image having a certain piece highlighted to represent what will be customized. I’m asked if I would like perforation on the shoe or a print. But ‘print color is not available if you select no print or perforation’. This type of messaging is everywhere to the point of annoying confusion. I decide to go with the ‘classic trefoil’ as my print and proceed to select a print color before I am presented with another error message.

“The combination of print (color bloom) and lateral rear quarter (color bloom) is not allowed. Please change on the above options and try again.”

So if I wanted to have my print to be the ‘color bloom’ I would need to go to the next step and change the color of the ‘lateral rear quarter’ to something other than bloom. And if I decide to change the lateral rear quarter material from leather to suede, I get another message telling me I have attempted something that is not allowed. I think this would have been better represented in one main pane giving the user the visibility as to what is/is not available based on their selections. If I select a print, I see that only certain colors/materials become available. I totally understand the need for rules surrounding colors/materials/patters but I think it could have been better presented to the user. And if it wasn’t for the visual, would the average person really know what a lateral rear quarter was?

I continue through the rest of the shoe – Top and Bottom – encountering the same ‘messages’ as I continue to customize my work of art. I keep on pushing forward not letting the bombardment of ‘try again’ messages deter me from completing my masterpiece.

PERSONALIZE

Now that I am pretty much satisfied with my color/material layout, it’s time to personalize. The Personalize area allows you to select a lace jewel and/or personalize your shoe with embroidery. The lace jewel gives you two options: birth date of your shoe or trefoil. The birth date is a pretty cool idea especially if the date is significant in some manner.

Adding text personalization to the shoe is pretty standard and has the same type of ‘profanity check’ present on similar sites. Although, in Seth Rogan fashion (see Tonight Show appearance late 2008), I was able to find some phrases/words that did not make the cut. Insert evil laugh here.

The Personalize area differs based on shoe. For example, the Stan Smith CF allows you to personalize the top and middle strap of the shoe. You can also add a ‘city print’ to the shoe (i.e. “I ‘trefoil’ Amsterdam”) with about 14 cities on the list – sadly no San Francisco.

The TS Bounce Commander (basketball shoe) even allows you to have a player quote and autograph on the underside of its lace cover. The athletes are obviously limited to those sponsored by Adidas, but very cool nonetheless. There are more cool personalization options based on shoe that I will not detail out here, but definitely good to see Adidas expanding this area of customization.

SAVE / SHARE

If you aren’t ready to purchase, you can Save your work to your ‘My Account’ page. You’ll be prompted to sign in(if you aren’t already) or register for an account to save your shoe in progress.

My Account list is almost a closet of sorts, displaying all the shoes you’ve saved.  It’s a very clean, but plain interface.  From this page, you can Add to Cart, Edit, and Send to a Friend among others.

The Share functionality is pretty limited. With Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Digg encompassing the social universe, none of these options were available. What makes it even more amusing is the fact that there is a miadidas Twitter page (@miadidas), but no way to access it from the actual site. The only Share option was via email, which works well. But there are times when I need to show my masterpiece to the world and get the thumbs up of approval. I would have thought a few ‘Share to Social Sites’ option would be available.

ADD TO CART / CHECKOUT

Pretty standard stuff here. You are presented with an image of the shoe you just customized along with the option to update/remove quantity, save to your account or re-edit by clicking on the shoe name.

Shipping is a flat rate of $12 regardless of how much you have in your cart with delivery estimate of about 3-4 weeks which is on par with other site.

SUMMARY

All in all, Adidas’ entry into the online customization world has gotten to an ok start. I could definitely see some improvements in the user follow as it relates to rules with colors/materials as well as addressing some of the consistency issues. But for the most part, the experience was good. But I’m not sure if most of the ‘good’ is based on the fact that I love Adidas originals and having the opportunity to customize them is pretty sweet.

I would love for them to expand the ‘Share’ feature considering how popular social sites are. They could start by tying in their Twitter page with the actual site.

I did like the use of 3D, which gives more flexibility when it comes to rotating and zooming. The personalization options were a definite plus along with the number of shoes available. They just didn’t go with their most popular lifestyle/sport shoes, but also offered sport focused shoes such as soccer cleats. I’ll definitely be getting the word out and will definitely be back to see what other creation I can conjure up and call my own or as RunDMC said, “My Adidas…”, or in this case mi adidas.

Pros

• Size/Width selection for both left and right shoe
• Shoe rotation and zoom capabilities
• Use of 3D modeling
• Personalization options
• Number of shoes available
• Pattern/material options
• Flat shipping rate

Cons

• User flow / shoe placement inconsistencies
• Presentation of rules for colors and materials
• Blank shoe can be easily accessed for Sport line but not Originals. Need to click ‘Start Over’ before presented with blank shoe option.* This has since changed.
• Sharing limited to Email only

References

——————

www.miadidas.com

http://www.press.adidas.com/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-4/79_read-10186/

Recently, Adobe asked Fluid to share our approach of rapid prototyping with the Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Dreamweaver developer’s community and we were both honored and excited to do so.

Our in depth article, “Rapid interactive prototyping with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using Fireworks and Dreamweaver CS4″, can be found on Adobe’s website here:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/fireworks/articles/rapid_interactive_prototyping.html

First and foremost, think about your web site as your “packaging,” and design accordingly—do not create a barrier to entry that separates customers from their end goal and hinders conversion.

When we reconsider the previously discussed factors of packaging design in this context, they align nicely with some familiar elements and ideas of good usability. We’ll review our packaging design principles in a new context below. As a case study, we’ll use the Rich and Skinny brand jeans site (http://www.richandskinnyjeans.com/RichAndSkinny/).

Design Principles, Revisited:

1.   Messaging: The messaging component of our “packaging” isn’t that different between the aspects of physical objects and designing for interaction online and beyond. The key difference, however, is that there is often more to say—and it’s easy to fall into a trap of veritable content-overload. The most effective sites often present one singular, captivating message. As a design guideline, I often ask myself, “What is this page saying?” And if the answer is, “Too much,” I reconsider the purpose and focus of the page and its message.

Case Study: On first look at the home page of Rich and Skinny Jeans, all of the components on the home page combine to deliver a successful and compelling brand message. The message of Rich and Skinny goes beyond simply selling jeans. They’re selling their lifestyle, and that message is clear, fun—and inviting.

2.   Presentation: Previously, I described presentation as the way in which messaging and content are formatted, stylized, and presented. When we consider an interactive experience, presentation becomes critical: going beyond visual design, successful information design presents new challenges. Designers should consider how the information hierarchy affects page scanning and overall readability to ensure that the message being presented is clearly communicated. The use of intuitive user interface elements will ensure that intended interactive behaviors can be easily anticipated and deliver the expected results.

Case Study: Rich and Skinny excels in delivering a completely immersive experience. The use of video and sound throughout the site, especially on the “catwalk” of the category page, reproduces the nuances of a personal, in-store shopping experience. All the elements combine to put the customer into the site, delivering presentation that goes beyond mere passive viewing.

3.  Structure: In our packaging discussion, we defined structure as the framework that supports and organizes the messaging and presentation. In our online world, structure speaks to the underlying site architecture and navigational systems that support site content and facilitate intuitive movement from one area of the site to the next.

Case Study: What’s great about Rich and Skinny is the navigational system. While the site architecture itself is fairly simple, the metaphorical system of the navigation continues to tell the story of the Rich and Skinny lifestyle. Customers select models in a dressing room, or “enter” rooms of the R&S house to delve deeper into the brand.

4.  Brand Artifacts: A product’s packaging may itself be a brand artifact, an object that is in itself compelling enough to notice, preserve, and collect—how many readers have saved your various iPod boxes? An interactive experience may provide tangible brand artifacts—a desktop wallpaper for downloading, a song of the week—or intangible ones, such as the lasting impression of the overall brand experience that causes you to return to the site or share the link with a friend. And these intangible effects are the most intriguing. As we design, we must actively think about the opportunity to create branded artifacts as we ask ourselves, what is the lasting effect that our customers take with them from this experience?

Case Study: The overall experience across the Rich and Skinny site creates a lasting impression that the customer takes with them after they leave. The story of the brand is so vivid and the shopping experience itself is so much fun that traditional ecommerce sites feel slightly disappointing after spending time on Rich and Skinny. R&S does carry its presence onto Facebook and Myspace (as additional artifacts), but it is the brand impression on the site itself that carries the most impact as an artifact of the experience.

We have reviewed several principles of packaging design and applied them to the practice of interactive design. It’s a slightly different approach to thinking about how we approach the design of a page, a web site, or an application. But, as we endeavor to think critically, we must move between physical space and virtual space in our design thinking. And in doing so, we utilize design principles that are essential to successful communication in any context or media.

We couldn’t get the package open.

Mom tried. I tried. No dice. Pliers were used. Even larger pliers were used. Finally, with a mighty tug, I yanked off the package’s lid—and in the process firmly socked myself in the eye.

So, what’s going on here? I wondered. This particular incident stayed with me because I remember how immediately I noticed the product’s packaging, and how it instantly made an impression on me. But I didn’t notice any obvious indicators of the inherent difficulty—or the black eye—that the packaging held in store.

What I did notice was that Oil of Olay stood out clearly on the store’s shelves. Amidst a sea of products, this new packaging was a success. An obvious “eye-catcher,” the clear material, bold, graphic colors, and sculptural design imparted feelings of a premium, luxury product, elite enough to appeal to older customers, edgy enough to attract younger customers. That’s pretty powerful stuff: if package design has the potential to assure and attract a wide age range as well as 1st- and Nth-time users, it has achieved success.

I reviewed Oil of Olay’s package design. In doing so, I identified four factors that are essential to successful packaging:

1.      Messaging: The content, point of view, and/or brand message to be presented.

2.      Presentation: How messaging and content are formatted, stylized, and presented.

3.      Structure: The framework that supports and organizes the messaging and presentation.

4.      Brand Artifacts: Any tangible or intangible brand impressions that last beyond the initial interaction with the packaging and product.

Put together, all four of these factors comprise the vehicle by which to deliver a product to its intended audience. Or, more simply put, that’s the box that my Oil of Olay stuff came in.

But it’s more than a box! This is the point of entry through which a customer will engage with a particular brand, experience their product, and ultimately decide whether to purchase and (hopefully) return to the brand again faithfully.

And herein lies my key complaint: Oil of Olay may have designed what appears to be successful packaging, but it is in fact a huge barrier to entry.

I may like what I see, but I literally can’t get at what I really want—and that’s the product lurking behind all this damn packaging! The method of presentation has created an obstruction that impedes the fulfillment of my original goal. And, in turn, what type of “brand artifact” does this experience create? What is my lasting impression of my experience with the brand? It’s not a positive one, I’m afraid: I’m left thinking, “I’ve had enough of this, let’s go check out the other brand at the end of the shelf.”

This physical experience easily translates into the online realm. The four factors that comprise the elements of packaging design also serve as key principles that must be considered when designing an interactive experience.

Tomorrow, we’ll present Part 2 of this article and discuss how the factors of good packaging design are translated into principles for interaction design…check back then!

The average person is bombarded with 500-3000 advertisements per day.  With so many ads surrounding us, it is not surprising that people to receive them with distrust and skepticism, “Of course an ad is only going to tell me what the company wants me to hear!

Traditional advertising, as done in the 1940s and 1950s, is more effective when there are only a limited number of brands from which to choose, but as Barry Schwartz wrote in The Paradox of Choice, this is far from the case today.  The industrial age has resulted in hundreds of brands, and social applications are a highly successful technology we use to help us efficiently sift through all of this information to find what is valuable and meaningful.

Amazon.com smartly solved this little problem and became enormously successful by utilizing customer reviews more than a decade ago. Joshua Porter (Bokardo.com) has written some insightful blog articles and dedicated a section of his book ‘Designing for the Social Web’ on what he calls, “The Amazon Effect:”

“Customer reviews allow people to learn about a product from the experience of others without any potentially biased seller information. No wonder everyone wanted to shop at Amazon.  They had information that no other site had: They had the truth.” – Joshua Porter, Designing for the Social Web

Online reviews provide customers with a source of information independent of the seller or manufacture.  There is more credibility in reading a review from someone who was not paid to promote a product.  But what if this person is nothing like me? How do I know if their review is one I can trust? Smart recommendation systems, such as the ‘Movies you’ll Love” tab on Netflix are designed as solutions to this problem. We’ll discuss the issue of how people identify with one another in the upcoming entry  on social  design principle #3, Appeal to the Unique Individual.

Sharing tools are an effective way to get meaningful feedback and allow customers to freely exchange information with friends about products they are interested in buying. Allow your products to be shared on networks such as Facebook or Digg.  Making it possible for customers to involve their social networks in the shopping experience helps inform their purchasing decisions.  For example, last summer I was agonizing over what shoes my bridesmaids should wear for my wedding.   I went on Zappos.com and selected 4 or 5 pairs of silver open-toed shoes that I thought would look good with the dresses, and I saved them all to a wish list which I made public.  I sent my bridesmaids the link via Facebook.  We used Facebook to communicate in a threaded conversation about the shoes.  My bridesmaids voted for two favorites, and I bought a pair of each.  The only bridesmaid who lived near me tried the shoes on for fit and comfort.  We kept the winning shoe and returned the other (with convenient free shipping.)

Reviews, sharing, public facing wish lists, and threaded conversations are social design tools and effective ways to help inform purchasing decisions when shopping online.  However, implementing sharing tools requires the retailer to relinquish some control of the product information on the web site where it is sold.  Retailers are often concerned that negative customer reviews may hurt sales.  This is a possibility, but the benefits of social design outweigh the possible problems.  In fact, a negative review could be seen as potentially beneficial, because it provides valuable insight on ways a company can improve their products and services for the future. Negative reviews may also increase credibility for customers; when reviews are all positive and glowing, customers may suspect that the retailer edits or filters submitted reviews, but neutral or negative reviews create a sense of balance and objectivity.  A proactive company will contact customers who submit negative reviews, engage them in dialog, and ask them to provide additional and constructive feedback.

In the next entry we will further explore how retailers can open effective and productive dialog with their customers when we discuss the second social design principle: authentic conversations.

A large part of the fun in shopping is being able to do it collaboratively.  Friends help inform our decisions about what we should buy. They give their opinions on fit, help pick out the perfect pair of shoes, and they are a part of what makes shopping fun.  Unfortunately, this desired social interaction has largely been lost as stores move online, and while the fun one has when shopping with friends cannot be wholly replaced, social design continues to introduce new ways to improve the collaborative nature of the online shopping experience.

“Social Design is the conception, planning and production of web sites and applications that support social interaction.” – Joshua Porter (bokardo.com), Designing for the Social Web

The following social design principles offer tactical methods for retail companies to bring social interaction into the online shopping experience.  Not only is it designed to inform shoppers, but if done successfully, can also inform the company to help make better decisions in the future.

The social design principles are:

1. Encourage Information Sharing – Encourage customers to share information about your products to help inform their purchase decisions and influence the purchase patterns of others.
2. Encourage Authentic Conversations – Reap the benefits of engaging your customers in conversation and advertise your products in an unbiased way using social influence.
3. Appeal to the Unique Individual – Design for the individual shopping on your website with personalized recommendations and an emphasis on uniqueness.
4. Participate in Active Listening – Do not ignore negative feedback. Embrace it, learn from it, act upon it, and make your customers love you for doing something about it.

What I will be discussing in upcoming entries are ways that retail companies can leverage these principles to help increase sales, satisfaction, and loyalty.  This is especially important given the drop in consumer confidence and the current economic conditions.  Social design does not cost much to implement and can yield tremendous value.

Every week the IxD (Interaction and User experience design) team at Fluid gets together and discusses new ideas, current trends in our field, best practices, design patterns and anything that we may have on our mind that relates to design.

This week Dave, Director of Information Design and Usability,  challenged us to think about the following:

“I’ve been thinking about findability and discoverability (especially since I started thinking about interactive merchandising as casual gaming), and I am increasingly convinced that findability and discoverability are distinct attributes of web content, though I am not entirely clear yet (conceptually) where they are similar and where they overlap.  Initially, it seems like this:

Discoverability – more about fun, content is “hidden” and meant to be found, the content is non-essential to the experience, finding the content may be surprising or unexpected, finding the content is often pleasing, tends to be more of an exploratory and individual/independent experience

Findability – more about usability, content is more likely to be important or essential to the experience, users may seek or need the content, content may not be immediately visible but is not hidden, easy to find, users probably guided to the content with labels and directions, tends to be more of guided or directive experience with help from the UI

I’d like your thoughts and ideas on this: “

The team’s response to Dave’s questions are listed below:

Andrea’s Response:

My knee-jerk reaction is that discoverability, while more pre-disposed to being fun, is inherently about learning and intuition. Findability need not be anti-fun, but it is inherently about efficiency and being clunk-you-over-the-head obvious.

Discoverability, at its core, should play off of previously learned behaviors and patterns of interaction. when I go to a new bar, I’m pretty sure the loo will be in the back, because that’s where it was in the last 100 bars I went to. Discoverability recognizes the frequency and need in which we rely off of our intuition. In doing so, we may learn a new task more easily if we are able to relate it to a previously learned task. When we recognize similarities, we feel at ease. We anticipate what comes next and finally we begin to recognize differences between the old and the new, again increasing our learning.

Findability, one might argue, exists–in the most extreme sense–in lieu of intuition. I’m not saying discoverability and findability are absolutely orthogonal, but there’s certainly an inclination. If one assumes that there are no similar, previously learned patterns, or one is lacking intuition, findability ensures that one can still complete the desired task. If I am a teetotaler and I’ve never been to a bar before, I might have no idea that the loo is usually in the back, but if I wander around and see the restroom signs that are clearly marked; I know I have found the loo. Findability is the “clunkingly obvious” factor.

In my examples above, I don’t mean to suggest that findability is boring, or can lack delight, fun, or, more importantly, persuasion. From a content perspective, the authoritative tone of brand and persuasion should probably be the most findable parts of a web site. I think persuasion might be more essential in findable content, whereas it is more easily a “nice by-product” of discoverable content.

What’s interesting in the storytelling article is that the author gives us a bunch of examples of storytelling, but I think she could have gone a bit further and gotten more granular.

For example, when I am designing a web page/site/interface, I think of the features on the page as characters in a story. Kind of like playing with Barbies, you grab a bunch of features, put ‘em together, throw ‘em around, and see how they interact with each other…then you place ‘em where they make the most sense in the arc of the story you’re trying to tell. Some features are main characters, some are supporting, and you’ve got to work with that. of course, the user is a character as well; i’m just sayin’, the user is not the *only* character.

The best example of this is Jones’ example about the benefit of unread content and the mini cooper web site. Jones mentions that mini creates credibility through the presence of its company history. let’s say that “features and specs” about the mini are a character and “company history” is a character…for the purposes of this story, “features and specs” are the main character, but “company history” is a supporting character, and “he” is still pretty important to have around. we might not pay a lot of attention to him, but his presence (here, findability) on the page lends credibility to the brand. Craft your story (and your interaction design) from there.

Paul’s Response:

Since the subject has a lot to do with storytelling, I wrote this like I was telling a story.

“Choose Your Own Adventure: Findability vs. Discoverability”

It’s no longer enough for users to be able to find your site, and then find what they’re looking for once they’re there. Now, they have to enjoy the experience — and, if possible, participate in it.

It’s helpful to think of this in terms of two different types of users: the Finder and the Discoverer. The Finders know what they want and where they’re going. They may have already formed a mental map of how to get there, and a web site’s success may depend on its navigation and search matching the user’s expectations. Discoverers are less linear. They want to explore, and be entertained and surprised along the way. They may not know exactly what they’re looking for, but they feel it. For discoverers, it’s as much about the journey as the destination.

One way to think about how to engage both types of users is through use of the Story. At Fluid, we always try to use a narrative structure to explain our work and vision to the client. In essence, we try to keep the customer’s story as the guiding theme across all our deliverables and presentations. So, what kind of story are we going to tell the Finder versus the Discoverer?

Think of the Finder in terms of the shopping funnel. It’s a short story or a haiku. The Finder wants to get to the end as quickly and easily as possible. They want to get from point A on the home page to point D in the shopping cart, with brief stops at a category, index and detail page along the way. It’s hard to avoid the spatial metaphors, but it’s not just three-dimensional. Time is also a factor. The finder already knows what they want and doesn’t want waste a lot of time getting there.

In contrast, the Discoverer doesn’t want a short story, they want an open-ended Choose Your Own Adventure book, or maybe movies on demand. Instead of trying to speed them along a linear path, our goal is to keep them interested, and moving, as long as possible – until they realize they’ve come to the right place. The Discoverer is sticky and needs a sticky site. The Discoverer can be either passive, wanting to be entertained, or active, wanting to have more control over how they move through the site, and even interact with it. The Discoverer needs more lateral and contextual relations between content, and not just the basic linear site navigation.

While we’re on the subject of stories, user-generated content is a way for users to make themselves part of brand’s story. For example, user reviews are a way for customers to share their opinion of a site or a product. It’s a way for Discoverers to leave a sign that they were there.

One area where the Finder and Discoverer types may overlap is in social shopping. Just as many malls and stores aspire to be social spaces and not just a shopping destination, the Finder can become a Discoverer by bringing in a friend who may encourage them to look outside their original goal and try something new.

We need to design web sites that engage both types of users, and take into account that most users are a combination of the two. It’s not so much that these are different types of users, so much as they are different types of search strategies or behaviors. We need to give the right level and amount of content in the right time and place, with clear paths to more: more depth, more range, or more similar (moving up and down in granularity, or horizontally through relationships). The key seems to be choice: giving the user the ability to choose how they move through the site rather than forcing them into one path, but not so many choices that the user becomes paralyzed or lost.

The choice on which approach to emphasize will vary by client. I think findability is more important for large-scale retail sites, whereas discoverability is more important for brand sites.

My Response:

First, a user’s browsing/searching behavior is never linear in nature. I don’t feel that the typical use case is that a user will come to a site looking for a specific very granular piece of information. Rather, I am more inclined to think of a user’s browsing behavior in regards to what some researchers are calling berrypicking”.

The “berrypicking” model has two main points. First, as a user searches for information they are constantly learning from their search/browse interaction and thus the nature of their search is constantly changing and adapting directly from the information they are discovering. Thus, through the process of browsing their search goals may be constantly changing from their initial intent. Originally a user may have been interested in findability and then upon reading something new, their goals may have changed to discoverability. (and vice versa.)

The second point is that a user’s informational needs are not satisfied solely through the finding of a set of documents or results. Rather, the main value of search exists in the accumulation of bits and pieces of information along the way. (i.e. Life is a Journey, not a destination) . This second point made me think about the design principle of providing alternative interfaces for both novice and expert users. It seems to me that a well designed interface should be able to support the needs of both findability and discoverability. Thus, as the users informational needs change a well designed interface will provide opportunities to dive deeper into a subject matter or discover a related item. I think a good example of providing an interface that is useful for both for novice and expert users is the TED home page. www.ted.com A user interested in finding a specific talk can reorganize the page using the list format or access the search box, while a user more interested in discoverability can browse the content by interacting with the images or browsing filters on the page.

In addition, I was thinking that the granularity of the information being presented is directly correlated to findability and discoverability. I don’t necessarily think of discoverability as content that is “hidden” and meant to be found, but rather it is content that is more abstract in its presentation and subsistence. (i.e. A related item link, Or a short blur about sustainability with a link to learn more.) In addition, when I think of findability, I think of content that is more complete and concrete in nature. (i.e. product details page, a technology details page, or an article page).

Thus, as a user bounces back and forth between findability and discoverability, what changes is the level of abstraction of the information being presented. Low level of detailed information will lend its self to findability while high level of detail will lend itself to discoverability.

1. Carousels work best with images, not text
2. Carousels are great for browsing, not searching
3. Carousels should create a sense of depth and extent, not be flat

Fluid’s recent work for Reebok, the “Reebok Globe” that highlights real customers and shows their designs, was featured in this video as a good example of strong design, not just for its 3D carousel (the “globe”), but also for using nested carousels in an effective way to enhance the customer experience. If you’re interested in Victor’s comments about Fluid’s “Reebok Globe”, skip ahead to 3min 15 sec.

Unfortunately, this carousels video is only free for a limited time, so check it out soon.