Over the past few decades, the price of information has dropped very quickly.
Book prices have dropped as eBooks have gained in popularity. Magazines are going out of business and switching to online versions with free articles. Pricey encyclopedia sets have been replaced with the free Wikipedia. Many people get their news from social media now. You don’t have to turn on the news anymore – the news will find you (whether you want it to, or not).
In one manner, this is great, since all the information you could ever want is just a Google search away. And if you can’t find it there, there is probably an expert out there who can answer your question.
But can too much information be a bad thing?
There is a term called information paralysis that suggests that if we have too much information in front of us, it affects our ability to make a decision and move on ahead. This is especially the case when you’re given conflicting advice or too many options to choose from.
So what do we do in such cases?
Know what you want
In order to find answers and solutions, it is important to know exactly what it is that you’re looking for, and to be as specific as you can. If you were looking for ways to make money for example, you would have a lot of answers to choose from. How to make money online would be a better question, but it’s still too vague. The more specific your question is, the more direct of an answer you can hope to get in return.
Avoid Distractions
Thanks to information overdose, it’s very easy to find additional information outside of what you are looking for, or receive answers to problems you don’t have, that can distract you from your main focus. Where possible, eliminate distractions like social media, and file away information from unrelated subjects, that you can consume at a different time.
Exercise Due Diligence
It’s very easy to start a blog these days, which means it’s also easy for anyone to claim to be an expert on any subject. If you’re going to take advice from someone, check the credentials and source of the advice. Also compare your situation to that of the advice given. A lot of answers to problems start with “It depends”.
Following these steps is crucial to help you manage and – more importantly – benefit from the vast amounts of information that are available to you. Use information to increase your productivity rather than paralyze it!
Today is the official launch release for Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, which is one of the (if not the) most significant upgrades of the company’s flagship product. I find it interesting to view such launches from big companies, and see what lessons I can learn for my own experience of designing products from much smaller startups. In this case though, they seem to be breaking a lot of common usability principles.
Despite the rise of post PC products like mobile phones and tablets, which people are increasingly using these days, Windows continues to dominate the overall market share of devices that people use to connect to the internet. All new Windows based PCs and laptops that are purchased from today on, will come with Windows 8. So needless to say, a lot of people will be using Windows 8 over the next few months.
Unlike previous upgrades of Windows however, there are some significant differences with Windows 8.
The operating system has been significantly overhauled to now integrate a new modern UI view, that provides a better experience with touch enabled devices.
There are actually two versions of the operating system being released – Windows RT and Windows 8. Users must decide whether they want the full version of Windows 8, or the tablet specific version, Windows RT.
1. Don’t try to Be All Things to All People
One of the taglines that Microsoft has used to compare this new version of Windows, with other operating systems like Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android was a no-compromise design.
From the start, our approach has been to reimagine Windows, and to be open to revisiting even the most basic elements of the user model, the platform and APIs, and the architectures we support. Our goal was a no compromise design.
The problem with this approach is that right from the beginning, they have set the standard and expectations too high. By trying to combine elements from tablets and mobile devices with a desktop environment, they are trying to be all things to all people, which is an impossible task.
Here is an example of what greeted me the first time I launched Windows 8 on my desktop computer. I expect others to have a similar experience.
It looks great, but it’s now waiting for my input. Normally I’d expect a login screen where I enter my password, so why am I seeing this screen instead? If I click on the screen, I see a little bounce effect, suggesting there is something underneath for me to see. Using my mouse pointer, I found that I was able to drag the desktop up and out of the way to reveal a login screen underneath.
Each time I boot up my computer now, I have to go through this extra process to access the login screen. The reason for doing so makes sense if you were using a tablet or device with an exposed screen. Exposing the login screen up front may trigger spurious inputs when moving the device. I.e. I might accidentally brush up against the device, causing the tablet keyboard to show and start inputting characters that I didn’t want. By having this extra screen “protection” they make me go through the extra step of dragging the screen away (which would be harder to do by accident), to make sure I really want to login.
However, I’m not using a tablet – I’m using a desktop. So this extra step is wasted.
2. Figure Out What People Want to Do, and Make it Obvious
Next, let’s look at what screen is shown to me after I enter my login details.
This screen obviously looks a lot different than the traditional Windows desktop that people are used to. It provides a summary of different aspects of the system, such as new emails, photos, access to music, finance etc.
The problem again is that, this may look great on a tablet, but on my desktop, the first thing I usually do is launch my Chrome browser. How do I do that from this screen? (I see an icon for Internet Explorer, but no Chrome – wonder why?).
It is possible to scroll further right, which has some frequently accessed applications, but not all of them are there. In the old Windows, you had a Start menu, and you could then click on Programs to find all the programs on your computer. That option does not seem to be here. So what to do?
The answer is that you can return to the old desktop by clicking on the bottom left or top left corners. I found that out by randomly clicking on different areas of the screen. I’m not sure how a typical user would know this. You can also press Esc to… escape from this screen.
3. Don’t Remove Basic Functionality from Previous Versions
The good news for loyalists of previous versions of Windows is that the old desktop is still there, and most of it looks fairly similar to how it looked in Windows 7.
Except for one small thing that is missing. The start button on the bottom left. The button that was probably used the most by users to find and access programs, files and settings on their computer. It’s now gone.
I remember how much trouble Microsoft went to educate people on how to use that button. It was the only button you needed to know to use Windows!
Now though, when you press that corner… nothing happens. Fortunately, if you overreach that corner and click the bottom left corner tip of the screen you are back at the previous modern UI screen.
Oh, there’s the Start button. Let me click that (since that’s what I’ve been trained to do for the past 17 years). Oh, nothing happens again. They are just toying with me now. 🙁
4. Don’t Make Users Jump Through Hoops
So how do you find programs that are not on the opening screen? Simple, move your mouse to the bottom right corner, and wait for the new Charms menu to open on the right side. Then move your mouse pointer up to the search button. Make sure you don’t stray to the left, since the menu will disappear if you do so.
How do you shut down the computer? Open the charms menu, click on Settings, then click on Power. So previously, what took two steps (Start / Shut down) now takes 3. Similar to the extra steps required to login to the computer.
Being in the tech field, I consider myself experienced when it comes to using new technology. Heck, I like being an early adopter when it comes to using new devices. However, with so many issues that bother me here, I’m curious how laymen users (who probably make up the bulk of Windows users) would react to these changes.
Have you ever had a day where, although you stayed busy, you ended the day feeling like you didn’t get anything done? Each day, we are presented with a lot of choices of what we want to do and accomplish, but we have limited time to do them all.
We are a lot more distracted today than we have ever been before in the past. Tools like Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media all demand little bits of our attention, which add up quickly through the course of a day.
It is also a lot easier for people to interrupt you now, than it has been in the past. In addition to email, there are now lots of free instant messaging apps that make it even easier for people to contact you.
Browsers (even mobile ones) all have tabs, allowing us to switch back and forth between multiple websites with ease.
The end result is that it’s very easy to spend a lot of time doing a lot of small things, without getting anything important accomplished.
So how do we stay focused?
Start at the beginning of each week (or plan ahead at the end of the week) and make a list of all the goals you expect to accomplish that week. Then split up these goals into a list of tasks that need to be accomplished each day of the week, in order to hit the weekly goal.
As you complete tasks, check them off. It is a very satisfying feeling of accomplishment to check off tasks that are completed, as you can now feel real progress being made. There are many free task management programs available to help you do so. Teux Deux is a popular web-based one to get you started.
Keeping a system like this allows you to track how much progress you want to make in the next one month – three months and six months, and then split that up into manageable chunks, so that each day you have something meaningful to do.
You can now go home feeling much better, knowing that you are one day closer to reaching your goals.
Having a great product is just part of the equation. Being able to market it successfully is an equal, if not more important part of the puzzle. As a new startup, you probably don’t have a very big marketing budget to begin with. Ideally, you would like your product to market it itself, by having people automatically recommend it to others. So how do you get people to talk about your product and make it go viral?
1. Have a great product.
This goes without saying. No matter how much you spend on marketing, if your product isn’t very good, then people aren’t going to want to use it, leave alone recommend it to others. People only talk about remarkable products. Is your product remarkable? Is it that much better than anything else out there?
2. Don’t make users login to try out your product.
Many users (myself included) get turned off when they can’t even try a product, without first having to provide personal information. Let them try out your product first, and if they like it, then they will login. Otherwise, expect many users to close your product before they have even tried it.
3. Make it really easy for users to login.
Assuming that users like your product enough to want to login to use it, make sure it’s really easy for them to do so. They should not see any of the following:
Unless your product involves any type of public forum where the user might not want to be identified with their real name, then don’t ask them to create a username, that they will then need to remember just to use your site or app. The days of username based accounts should be long gone.
Where possible, offer a one click Facebook login option. It’s easier for you, and easier for the user.
Don’t ask for any more information than is required. Don’t ask for birth dates, addresses, phone numbers etc. unless you have a good reason to need it.
4. Make it work well, even if you’re the only user.
The flip side of adding social networking tools to products these days is that some of them only work if your friends are also using it. Unless you have a proper launch strategy in place to fix this issue, you’ll end up with a chicken and egg problem. The product is useless without users. And users won’t be attracted to the product because it’s useless. So make sure the product has functionality in place even if you’re the only user – but make it work better if your friends are also using it.
5. Make it work better, when friends use it.
Social networking products like Facebook, Foursquare etc. are almost useless if none of your friends are using it. However when your friends come on board, then the product becomes a lot more useful. Facebooks’ developer tools make it easy to integrate Facebook login and friend lists into your product, so users can invite their friends. Create features that genuinely add functionality to your app when users’ friends are using it (as opposed to spamming your friends with no benefit to you).
6. Make it really easy for users to share / invite others.
Assuming you have a great product that users enjoyed using, and you have convinced them to share it with others, then make it easy for them to do so. There should be a one click share or invite button for them to use. Make it any more complicated than that, and you risk them losing the motivation to do so.
7. Bribe users to invite their friends
If your product doesn’t really have any social features built in, you can try bribing your users to invite their friends. Dropbox made a big success of this through their referral program. Offer users credits towards paid features for friends that they invite and start using the system.
There are many users out there who are used to not paying for things. By offering such a program, you can gain benefit from this crowd as well.
8. Sign your Product
Another way to make your product is to let users share it without realizing it. YouTube does this by letting you embed videos onto your site, with a prominent YouTube logo in the corner. Even Apple does this by inserting “Sent on my iPhone” text into emails you send. Can you piggy back on usage of your product by adding a signature somewhere?
When I started my first site, there were two ways for people to find it – by landing on the main site itself or by finding it on its iTunes podcast page. The main medium for the content was MP3 audio lessons that could be downloaded and listened to on your iPod.
Later, users asked if I could provide them with a PDF transcript of the lessons. That became the start of the subscription model – free audio and pay for PDF transcripts.
A couple of years later, the iPhone was released and subsequently, apps started appearing for it. People asked for a CLO app, so we created one for it.
Later, it became clear that YouTube was a big source of users, so we created a CLO YouTube page with some intro videos there. Since some users like to learn using video, I have recently started offering a CLO video course on Udemy.
In this day and age, it’s become clear that in order to expand our market, instead of driving users to our main site, we have to push our content to other platforms. So we have started to become more active on Facebook and Twitter.
Obviously there are other formats we could expand to. We have an empty Google+ page and still don’t have an Android or an iPad app, even though both have been requested.
Assuming that you have an existing winning product, your users will expect you to be where they are and provide them the formats they expect. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools available to help with this process and let you manage multiple social networks at once. It still up to you to take the initiative and put your brand out there. If not, then your competition will gladly fill the void.
While my last post talked about what steps you should take when creating a new product, this post is meant for those with existing products. From the different projects I’ve worked on, Chinese Learn Online is the site I’ve had and maintained for the longest time. There are several customers there who have stuck through from the very beginning and continue to remain on the site. What is the reason for that, and how can I ensure that my future projects also attract similarly loyal customers?
1. Ask for Feedback
Make sure you keep in touch with your customers, especially your top ones. Find out what it is that they like about your service. What is it that they feel can be improved? Some of my most loyal customers have been ones who initially approached me with a complaint or concern about the site. They liked that I took their feedback seriously and used it to improve the site. This caused them to give me further suggestions to improve the site – suggestions that I wouldn’t have heard about otherwise – which resulted in further improvements to the site. Who wouldn’t support an organization that constantly listened to you and made the exact suggestions you gave them?
2. Update and Innovate
We live in a world that is constantly changing. Technology is constantly changing, and people’s expectations of the products they use change with them. Look at sites like Facebook, Google and Amazon and compare them with what they looked like a few years ago. Does your site have a mobile app to go with it? Do you have a Facebook page to communicate with your customers? These are all expectations that users have today, and if you don’t provide them, they may end up leaving for someone who does.
3. Respect them
If you have customers who have been with you for a while, make sure they know how much you value them. After all, it’s much more cost effective to keep an existing customer than to constantly have to acquire new ones. Some of the approaches I’ve used here including grandfathering them in on cheaper plans that are not available for new customers, and letting them earn download credits for being long term users. Make it difficult for them to leave because of all the data or services they would lose by leaving.
Compare that to many mobile phone companies who reward new customers with new phones and plans that are not available to older customers who have been with them for extended periods. Does this inspire you to be loyal to them?
products. Is your product remarkable? Is it that much better than anything else out there?
