[fr] Mes notes de la keynote de Kathy Sierra.
Here are my notes of Kathy Sierra’s keynote, quite different from yesterday’s workshop, which I also blogged. My notes are probably incomplete in some spots and may contain mistakes.
Finding Web 2.0 Opportunities (Kathy Sierra)
1) reduce guilt and fear
most of the time, people feel like they suck, like it’s their fault. Sometimes, making the product easier is not always the answer. We need to reduce that kind of feeling/face. How about using facial recognition to see when users are pulling a face? Or even simpler, have a WTF?! button.
Help, FAQ and user manuals do not solve WTF faces. People writing help and FAQ think you’re happy to use the softwa
re and a bit intellectually curious about using the software. Not true! Assume that most of the time, our users feel in WTF mode. Even if your software is easy to use, it might be they’re pulling that face because of what they’re trying to do with your tool.
FAQ/Help aren’t wrong, they’re written for the wrong place of the curve.
Recognise that people are miserable, feel they suck at what they’re trying to learn. Let people off the hook for feeling bad that it’s their fault. Books teaching something shouldn’t make people think they’re stupid.
“Appartments for rent: dog required.” In the US, so hard to find a place to live when you have a dog.
“Please walk on the grass, hug the trees, smell the roses.”
“What kind of genius? young, early, or late bloomer (Doc Searls).”
A lot of 2.0 stuff (like Twitter) increases the guilt, because you have to keep up. steph-note: I realise I’ve been letting myself off the hook quite a lot regarding that.
Being an expert is generally just a matter of focus, not a matter of natural talent.
How to write a bestseller? Choose a title that lets people off the hook. “The perfect mess” or “Everything bad is good for you.”
2) Don’t “bait and switch” on the relationship
Don’t start out all nice and interested and seductive, and in the end push away. How do you treat your ongoing users vs. the users you want to capture? The difference between how sales reps treat customers or prospects is often huge and the wrong way around. Documentation quality.
Take the marketing budget and throw it into user learning. It’s not always a problem to not have a marketing budget: teach your users to kick ass.
Every time you think of something that you might do for marketing, think about what would happen if you applied that to user learning. Huge example: camera brochures and material. Glossy brochures that are all about taking great photos — which is the reason people buy cameras! — and afterwards, manuals that teach me to be a tool expert, which is not what I want!
Serendipity Curve. Introduce randomness. Excessive customisation and tailoring strips out the delight of discovering something unusual and unexpected. Encourage people to make connections between your stuff and seemingly unrelated things.
Roger von Oech’s “Creative Whack Pack” (steph-note: looks really good!)
3) Make it real/Make it important
Why are we here? We still need physical presence despite all our technology. A huge part of our brain is devoted to our hands and mouth.
Smell is really important steph-note: shows cup of coffee on slide, it does something to our brain but not just smell. Skin was meant to be used.
A real present trumps a virtual gift (not that the latter isn’t meaningful!!) Think about how you can give something in the real world to your users, related to your product. In the US, the UPS guy is a hero. He’s a sex-symbol. Physically impossible to not smile when you see the Amazon box on your doorstep.
Philosophy of Electric Rain:
- users should do something kick ass within 20 minutes
- the process of buying, downloading and installing feel like you’re getting a special present. E.g. a real human answers the tech support. We don’t expect that!
Unboxing! “geek unpacking porn” Look at pictures of other people unpacking their new geek toy. steph-note: I almost did that with a Flickr photo of my new macbook and roomba.
People are actually coming up with ways to make those pictures more seductive. These things matter!!
Even if you’re working in bits, and all “virtual”, find something you can send to your users offline. People always care about the t-shirts.
T-shirt First Development. ThinkGeek. It’s not enough to send it to them, give them a way to show that they’re wearing the t-shirt.
Don’t make this mistake:
There are women or smaller men in your audience. They won’t feel like they kick ass in an XXL t-shirt. Yes, even if it’s not cost-effective.
Remember we’re not ready to leave our bodies behind just yet. “Real” sex still trumps the “virtual” kind…
