After publishing the slideshow Seven actionable marketing trends about a month ago, I asked if there was an interest in an expanded version of the slideshow. Elaborating on each trend and including some references and quotes from the insights behind them.

Unfortunately it has taken me some time to put this together, and I do apologize for the delay. But now the deck has been published via slideshare.net.

I would like to state that the goal of the document is not to work as a coherent presentation, but rather using the slideshare format to comprise and present a collection of valuable ideas that I felt was/is relevant in regards to each trend.

I hope you find the presentation useful, and that there are stuff/slides in there that proves to be inspirational.

As always, if there are any questions or comments, please contact me and I will do my best to reply.

Also, find most of the individual slides available under CC license on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/everythingnewisdangerous

Find the presentation below, or here:

Most interaction design decision will in one way affect more than the scope of the operation the designer is trying to fix.

Therefore, under the knowledge that: No design decision exist in isolation. We must:

1. Make certain we have a full view of the effects the decision the change will have on the solution as a whole.
2. Evaluate the cost vs. the benefits.

Image by Cakun on flickr.com

One of the most important aspects of any web-activity is to get visitors over the initial threshold, this can be the solutions first ten seconds or first three choices. The reason for this being:

1. Fall of in most solutions from the first page to the second or third is colossal, often you loose a third and then two thirds of all visitors on these two pages.

2. Visitors show enormous persistency as soon as they are over the threshold and have started experiencing an added value from the solution.

Therefore.. if you can help the visitor Cross the threshold you have gotten a lot of the ground work ready for selling the rest of your idea.

Just two snippets from an article by Mona Patel ( Influencing the customer experience through the internet) over at mycustomer.com.

Mona argues the case for the emotional part of the brain and the importance for communication on the web to stop ignoring this large lump of thinking and decision making hardware and start designing solutions that are not exclusively rational and needs new ways to be measured in order to prove effect.

Snippet 1:
“In the past, building a successful interface was based on understanding users’ needs, designing for ease of use and validating through usability testing. Traditional usability testing, however, deals almost exclusively with the rational, behavioral aspects of the customer experience, such as whether people can buy a product online, access information easily or learn to navigate the site.

To attract and engage customers, online usability must now address the much broader concept of user experience, one that encompasses people making decisions and taking actions on variables that they are not consciously aware of. This includes how people are feeling; how they are reacting emotionally and how we grab their attention.”

Snippet 2:
“In an example of this, a well-known global pharmaceutical firm with a dedicated website for people seeking information about the health benefits of taking their medication recently hired a team of dedicated experts to increase conversion rates for its online health survey, site referrals and repeat visits.

The problem identified with the survey was that there was no motivation for people to actually start it. What’s more, for those who did complete it, there was no positive feedback telling them how well they were doing managing their medication. People were also confused about what the survey questions were getting at and how they would benefit by answering them. The survey’s actual design also presented difficulties for people.”

- Mona Patel, Human Factors International ,
Influencing the customer experience through the internet
http://www.mycustomer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=133347&d=101&h=817&f=816

Via. Putting People First
Photo by bebop717

Anand Agarawala of BumpTop proclaimed this (see title)  during his TED presentation of the BumpTop software in March 2007.

A quote I might even be accused of overusing, but I do believe it to be correct, and am constantly searching for example of future interfaces and proof that todays interfaces are far from being human friendly, intuitive or logical. Fortunatly for us we have learned to use the interfaces of today, but that does not mean they are good interfaces.

 In this post  Smashingmagazine lists a handfull of future interfaces and links to demos, websites and images of there application. I have presented many of them previously, but the Reactable was brand new. Amazing piece of UI.

In accordance with me getting a new job at Screenplay as a Digital Planner / Strategic Director I found this poster at EuroIA extremely soothing as it weaves together my old field with my new field. Excellent, and thanx to IAllEnkelhet for linking up some great stuff from the conference. Find the poster and more here…