Without salt, human beings don’t survive long.
But it’s possible to eat for a month without tasting an herb. The food will sustain you.
Herbs are an expensive non-obvious addition, while also being a bargain if the goal is to create delight, interest or satisfaction.
As we digitize our interactions, the first thing to go are the herbs. We strip away anything that’s not obviously functional.
The first 100 interactions you have with an AI will leave you amazed, and then a bit empty.
And when a skilled user experience professional arrives, the first thing she does is add back the herbs. Tiny speed bumps, moments of tension, opportunities for traction or surprise.
August 31, 2024
When a non-expert brings a strong point of view to a complex discussion, the words might not mean what they seem to mean.
What might be being said is, “I’m worried. I’m afraid. I don’t understand. I am looking for solace.”
Answering emotional word salad with logical insight doesn’t do anything at all for these feelings.
If the argument you’re hearing isn’t based on what we know to be true, and doesn’t lead to a logical conclusion, it could be because it’s not actually seeking to be a productive discussion.
It’s awkward to say “yadda, yadda” but that might be what’s on offer.
When in doubt, look for the emotions and desires behind the words. People often don’t want their arguments to be heard as much as they’re hoping their emotions will be.
August 30, 2024
Pharmacists used to mix chemicals by hand to create prescriptions.
Opticians used to grind lenses from scratch.
Lawyers used to start with an empty page.
Graphic designers needed to know how to draw.
All of these jobs are still important. None of them are the same as they were thirty years ago.
In your work, are you fighting the change or leading it?
It’s hard to see us going back.
August 29, 2024
(just by leaving it)
Moving into your kid’s college dorm isn’t going to make the experience better for anyone.
A smart founder leaves her company in a moment when it actually does better without her.
The expectation that secession is failure causes a lot of damage. If you really care about the mission, it might be better to change the system in a way that allows it to thrive.
August 28, 2024
It’s so tempting to write for everyone.
But everyone isn’t going to read your work, someone is.
Can you tell me who? Precisely?
What did they believe before they encountered your work? What do they want, what do they fear? What has moved them to action in the past?
Name the people you’re writing for. Ignore everyone else.
August 27, 2024
The end of the trail is usually difficult, but without the long and winding approach, there isn’t much of a mountain.
The greatest hits reel and the stunning photographs leave out most of the hard work.
There’s a lot to be said for showing up, one foot in front of the other. In fact, those are the only people who make it to the steep part in the first place.
August 26, 2024
If you have a series of tasks to do, it’s easier to ignore this question and simply get back to work. Doing the tasks is more efficient than coordinating the help.
But if your work is a project, a bigger mission that involves making a change happen, it’s much more productive to accept help.
When we have a project, part of the work is to enlist others in figuring out how to make the change we seek.
August 25, 2024
Google made a fortune and honed sponsored search results into an art form. The theory is that people who want the traffic the most will pay for the clicks, and of course, if the advertisers don’t have something you ultimately want, they’ll just waste their money. Let the market work it out–the dollars become a self-fueling sort of search algorithm.
Google was a miracle, and it also offered smart organic results and clearly labeled ads, so most of us accepted this.
Now, though, hotel listings don’t even bother to pretend they’re sorted in any order but “what makes us the most money.” Yelp requires us to wade through fast food franchises and other lazy advertisers to get where we’re going. And recently, Amazon has jumped the shark by selling out their customers to the highest bidder.
Add smartphones to the mix, with their tiny screens and low impulse control, and the ads stop looking like ads.
Not only are the ads a worse experience for the user, they are also creating a tax on all the advertisers, and thus, on us. If the only way to get Amazon traffic is to buy the ads, then the only way to pay for the ads is to charge more…
We’ve been hooked on free media for a century. But newspapers and network TV evolved to be ever more clear about what’s content and what’s an ad. The internet, as in all things it does, hypercompetes for the last penny, costing all of us time, trust and money.
The oxymoron of “sponsored results” is that if they’re sponsored, they’re not results.
August 24, 2024
It contained some of my best writing. Cogent, clear and powerful.
I found it.
It wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered. In fact, it was hardly useful.
The opposite happens with the things we fear. When they show up, they’re likely to be a lot less fearsome than we imagined.
August 23, 2024
In the very small business, the freelancer knows each customer. By name, by volume, by preferences.
And in the huge business, expensive software, data analysts and relentless margin seeking pushes organizations to increase their yield.
But most businesses (and non-profits and groups) are somewhere in between.
We don’t think of our customer list as a spreadsheet, but it is.
Perhaps you know names, addresses, emails and purchase history–but it’s likely that the customers you pay attention to are the noisy ones, or the ones that left in a huff. We’re distracted, though, because they’re not the majority, or the profitable ones, or the ones that really matter in the long run.
Tools like numerous.ai were inevitable, but seeing it work is still something of a miracle.
Here’s a list of email addresses. Guess the first name of each customer.
Here’s a list of recent purchases. Do an analysis of which customers are the most loyal.
Here are our donors. Find out which ones respond to this sort of project.
Here’s a list of zip codes. Please build a table or graph to show us where are customers are clustered.
Here is our membership list along with recent attendees at our meetings. Who has dropped off in attendance and how should we contact them to see what’s up?
At a big company like Amazon, this is all used against the customers, creating dark patterns designed to extract more ad money while denigrating the user experience (but not enough to get people to leave).
At a small organization, though, it can be a breakthrough. It uses the smaller size of the organization to your advantage, because the insights can actually be put to use by a human. Used to make things better for the people who count on you.
This is worth the effort. And if you’re not doing it, you can hire a freelancer to do it for you. And if you’re looking for a new gig, this is the sort of project you can build a business around.
August 22, 2024
