Strategy - Tyesha Snow

Strategy

January5th

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What independent music radio station calls both NY and SEA home?

Posted in: Content, Creativity, Design, Strategy

Tyler Thompson has redesigned the Delta boarding pass. I love it! Who among us hasn’t noticed the awkward, missed opportunity that is this piece of paper millions of people interact with everyday.

His new design is clean and pretty. He thought about how he uses it and how it could become a useful tool for navigating the airport and boarding the plane.

It’s successful for the most part, although I think the target audience for this is me, you and Tyler and maybe not the general public, as we are used to seeing design like this, it may be a bit sophisticated and hard to read for the average flyer. Actually let me correct myself, the non-average traveler, the most general of the public.

I was thinking though, aside from solving usability issues which would be great. There is an amazing missed opportunity in boarding passes.

Boarding passes represent a specific moment and place in time.

I’d like to see the airlines take full advantage of this. Let’s see the day’s news headlines or ‘It happened today’ facts. How about local history, art and statistics. What about statistics or facts about the relationship between the two locations you are traveling. Ooooh, the poetry of local poets on seasonally appropriate topics. I could keep going, but you get the point.

Some airlines are using the unused portion of the print at home boarding pass to provide travel information, this is nice, but my ideas could turn these into collectibles, kinda like posted stamps. Have some imagination Mr and Mrs Airline.

A: KEXP
November16th

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Bringing Stakeholders into the User Experience Plan

Posted in: Deliverables, Research, Strategy, User Experience

I recently worked on a project that ran into a few issues when we got to the design comp phase. Essentially when the comps were circulated internally, a number of stakeholders felt their needs where not being met. You may ask how we got all the way to comps before this came up and I could talk through the entire project identifying places where the process could have been improved, but I’d like to bring the focus to the beginning of the project where I think we missed an opportunity to succeed.

The responsibility of a User Experience Designer are vast. We take a leadership role in project definition, we gather, validate and nurture the needs of not just customers but of the business and the stakeholders. I’ve distinguished the business from the stakeholders on purpose because I think this is where the problems on the my project began. Read More | Comments
October23rd

2 Comments

a true connection between a product and a good cause

Posted in: Brand, Strategy

Have you seen this commercial from Dawn? Dawn Commercial, Wash Away: Help Dawn Save Wildlife

It such a perfect marriage of brand, product and cause. When you first see it you get that “of course” feeling. We all know Dawn cuts grease and is mild on your hands right. Why wouldn’t it be the best thing to remove oil from animals fur and feathers.

The interesting thing is that the campaign idea was brought to Dawn from the people who actually work on recoveries, see this NY Times article, they found it was the best product to use and brought it to Dawn’s attention.

I think they’ve done a nice job with the campaign. It’s on brand, reinforces the value proposition of the product and is telling a true story. There is conversation on the web about Proctor and Gamble’s continued use of animal testing, but that’s another issue. This campaign I like and it is raising money for an issue I think gets way too little attention.

If you buy Dawn go here to make sure a dollar of your purchase goes to save wildlife.
October22nd

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Show n’ Tell, The New Communicators Edition

Posted in: Portland Oregon, Strategy

I’ll be doing a little presentation at next week’s Show n’ Tell. The theme for the night is “What are you doing to change the world?”. While I’m not sure I’m quite changing the world (yet) I am formulating approaches to my work that will contribute positively to the world and at the very least avoid causing harm.

In the presentation will be talking about Strategy. It’s a word that is thrown around so much in business and in particular in the marketing/advertising/creative industries world, but what does it mean? What are the implications of creating and implementing one? I will talk about the underling spirit of the term and introduce ways we can avoid doing harm when we create one.

I hope you will come on down. This event is part of the very first, The New Communicators event. Check it out. Come on out.

Thanks Substance

photo credit
October16th

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Updating is not necessarily an improvement

Posted in: Brand, Product Design, Strategy

The story of iSnack 2.0, aka Vegemite, is so interesting (and it is so hard to type iSnack 2.0 without laughing). I’m not even sure how I feel about it or what the most important lesson of the story is. Pop over and read Idsng’s article about it.

Are you back? Ok.

From the perspective of a creative professional there are so many things wrong with this story and it’s obvious that the public wasn’t immune to the ridiculousness of it, but what really bothers me is the underlining assumption that everything must be continually improved. It’s troublesome that a product that was clearly doing fine and has the affection of a nation could be vulnerable to this ugly side of business. Read More | Comments
September8th

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5 rules for fundraising in this world of new communication

Posted in: Design, Social Media, Strategy

Just as for-profit companies are trying to figure out how to exist, persist and grow in this world of new communication so are the not-for-profit organizations. It’s time to use our power for good and put some creative energy around this. Many have started and there is room for more.

I’ve worked with a hand full of non-profits over the past few years that I’ve noticed that there are some things that are the same across the board. The biggest “same” is the need to raise funds. Each time I engage with a nonprofit client the bulk of the discussions and energy are spent working on ways to optimize the effectiveness of the “support us message” and the process of making a donation. But you know what? Optimization can only go so far. At some point we need to design new ways to draw people into donate. We need to design ways to cultivate the donor/organization relationship and take it to the next level. Read More | Comments
July26th

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Considering the Risks and Benefits of Social Tools

Posted in: Deliverables, Research, Social Media, Strategy, User Experience

I read Josh Bernoff’s article How to create a social application for life sciences without getting fired a while back and I found myself thinking about it again this weekend. I think the above chart is excellent and the perfect tool for illustrating how social media tools may or may not be appropriate, beneficial or wanted by different users.

You know that point in a project where you have the big list of ideas and have to start slimming them down. I think this chart is an excellent piece to start the meeting with, it kinda greases the mind into thinking in a critical way about real people, their needs and current habits.

Yes, those with Cancer have a lot to gain by connecting with other Cancer suffers but it’s easy to see why they don’t currently spend a lot of time online in these communities. Cancer treatments take a lot out of you and many people still have to continue their normal lives while under treatment. So, if we wanted to give them social tools, they would have to have high, immediate value and would need to be embedded into a process they already participate in or really really easy with a low barrier of entry.

Josh actually created this chart to help understand whether the risks involved with implementing social tools in the health care industry had strong enough value to the users to pursue. He says, “I decided to focus on who has the most to gain from social applications. Because if you don’t have a lot to gain, the regulatory issues mean you may have a lot at risk, and it’s not worth it”

He’s right on and really asking the right questions that will ultimately protect his clients. There is also a much broader lesson in this statement that we can and should apply when working on our own projects. What risks will your brand or campaign be taking by implementing particular social tools? There may not be a large regulatory body like the FDA watching you but there is risk involved with implementing these tools.

Is this something your target users even want, will use or, find benefit in? If no, why would you expose the company to the obvious complications, risks, and at very least management responsibliites of emplimenting a social media tool? How will your users react to the new functionality? Will they backlash and decided to go somewhere else? Will they be irritated and loose trust in the brand? or will you fullfill all thier dreams? I will hope it’s the later but I know doing research and analisys such as this will get you a lot closer than you might have been.
May28th

1 Comment

That’s quality man.

Posted in: Strategy, Success Measurements

Zip Car

This is nice. Instead of just a video still, the designers of this site took the opportunity to tell us a little about the video and encourage us to press play. This is a good example of staying on our game, little things like this can go a long way towards accomplishing our strategic goals but opportunities like this can be easy to miss when we are working on larger layout, architecture and interaction parts of the site.

I like that the message sets your expectations for what you are about to see. I would speculate that the quality of the view is much greater if you are prepared or already feeling engaged when you start the video. I also like that the real estate taken up by video player adds some value even if you don’t want to watch the video. Just reading the message relays information and strengths brand perception.

Quality of the view is an important metric to measure. The definition will vary depending on the purpose of the video, but understanding what a quality or successful view is, is an important step in creating the interaction and even the content of the video.

Is it successful if they watch 50%? 20%? Turn up the volume? Send to a friend? Watch more than once? Only watch the first 10 seconds but then navigate to exactly the right place in the conversion funnel? Is it a less than quality view if, they finish it then leave the site? Send it to a friend but as a joke? Navigate to a page that takes them further from conversion?

Just something to think about.