“They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.” Ronald Reagan

Behind the scenes, today’s products and services are very complex. As consumers demand ever improving customer service and more advanced functionality the complexity only increases. The challenge for design teams grows and companies struggle to create the increasingly important illusion of simplicity.

Complexity presents itself in many forms:

1.       Technology e.g. multiplatform, new technologies and platforms

2.       Legal e.g. FSA regulations, EU Directives, data protection, accessibility

3.       Stakeholder e.g. multiple teams, differing objectives

4.       User e.g. context of use, user needs, expectations and abilities

5.       Content e.g. quantity of data, specialist data

6.       Interaction e.g. balance between intuition, learnability and control.

As designers, we know it’s our job to help bring design projects through this complexity. I’m reminded of a great quote (by whom I don’t know):

“Sometimes God calms the storm, sometimes He calms the sailor“.

It’s the designer’s role to do a bit of both. We work in a highly collaborative way to calm ‘the sailor’ and make sure the team is able to make informed decisions. We also work in a user-centred way which enables us to calm ‘the storm’ by designing content and interactions appropriate to the user and the commercial context.

Sometimes interfaces we design are beautiful, some are purely functional some are invisible. We challenge ourselves to deal with complexity so that the end users don’t have to.

That’s great design.

(Thanks to Lenny for use of his image  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenny_meriel/3587338182/in/set-72157608595536634 )

These figures tell us a number of things;

• Retailers with strong brands can still gain sales by entering the online market – customers expect them to be there, so even late entrants such as House of Fraser can make progress.
• The greater your brand reach, the greater your chance of making sales in a tough market. People expect to have choice and convenience. Online-only brands will struggle unless they have a true point of difference in a fiercely competitive market.
• Retailers who really understand their customers will succeed in a fierce market.

I have spent many years working in marketing departments of retailers and in stores, and I have never spoken to a retailer who would ever say they don’t know their customers. They must do – customers walk through the doors in their hundreds of thousands each week. They speak to staff at tills, on shop floors, by phone, via e-mail, on doorsteps and in focus groups, every day. Market Insight teams carefully examine basket data from tills, loyalty cards and web analytics. There has never been more data on what people are doing in stores, online or over the phone.

For many years retailers have prided themselves on their ability to second guess what a customer will respond to. How they should lay out a store, what to merchandise by the till, the front door, on the home page or at a category level on a website. They think about which tools will be useful, which image is right and which promotion is best.

Ever better, retailers carry out multi-variate testing to find out what works best, they test press ads, TV ads, e-mail campaigns and direct mail shots. They can prove which version works best, and back the winner.

But do they know why?

In the course of my retailing career, I put together successful promotions, advertisements and product launches. I was even involved in some that were not so good. For all I would be able to tell you why I thought they worked or had failed but I could never actually prove my theory. Did we hit upon a lucky idea, or find the secret formula? If so, could we re-create it for a new product, different category or new season?

The answer to this question lies in talking to customers, observing their behaviour and listening carefully to what they tell us. When done properly, this can give real insight into the most important question: why?

Can I repeat that, yes, like many retail professionals my experience and skill meant I could get it right more times than I got it wrong, but is that enough when we face tougher trading in 2010 than most of us have ever seen at any time in our careers?

Do you know how much it costs to talk to your customers and what the returns could be? Here at Flow, we do and I know you would be surprised.

The unprecedented economic situation means that many products, services and entire businesses are now based on an understanding of their market which is outdated. There's a real danger of businesses providing square pegs for their customers' metaphorical round holes.

In a previous life, I was a recipient of the famous 1995 Bill Gates sea-change email. From that day on, the strategy at Microsoft changed. BillG echoed many business owners around the globe who hurried to adapt their business plans to incorporate online channels and internet connectivity. This simple change in direction has shaped the commercial landscape ever since. Those who adapted successfully and who understood the commercial opportunities and changing customer requirements have been the most successful.

The latest sea change is not one led by technology innovation, but by a dramatic shift in consumer behaviour. In all walks of life attitudes are changing, compounded by the constant media barrage of stories of economic doom and gloom.

"Deep recessions deliver more than just an economic shock: they can shock an entire social system into new ways of thinking and organizing." NESTA (2008) Attacking the recession: How innovation can fight the downturn.

It is all too easy for businesses to focus inwardly to drive efficiencies, or to focus energies on increasing revenue through additional marketing. These energies will be wasted, and even potentially damaging, if the product or service has become fundamentally out of line with the customers' needs & expectations.

We will see...

• Motivations to spend and interact changing, driven by a focus on essentials, economizing, escapism & networking.
• Brand loyalties are shifting as people openly look towards cheaper alternatives and shun luxury goods.
• Trust is no longer a given with established brands... Trust must now be earned in other ways and the risk / reward balance for the customer must be carefully considered.
• The decisions people make and the process by which they research options will be different. The network will play an ever increasing role as people search out value.
• The susceptible moments when customers may be open to up-selling or cross promotion are likely to shift.
• Market segments will rearrange themselves based on potentially new criteria related to goals.
• The list could go on...

Although the effect of these changes varies across sectors, businesses can no longer believe they ‘know' their customers based on old research, results or instinct. While companies focus inwardly on reducing the impact of the recession, the distance between their customer insight and the real customer attitudes and behaviour is growing. Their products and services run the risk of being upstaged by competitors who innovate based on a new understanding of the changing market and user requirements.

This is not a short term situation... these changes will have a lasting impact regardless of the duration of the recession. You only have to look at the attitudes of a generation who have passed through previous economic downturns to see the way it affects their long term attitudes as consumers.

What can be done?

At Flow, we believe that you need to get under the skin of your customers in order to develop and improve products & services. Many of our own case studies illustrate where this user centered approach has led to increased turnover and profits, and reduced costs.

We've previously blogged about a 3 pronged approach to designing in an economic crisis. All 3 require a fresh understanding of your customers:

1. Innovate: The situation provides real opportunities for companies willing to innovate based on fresh user insight. History has shown that recessions are ultimately great drivers of innovation. He who dares wins... UCD enables innovation with minimum risk because you know you're building the right thing from the start.
2. Optimise: It may well be that your existing products and services need a little adaptation for the changing market. Some small improvements can lead to large rewards. Fresh user insight will point you towards some optimizations which are likely to range from simple messaging changes, through to new ways of navigating.
3. Cut costs: A cross channel view across your complete customer will highlight some areas for cost cutting whilst enhancing the total customer experience. Online retailers are currently reaping the rewards whilst their high street rivals are struggling to maintain expensive, and less convenient, channels to market.

User centered design is available in shrink-to-fit. It doesn't need to be expensive, but it must be included if you want to capture the attention of a rapidly changing market.

- Meriel Lenfestey, CEO & founder of Flow

After last year's success, Flow was asked to come back to Seedcamp to mentor on the product and marketing day. I got the opportunity to go and talk with a range of people about how they conceptualise and design new services.

The keynote panel for the day focussed heavily on usability and user-centeredness - in that order. It seems that for most people, the route to user-centered thinking still sparks the notion of usability testing your service/product after build, squeezing it in at the end. Since the cost of changes to software can tend to increase exponentially as you get closer to launch, making changes at the end is not a great way for young businesses to conserve their limited cash.

Soup.io: One of Seedcamp's winners

But from usability, the discussion branched out into the notion that a user-centred approach to strategy early on in the process is much more valuable. This was really valuable for the competing teams. The feedback made it clear that most young entrepreneurs weren't thinking or developing around customer needs. In conversation most said the one thing they didn't have was a differentiated picture about who their users are or how a usable interface might look.

I worked with five of the finalist teams to see if I could help!

Social, efficient, usable

This year's winners seemed to follow a consistent theme: publishing better content, with less effort, and tying it into your social networks. That certainly seems like the mood of the moment on the web.

My favourite

A company called Uniki didn't make it into the final seven. But they were a personal favourite of mine, as an interaction designer. They've created a system to allow gestural interfaces for projected screen. So you can stand near a data projector, wave your hand and turn an on-screen page.

A uniki user gestures at the projected image of an old book to turn the page

Venture capitalists know a thing or two about investments. Which is why user experience is one of the factors involved in seedcamp. For interactive projects, user-centred design reduces risk and increases returns.

User centred design techniques dramatically reduce the risks associated with innovating and launching new products. After all, if you've worked with your target users throughout the design process, you should feel pretty comfortable that you've made something your customers will buy.

As well as reducing risk, designing a good user experience boosts returns.The effort and money you put into research, concept and design will be paid back many times over through increased conversion and usage, a stronger brand and reduced customer acquisition costs.

Some of the literature quotes typical returns on investment at several hundred percent. It's entirely believable. In some situations, a simple usability test, or a piece of insight from the field, can prevent a key problem that would stop users from adopting an new interactive product.

Shrink to fit

Start-up ventures don't have much to invest. That's ok: the process doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. User-centred design techniques shrink to fit. You can perform basic user research with friends and family. Sketch prototypes are easy to create with just a pen and paper. You can perform rapid iterative usability tests in just a few days. When Flow worked with Moo Print during its start-up phase, the team powered through five design iterations in a week.

The point is though, that like any investment if you put nothing in, you'll get nothing back.

So here's our investment advice for all 22 teams at seedcamp. Focus on understanding your users' needs, motivations and real-world behaviours. Then use your insights to help you design and deliver the right user experience. Payback won't be far behind.