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Have you ever shopped for a dress shirt? You know, the shirts with a hundred pins, cardboard forms and a 15 minute journey to try it on?
My friend and I needed matching shirts as groomsman (super cute) and not being experts in sizing, we must have tore through a dozen packages before finding the right look and fit.
I tried to find stats about how much of our lives we spend waiting (checkout lines, on hold, etc.) but I couldn’t find one, so I’m making one up. An average North American will spend over 8,000 hours waiting in their lifetime! That’s almost an entire year!
‘Customer Transacts’
That’s where the sticky notes ended on a long wall with an arrayed rainbow of squares. Each had a key feature of our website from the landing pages to the checkout. Beneath the line were all the suggestions for improvements…
You learn best from mistakes, but it’s far more fun when it’s someone else’s mistakes.
One of my earliest lessons in user design occurred while I was still in sales. We bid on a large government project for a registration software. We lost out on a big government deal for a registration software. We pretty much had the thing already built, a great price, expertise, BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERS. I was pretty bitter.
I’m a nut for cooking shows. I’m not talking about drama-ridden, spoon-throwing reality shows, but the ones with absolute masters of culinary experience. Maybe it’s because I can draw so many parallels between great cooking and great writing.
I recently binged on Chef’s Table on Netflix (highly recommended) and revelled in the story behind each master. As I did, specific things stood out as metaphors for exceptional writing.
“I don’t like companies having my data.” Says someone between status updates. “I feel violated that they know everything about me!”
This hypothetical individual isn't alone. About 50% of people are worried about the amount of personal information about them online.
“We don’t want to sound like just another boring service provider." A small electrical company told me when discussing their website content. "We want to come across unique and appealing to homeowners, not just more corporate talk.”
My first thought was, ‘Are you just another boring service provider?’ I can understand a desire to stand out, but what would I want from an electrician? I want professionalism, collaboration and the ability to get the job done. If you pass that test, perhaps I’ll call for a quote. What’s really important to me is that what you say in your marketing matches what you deliver.
That sentence was one of biggest turning points in my career. Young, doe-eyed entrepreneur and slick marketing dude faced with the same jargon I slung for years. It was a proposal filled with buzzwords. The customer was asking for something they couldn’t define to fill expectations they couldn’t articulate. Nightmare.
I was reading some article on our love for garage sales. The quaint backyards and double bays opened with all the personals a lifetime has gathered, ready for bargains.
What is really appealing to people is that you’re buying more than just second hand treasure (or junk), you’re buying stories. A family cared for this furniture, children grew up and made memories with those toys and these tools lasted a generation and will continue to serve.