Self Service Design: Interaction versus Information
– posted June 30th, 2009 by Colin Bentley Comments (3)
We at iQ pride ourselves on our interaction design work. Crafting the perfect flow, creating beautifully efficient paths to completion and fashioning calls to action that entice your mouse are the daily bread and butter of my job.
And so I was really excited when given the chance to work on my most recent project, the redesign of an online self-service web application. Not just one flow, but lots of intricately connected, consolidated flows and actions. Sad as it is to say this is what and interaction designer’s dreams are made of.
It’s design time
And so I tucked in, analysing the priorities of the tasks, creating an application hierarchy, optimising the processes and combining related actions. I toiled and toiled and after some considerable effort I was quite happy with the progress.
iQ Mantra: User test it
So we put it in front of some people. They really loved the spacious layout and the new shiny buttons. But they asked so many questions:
• What will happen to my account if I press this?
• Will my plan change now, at the end of the month or when I pay my next bill?
• Is there a downgrading charge associated?
• How much is a 5 minute call to Timbuktu on my new plan?
Psst! Why questions are bad
Most notably, there was an utter resistance to progress through a flow or complete an action if even one query went unanswered. The standard response from users meeting this difficulty? “I’m just going to pick up the phone.” Phone = Application Fail!
Just a few things that may be required
The session demonstrated how important supporting information is to self-service applications. Self-service applications are typically functionality focused. They provide the ability to change your account in some way, but provide none of the vital detail that would make you to feel confident enough to actually complete the change.
E-commerce: the role model
Self-service applications need to look to their e-commerce cousins as example. Online stores provide users with enough product information to convince them to part with their hard earned cash. Self service apps may not be selling products, but they are selling a way to self-manage a user’s account, so they must contain the relevant detail to allow users to confidently do this. Confidence is the key to self service success.
3 comments so far
1. Aravinda on Jul 20th, 2009 - 15:05
I am working in one of the large retail giant IT.We are in the same process of redesigning our Self Service application with online chats, call back options and implementing the perfect workflows. How are you creating the application hierarchy, optimising the processes and combining related actions, any examples?
2. Colin Bentley on Jul 21st, 2009 - 10:25
Hi Aravinda
Thanks for your comments. This is a tough question to answer in a general sense. I think this process of defining the overall structure of a self-care application really needs to be done on a case by case basis.
For example the project I was working on, the design goal was to provide as much current account information to the customer as easily as possible. In this instance a general account dashboard and separate sub-section dashboards provided the best structure for the application.
However this might not be true for the project you are working on.
Try to clarify the primary goal of the self-care redesign, this will give you some good principles for restructuring the application itself.
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