On logging in to your HSBC Hong Kong personal bank account the customer gets a brochureware spashpage promoting HSBC products (why no account summary?).  To access their accounts (the reason the customer has gone to the trouble of logging in) the primary call to action is in a box on the right hand side of [...]

Posted in usability 1 Comment »

“For you who have had the experience, no explanation is necessary. For you who have not, none is possible.”
I’m going to attribute that saying to Ram Dass, a Harvard professor who via psychedelic experiences ended up a spiritual teacher in the Eastern Tradition.
The problem with too much software/web design is that it is produced [...]

Posted in Customer Experience, Marketing, Methodology, Mobile phones, Web design, emotional design, innovation 1 Comment »

There once was a time where the honorable thing to do if you screwed up was to resign. No more it seems.  Times change and to resign is to walk away and admit defeat.  Defeat is something our culture doesn’t honor; no-one likes a loser.  So you ignore the critics and stay on; you know [...]

Posted in Banking, Work 2 Comments »

Credit card companies talk about “front of wallet”. With customers having a number of cards at their disposal, how does a credit card issuer ensure that their card is the customer’s card of choice; the card they will pull out first because it is at the front of the customer’s wallet?
How do you make [...]

Posted in Banking, Customer Experience, Social networks, Web 2.0, Web design, interaction design 1 Comment »

Recently I was told of a Blue Chip company whose IT organisation, in the guise of cost cutting, has recently disbanded its QA function. From now on, testing will be conducted by the developers themselves. Since when have developers relished the role of testing? It is inevitable that this cost cutting solution [...]

Posted in Banking, Customer Experience, Work, innovation No Comments »

You went to the local branch of your bank and spoke to a really helpful person there. In the few minutes you were with her you established a relationship with her. You felt comfortable and confident that she would take ownership of your request. But before she could deal with your query, [...]

Posted in Banking, Customer Experience 3 Comments »

This is nothing new, but there are still people out there to whom Web 2.0 is a bit of a mystery. What exactly is it, and more to the point, should our business care about this stuff? Or, as I have heard senior executives argue, is it just another bubble, a distraction to [...]

Posted in Banking, Customer Experience, Web 2.0, Web design, innovation, interaction design 2 Comments »

Imagine an investment bank, a trader has a requirement for a tool to screen stocks. The requirement is to select stocks based upon different parameters, so for example find companies with a market capitalisation between a selected range, and a P/E ratio, Dividend Yield and Net Profit Margin between other selected ranges. And [...]

Posted in Banking, Design, Web 2.0, innovation, interaction design No Comments »

Someone from the Barclaycard research centre rang me today doing some customer research. It is great to know they take the customer experience seriously - many of the questions were around my experience with the brand. But then they dropped this corker, not once, but twice.
To what extent do your other credit card [...]

Posted in Banking, Customer Experience, Marketing, innovation 1 Comment »

In the real world, when I get an application form I’ll flick through the pages and have a look at what is required. I can choose which fields I complete in whatever order I like. If I want to take a break half way through I can. I can complete it when I [...]

Posted in Banking, Customer Experience, Design, Information Architecture, Web 2.0, innovation, interaction design, usability 6 Comments »