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Posts on innovation, user experience, research and design

Nike's Flagship Store in Harajuku, Japan

Via Jeff Staple, here's another beautiful retail store from another great company (Nike) focused on the customer experience and the value of their brand. From the nterview with Masamichi Katayama, designer of the Nike flagship store in Harjuku, Japan:
I struggled for quite a bit with the question of how to bring together the store's location in Tokyo with the culture and business of Nike. Sports culture and fashion culture really come together here and I believe Tokyo is a city where people are very conscious of this combination. 

The street culture of Nike, a tremendous variation of products, a good sense of chaos like the feeling of Tokyo, and the "Nike customer experience" I really had to rack my brain on how to mix all of these things, which is how we designed the space, with such variation. In a way, very much like Tokyo itself. I've been thinking about my impression of the store

I've been thinking about my impression of the store. The whole thing is like a piece of equipment in a playground or a big toy. To play with that idea, not as a store, but as a place for experiencing space and a time where people can get excited and can return to a childlike state. That's what I wanted to express.

I love that last thought: designing a space to return the people who explore it to a childlike state. What an admirable and ambitious goal.

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Filed under  //   brand   CX   design   Nike   retail   UX  
Posted January 11, 2010
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Square's Innovation and Ergonomics

I wanted to capture a few more thoughts from Square's demo at Le Web a few days ago (embedded below). While the demo itself was a veritable disaster for Jack Dorsey, there's a lot of interesting information you can glean from it. If you're following along at home, the demo starts at about the 7:30 mark in the video below. First the good stuff . . .
  • Square is listening to the card swipe - I'm not a hardware geek so the fact that Square was designed to plug into the headphone jack of a smartphone just seemed like a very commonsense thing to do. In fact, I wondered why it hadn't been done before. It's just another input device, right? Well, yes, but it is still designed to be an audio input device. What I guess I didn't realize until this video is that Square didn't hack this input for card data, rather their device is actually "listening" to the translated card swipe. As Dorey says of the self-powered swiper: "It's powered by the magnetic resistance of the swipe itself. It translates the swipe into to an audio signal and the phone picks it up and software interprets it." This may be pretty commonplace for the more technical among us, but for a simple mind like mine, this is very impressive; illustrating a powerful blend of innovation and strategic cross-platform design.
  • "No receipt" is an option - I didn't catch this the first time I wrote about Square's interaction, so I wanted to make sure I set the record straight. I had previously expressed concern with requiring a user to enter their email address for a receipt and stated that No Receipt should be an option for the sake of efficiency and stage frightened users. Not surprisingly "No receipt" is already an option. Another counterbalance to my concern about the retail line-killing capabilities of inputing an email address is that the device remembers emails. Still a pain for the first time you have to enter your email address, but a nice remedy for repeat business. 
  • Quickbooks, inventory management and other open API ecosystem opportunities - While open APIs are sort of the standard protocol for new web services, what I really liked about Jack's comments is the thought that's already going into the API ecosystem (Quickbooks integration and inventory management systems are explicitly mentioned). When I first wrote about Square, I was most interested in the ability of Square to provide an out-of-the box loyalty program for business owners. The more I think about this the more it becomes clear that loyalty programs are just one layer of the power this system can provide small business owners. The open API will really enable this system to thrive.
  • Contract- and merchant account-Free - Riffing off Hutch Carpenter and TechCrunch, I think this business model innovation could literally be a game changer for merchant services providers. While Square is very new, it would seem wise not to discredit their opportunity. The parallel between the bone-rattling fear emanating from the mobile and telecommunications industry at the existence of a Google Phone (which could pave the way for free, ad-subsidized phones calling and no contracts - i.e. no need for AT&T, Verizon or anyone else) is stunning. Sure, Square has an nascent technology compared to the full installed base of Verifone et al, but for the right price (free card reader + no contract, etc), merchants could flock en masse to Square. This has tremendous, tremendous potential.
  • "Friction points" - This isn't really an observation of the UX, but just a term I noticed in Jack's presentation. I love how he refers to difficulties in card acceptance flow as "friction points". I'm probably drawn to the phrase because I mentally refer to breaks in user experience as "sand in the gears". If you've got friction or sand in the wheels, processes run less smoothly and eventually the process breaks from user fatigue/wear and tear. It's death by a thousand cuts (or long, irritating abrasion). It's also a reminder of how attuned Jack and his team are to user experience, making me believe that the concerns that follow have all been considered and are either in their implementation plans or have been otherwise dismissed as unimportant. Nevertheless . . . 
So I've covered a lot of Square's awesomeness above. But one thing that's still bugging me: swiping the card. This demo is a great example of how this device could be annoying to use, which may cripple long-term adoption. While the cool factor and the business model are compelling reasons for merchants to switch initially, the device can't be annoying or they won't stay. In the video, the device fails for about 4 minutes. I lost count of how many swipes it took and I'm not sure what caused the malfunction here but you have to assume that this isn't the first time this has happened. This is a brand new device. What happens in a year of steady use? This is as good as this experience will ever be. In any case, if you watch the demo, you see a couple of things happening. 1) The swipe looks a little awkward 2) the Square moves in the jack a little after the swipe.

So let's take these in order: 
  • The swipe looks awkward - I really can't put my finger on it, but it just looks odd to me. Maybe it's the square-ness or smallness of the device.Maybe it's the card and the device moving independently of one another, sort of like how you would try to spin a penny or a sharpen a knife. I don't know. All I can say is that it reminds me of the time my leaf blower broke. I used to start my leaf blower by holding it in one hand and pulling the starter cord with the other, i.e. both hands moving in opposite directions. It normally took about five cranks to get it to start. One day, the starter coil inside the blower broke. When I took it in to get it repaired the technician told me what the problem was. He said "How do you start it" I said that I started it as described above. He responded: "You shouldn't do that. You should always have it on the ground - put your foot on it to hold it down, then pull the cord." While holding it in one hand and pulling with the other seemed to give me more pull speed (two forces moving in opposite directions) the deal is that your energy is not as focused if you don't have the blower grounded/stable. When I took my repaired blower home, I tried it again using the mechanic's advice - it started with two pulls every time and has ever since. The grounding helped. My gut tells me this has a lot to do with the issues Jack had during his demo. Sure it had never happened before, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Square wouldn't benefit from some grounding. Keep the device stable - make the card swipe the only moving action. Along those lines . . .
  • The Square moves - In all of the failed attempts to swipe the card, the Square moved around several times. Getting to the design of the Square, it would seem like it might be more grounded if it clipped onto the iPhone somehow to prevent that from happening. With it swiveling around like that it sort of seems flimsy or unstable. Now of course providing a clipping mechanism might make it un-usable on all smartphones. So I know the device has to be somewhat agnostic here, but I still think it needs some grounding.
Docking station remedy
Add these two together + the possible perils of handing an iPod back and forth in a busy retail checkout environment + the challenge of signing a small screen while holding the smartphone along with other goods you just purchased and I'm convinced that a docking station is absolutely critical to widespread adoption of Square. All you need is a simple device that seats the smartphone, secures the Square (providing it the grounding needed to make the swipes more consistent), and is angled so that consumers can easily sign with their finger. Put a swivel on the base so merchants can turn it around after entering a transaction amount etc and you've solved all of these problems. No dropped phones, a secured swiping Square, a hard surface to sign your name against and type your email address against. Win.

In any case, given all of the fantastic attributes of Square, the grounding issue isn't a deal breaker, but it would seem to greatly improve the experience and ergonomics of the system. I'm not sure this is something that Square would provide as part of their core business but accessories like the docking station would seem like a great way to diversify their transaction-fee based revenue stream and improve the overall experience of their platform.

Video of Jack's Demo at Le Web:

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Filed under  //   card   ergonomics   human factors   innovation   merchant   retail   Square   ui   ux  
Posted December 15, 2009
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Kinks in Square's User Experience

There's a new video out today walking through more details about Square. Quick recap of what we know now:
  • Cost: Dorsey hopes to give away the devices for free. I wonder if that's the just the first device or all devices. Since it's so small I could imagine them being easy to lose. 
  • Revenue Stream: Transaction fee-based. Sounds like it's a charge on top of Interchange. I don't disagree with the approach, but merchants are already displeased with Interchange rates as is. Will be interesting to see how willing they will be to accept additional charges.
  • Launch date: Anticipated in March 2010
Some observations from the videos posted below:
  • "That was a LOT for a $3 transaction" - Not sure what the CNBC commentator's name was, but he's right. Watching the process in both videos seems like a lot of steps. While most card transactions have most of these steps, you don't see email entering or signing for low-dollar amounts much (or ever) these days. These elements are speed bumps where no speed bumps should be. The result is a slower transaction rate. In fact, in the second video at the coffeeshop, you can clearly see a cash transaction moving by at rocket speed in the background. Speed is important in retail transactions, particularly retail card transactions. 
  • Can you email the receipt to me? OK, sure, just enter your email address. Really . . . my whole email address? - In my post about the Coke Freestyle, I mentioned stage fright. When there are people in line behind me and I need to enter my email address, which has 24 characters in it, this could be a huge bottleneck. Speed and ease of use are the reasons people use cards over cash. In fact, it's been the subject of a memorable Visa Check Card marketing campaign. While everyone likes to be green, people like speed and ease of use more. The SMS option they provide is better as it's just a phone number you need to enter, and of course the super easy alternative here is to simply provide no receipt. If the latter is not an option, it should be. Another neat option would be to "bump" the receipt to the person's iPhone/Droid but then you've just made the person fish for their phone in their pocket, at which point I'd rather just use my phone to pay via NFC.
  • Lots of handing the iPhone back and forth - Not sure how this handing an iPhone back and forth is going to play out in a busy restaurant/venue with people juggling a paper, a coffee, a muffin, and your store's credit card acceptance device (which happens to be your personal phone also). Hypercom terminals don't break often because they just sit there on the counter all day. Lots of handing back and forth would seem to increase accidents. Perhaps Square (or someone else) should consider creating a docking station for the iPhone for this type of environment? Something that would allow this exchange to take place more easily. 
  • Sign with your finger . . . for $3 dollars? - Expectations these days are that low-dollar transactions will not require a signature. In fact, as almost a card-exclusive purchaser (I don't carry cash) I am always taken a little off guard when I have to sign for anything under about $15. I wouldn't want to have to sign for a $3 dollar transaction. I would imagine this is something that Square would provide as a setting for merchants.
All of these things are fixable so I still remain very interested and optimistic about Square's future. It will be neat to see how that plays out. Anyway, here are the videos of Square in action:

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Filed under  //   card   CX   IxD   merchant   retail   Square   usability   UX  
Posted December 8, 2009
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Razorfone Interactive Retail Experience

Quick post on the new Razorfone Interactive Retail Experience. Fantastic use of the Microsoft Surface to enable better retail buying experiences. While the jury is still out on the revolutionary qualities of the Surface, there’s no denying the cool factor of the demo/concept that Razorfish has put together.

From Emerging Experiences:

The Razorfone solution is focused around providing an experience where customers can learn about wireless products. Phone and netbook features and associated wireless plans are presented in a rich interactive environment. Accessories are presented to the customer as a cross-sell opportunity. The use of 3D allows for customers to view their device in any color and from any angle, regardless of availability of the physical device within the retail store. The customer can validate the wireless coverage where they live, work and play through the use of the interactive coverage map using simple pan and zoom gestures. Customers can personalize their device after purchase with ringtones, games and applications through the use of QR technology, increasing sales and helping to eliminate buyer’s remorse.

View the video and read more at Emerging Experiences

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Filed under  //   haptics   interaction   interface   Microsoft   retail   surface  
Posted November 25, 2009
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