Persuasion Architecture – getting the ROI on IA

Persuasion Architecture has been around for years, Bryan Eisenberg (and his brother Jeffrey) founded the term and has been successfully establishing it as a concept and a measurable process. However, in a recent post, he states that after 7 years we still must be aware of usability and optimising the user experience. Regardless of the passage of time, sites still struggle to be successful.

I tend to agree about this, but then its because when dealing with websites, there are a myriad of elements that will ensure a successful site. Not least, good IA and interface design and of course the ability to convert your customers or users, to enable interaction that is intuitive and easy. But importantly, you need metrics to prove the KPI’s are changing and that all the money spent on IA and this persuasive design is worth it. Its the clearest way to get ROI on IA.

Good IA should always include persuasion architecture within its remit. Its a part of the process. After enabling findability you then want the user to either buy, sign-up, comment, post, bid, sell in the easiest way possible. Of course this will never be straight forward and requires constant testing to ensure the funnel is doing its job.

It comes down to the user’s paths through the site. For each conversion we need to look at the user flow. Wireframes should be drafted for each stage of their interaction. We need both user scenarios and personas to gain a complete picture of who we are building for. We then need to A/B test the pages in the live environment and measure that effectiveness. Google’s free website optimiser is a great free tool for this.

All this should come down to a team of people;

• the UX team to gather personas and create user stories that will help inform the interaction designer
• brand marketing to help define the variety of messages that need to be conveyed and the tone of the proposition
• the IA and interaction designer for the wireframes
• the web analyst to track and monitor the A/B testing and funnel analysis of conversions and to measure audience engagement
• the web development resource to set up a user test environment with appropriate tracking

The metrics that follow will show uplift in certain areas and will encourage the stakeholders to back these projects by investing in the testing and optimisation of their sites.

In the coming month’s I will, with my colleague Alec Cochrane, investigate engagement in more detail. What excites me most about persuasive design is that it is the logical conclusion to the application of the initial information design and a way of measuring that design’s success. Persuasion is not forcing a user to interact but its a way of helping them make choices that the user has already shown interest in. Check back for updates and read more on the subject from Alec here.

Also try Omniture’s excellent whitepapers on the subjects – well worth the read…

Living Wireframes using Office Live

The challenge that faces any design project that uses wireframes is that they can easily be snapshots in time and become static. As soon as they are printed or circulated around a stakeholder group they become a moment in the site development’s life cycle. They often can be made redundant due to forces outside of the design project. This can be a potential point of weakness for this valuable deliverable.

The process of iterative design and collaboration with those who have a stake in the project is the most important element to the generation of this design document. Though it appears as a draft of a site it actually tells the story of the user’s requirements, the context of the solution and the content served. What the wireframe must convey adequately to the stakeholder group and design team is how any changes to the three factors will impact on the interface.

Factors in wireframe evolution

I have completed several IA projects that all yielded specific problems that had to be dealt with differently. In each case collaboration was key. The more that the relationship was valued the better the iterative cycle of wireframing occurred. Sharing and talking over decisions constantly refined the designs before any development or visual design occurred.

Three projects have had a good collaborative element where I was embedded into the development group. By being in early stages and party to all key decisions I had a good view of the business context in which we were operating. We knew where partnerships could be troublesome, so the interface would be adjusted. We could see where resource could be an issue to build specific site elements. By being extremely flexible to the wishes of the site owners whilst accommodating the user wants and needs, a collection of deliverables were handed to the design teams that had undergone rigorous internal and external review.

Even if a project that looks like it is going off the rails may still be saved by a well drafted wireframe. If the interface has been developed against recommendations there remains a reference point to the business to inform them where it went wrong – and an easy way to get the project back on track.

There is a solution that allows true collaboration and I intend to implement it on my next project. By creating documents that are truly living, produced in Visio and using Office Live to share and display online, we can actively encourage true collaboration. Allowing people to access the documents easily and comment on them allows a transparency that is appreciated amongst the team. Trust becomes a currency that will produce discernibly better results. This will allow us to reflect on the designs and implement change far more quickly than at present.

Changes in taxonomy may result in a change of navigation scheme and in turn to the interface. The business may decide not to evolve partnerships meaning certain content may not be present.

But by having a means to communicate in real time, online, more will be done in terms of tuning and perfecting the wireframe. Long before Photoshop is opened or the scrum rooms are busy, it can only result in a defined product and its cost-effective creation.

Visual Language 1.0 – BBC layout guidelines

Any web designer or IA will find this document really interesting and high value. It makes you thankful for institutions like the BBC who readily share their research with the public. This openness and transparency is really admirable and only possible through public funding. Find out the style and layout properties for the forthcoming BBC web pages here.