The Optimism Bias, or don’t believe satisfaction surveys
We need to move to an evidence-based model of understanding people’s needs based on what they actually do, not what they say they do.
The lady had just finished trying to complete 15 tasks on the website. “What did you think of the website,” the organizer asked her.
“It was great,” she replied effusively. “I really liked […]
Top Tasks Management for UK councils
“The design of the website should be focused on top tasks. No longer should organisations aim for the most comprehensive website possible. Less is better!”
This statement comes from Socitm, the membership association for ICT management with members from 98% of all UK local authorities. This is a big shift in government website thinking. I remember […]
Eliminate task duplicates
How many unique tasks are there in the following list?
• Book an appointment online
• Appointment reminders
• Let me book an appointment
• Make an appointment
• Request an appointment
Yes, two. One task is about booking an appointment and another is about getting reminders for the appointment you have booked. As you develop your task list you will come across a lot of […]
Managing your task list
Collect your task longlist in a spreadsheet with the following headings:
• Tasks: This is where we place the task word/phrase
• Duplicates: This column contains task phrases that are very similar to each other.
• Class: This is the broad classification the task phrase fits into.
• Source: This is where we found the task phrase. For example, “Top 100 Search Results”.
• Internal […]
Where to get your task list from
The first step in top task management is carrying out a task situation analysis in order to understand the whole range of customer tasks that exist. I call this list of customer tasks the ‘Longlist.’
The following longlist sources are specifically for a public website, but the basic approach to building a longlist works […]
If web teams ran a hotel
Some web teams lack an ability to prioritize and focus. As a result, they create big, sprawling, out-of-date websites.
Welcome to Webland, a new hotel run by a web team. There are big queues at check in. That’s because Tom and Jane, who should be helping check people in, are out back in the garden. Webland […]
Top tasks define your brand and reputation
The experience your customers have completing their top tasks has a big influence on what they think of your organization and brand.
Let’s imagine you’ve arrived at the website of Hotel XYZ with the intention of booking a bedroom. The booking process is horrible and you finally give up without having booked a room. Let’s say […]
Redesign out, continuous improvement in
Big redesigns are a very dangerous strategy. Continuous improvement of your customers’ top tasks is much better.
When Gawker Media launched a big redesign in February 2011, its traffic halved. That can happen because even when you do good things, people don’t like change. It can take them a while to adapt to the new environment. […]
Information production explodes, consumption stagnates
Our capacity to produce information is exploding. Our capacity to consume information however, remains relatively static.
A recently published study by scientists at University of California estimates that the annual amount of business-related information processed by the world’s computer servers is equivalent to a 5.6-billion-mile-high stack of books from Earth to Neptune and back to […]
The format is not the task
Nobody is interested in documentation, tools, videos, blogs or Twitter for their own sake. Their interest in these things is only in the context of the task they need to complete.
When I bought my house last year I inherited a lawnmower with it. Works fine except that I need to change the oil. What oil […]
