Does President Obama Know Where His User Experience (UX) Team Is?

Five Lessons in User Experience All Brands Can Learn From.

CBS News reported that the White House recently hired Jeffrey Zients to head up a team to “fix” Healthcare.gov. They also stated they were reaching out to experts and companies in Silicon Valley, trying to tap their expertise for the rescue of the site. 

Ok. Everyone knows that Healthcare.gov site has problems. The largest ones being functionality that that doesn’t work and accurate data collection and storage. This piece focuses on one other aspect, User Experience. Simple tweaks that can make the experience a bit easier for the user to navigate the site.

When a website launches, issues are inevitable but there are many lessons that brands can learn from the government’s (aka your tax dollars’) misfortune.

Let’s put all politics aside for a moment and take a look at some simple UX tactics that could have been applied to minimize risk. I’ve read a lot about the issues but the best knowledge is always first hand and I had to do a test drive myself.

What did I find, you ask?

Oh, many issues but most can all be consolidated into the following five points:

1.     You Need A Captain

2.     Estimate Initial Usage But Be Prepared for 10x the Volume of Users

3.     Streamline Content – Don’t Distract The User With Irrelevant Content

4.     Don’t Scare Them with Commitment Language Off the Bat

5.     Test Early and Rapidly

1.     You Need A Captain

October 2011. That’s when the government began subcontracting out development work for the website. Guess how many organizations this project was subcontracted to? 47. Yes 47.

So with 47 different subcontractors, how could the government know at any given point who was working on the site and who was responsible for the most critical piece that would deem this successful – ie a successful user experience?

It’s a given, when you are building a large site, that you will have multiple departments, people and potentially companies working on it.  That’s why it’s essential to have a UX captain that is all along ensuring the testing and usability of the site. If you don’t, you will fail. No blurred lines there. Your UX captain can serve as the connective tissue from concept through development and launch. Use them, that’s what they are there for.

2.     Estimate Initial Usage But Be Prepared for 10x the Volume of Users

The U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park stated the government had expected to draw 50,000-60,000 simultaneous users at any given time and they were prepared for that.  What happened? On average over 250,000 users have been trying to log in since it launched on October 1^st. 250,000!!!! Remember if you are building a site where you have stated your goal is “7 million users”, then scalability and capacity is critical. If they can’t get in, you potentially just lost a number of users.

3.     Streamline Content for the User – Don’t Distract Them With Irrelevant Content

I have to say one of my biggest pet peeves is when I’m in an experience and I get presented information that is completely irrelevant to me at that point in the process. Don’t do it, just don’t do it. Keep the experience clean and guide the user down a path, don’t distract them.

Here’s a prime example on the site. I get to the homepage, I decide I want more information on Individuals and Families. Here are the series of pages I am now taken through until I can finally take an action that I wanted to take initially.

Great – I’m interested in individual and family – so I click on that in the tabs

Ok I guess I’ll apply online so I click on that.

Hmm… ok I guess I’ll click on the big green button to get started.

Ok – I guess I’ll pick the one starting in January.

Hmm.. Wait what? Why am I seeing Small Business and Brokers here…

I thought I already told you I was an Individual. There doesn’t seem to be a big call to action – I guess I’ll click the individual tab again?

FINALLY A GET STARTED BUTTON THAT WILL LAUNCH A FORM

TO BEGIN FILLING OUT.

So five clicks before I can even begin to fill out a form. Five clicks and that’s because I was able to figure it out and not lose hope along the way. The average user will not get past those first two clicks. “Healthcare.gov”, why are you making me click so many times? Why can’t you just take me to this page immediately?

4.     Don’t Scare Them with Commitment Language Off the Bat

These words are on the homepage and the largest calls to action.  My guess is users want a little more information before committing to an application. Something as simple as Learn More and Apply may ease the experience for the user coming here for the first time and keep them moving through the process.

5.     Test Early and Rapidly

I can’t mention this enough. Even if you only have sketches, testing makes a difference. The smallest tweaks and enhancements can make or break your site. You don’t have to test a gazillion people either. You will begin to see trends after 5-7 users. Do it. Do it often. You won’t be sorry.

“Sources tell CBS News the underlying software was riddled with junk computer code, which means, one expert said, "No way it was properly tested before it went live.”

I rest my case.

In summary, launching a site at this scale is no simple feat. There are bound to be hiccups along the way. However simple UX guardrails can be applied to minimize risk at launch. Now go find your UX team ASAP! Or call me if you don't have one! :)

Check out my coverage in Ad Age.

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Visit my site www.utopia46.com for more UX info!

iPhone Quick Tip of the Day

I hear this a lot lately - my iPhone battery sucks or my phone is chugging. Chances are you have a gazillion applications running that you didn't realize.

Here's the fix:
1. Hit the menu (round button) twice
2. All the icons you see highlighted at the bottom are running. Yes all of them. Touch one of the icons until it starts shaking and hit the (-) key to close the apps
3. Hit the menu key(round key) again to return to your screen

Don't worry you are not deleting the app - you are simply closing it. It's ok.

Still not sure? Watch this video on how to close down apps.

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Visit my site www.utopia46.com for more UX info!

Two Powerful Words

THANK YOU...

Maya Angelou wrote “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Forget about creating a powerful brand for a moment and think about the last time someone gave you a heartfelt thank you. It felt great didn’t it? 


Where did it come from? Your boss? Family member? Friend? A brand?

I experienced this at the simplest, most surprising moment the other day. It came from a 20 month old, my daughter. I gave her a sippy cup and she exclaimed “thank you mumma” with a huge grin on her face. It was the first time I had heard those words come out of her mouth (and hopefully not the last!) but what it brought to light was that it made me feel good. 


Two small words invoking such a powerful feeling.

I know what you are thinking. Big deal, she said thanks. Well, it is a big deal and people should pay more attention to this dying art of saying a genuine thank you and the power within those two words. In a world where you can get everything at the touch of a finger, you cannot buy feeling good.

Saying thank you to someone at the right time is worth millions and will go a lot further than you think.

So now, bringing it back to the brand.... The brands that are the most successful out there are the ones that pull at your emotional strings... They strike a chord in you that was unexpected. They elicit a reaction you weren’t expecting. This sweet spot is what every marketing campaign strives for.

So what are some good examples of thank you goodness?

Heineken thanking their Facebook fans offline.

Ikea thanking their staff by giving each and every one of them a bike.

Now you may not have the money or manpower to do what these brands did but there are simple things you can do on your site on your thank you page. Don’t miss out on that opportunity.

Lastly, you don’t have to be Oprah or a big brand to make someone feel good as evidenced by my little girl. So go thank your friend, colleague, family member or even your pet.... I guarantee you, that thanks will come back to you at some point, just as unexpected.