It’s Time For Forever Web: Forever Learning, Changing, Learning, Improving
Written by Russ on June 20, 2008 – 1:18 pmSub-title: Beta is BS and Users Deserve Better
“Always in Beta” is one of those latest phrases that does a really good job of getting under my skin. Beta implies to me that something is purposefully not yet complete and that there are going to be some mistakes.
Some companies, like Adobe, do a really good job of utilizing a beta release program to snuff out issues that real users find and that are not in a “control” group of their selection.
That is a good thing.
However, launching a website and slapping a “beta” label on it often seems like an excuse to put garbage on the web very rapidly (in order to prove a business model, have a prototype, start to engage users, show to VCs, etc.). A “live” beta online often seems to be a mash-up of incomplete thoughts or a good reason to shrug shoulders and let issues fall off like water on a duck. Live beta mistakes are often paid for, in spades, by the users.
That is a bad thing.
We need to rid ourselves of excuses, take ownership and admit to users that, while we are relentlessly pursuing wickedly-awesome user experiences, we can make mistakes. Users need to know this and in return, they should realize that all mistakes made in the pursuit of a good user experience will ultimately lead to a correction of the mistakes down the road.
That, however, is not a beta, nor an excuse. It’s an honest, persistent state of being.
If You Build It Poorly, They Will Leave
We’ve all heard it before. There is a really good chance that many of us have said it before: If the user experience is bad, users will leave.
We’ve said that users who cannot find something are users who believe “it” does not exist.
We’ve said that we have to engage our users. We have to test our designs. We have to get to know our users to find out what makes them tick. We have to be committed to our users.
We have to do all of those things—OR ELSE.
Frankly, we say a lot of stuff and we stomp around with our “clients just don’t get it” hats on and the attitudes that all of this stuff is always right.
Maybe—just maybe—we’re not entirely right.
In fact, I think we are missing the mark more than just a little.
Crazy Talk? I Don’t Think So.
First, there are somethings we need to acknowledge and, in some cases, come to terms with.
We, as User Experience Practitioners, are NOT entirely right with all of the things that we say, all of the claims that we make and all of the preaching that we do. Even so, there is some good news…
Clients are starting to get it. It has been a slow coming, but more and more, we have jobs that are in demand. We have clients who want to make “things” better and more usable. We have clients and companies that think that an “Information Architect” or a “User Experience <something>” or a variation of those titles is something that is essential to their core process and that they need to hire those types in order to start things moving in the right direction.
Sure, often times they think we’re the cure, but much like launching a website without any sort of promotional efforts, we cannot simply happen in a vacuum, right?
Right.
There is a shift. Conference attendance appears to be up. Conferences appear to be happening every week and weekend in cities across the globe.
The tide is turning.
Value—or perceived value—is beginning to be majorly associated to User Experience Practitioners.
We are in demand.
And a lot of us are arrogant.
And a lot of us think that whatever we think is right.
Which is even more arrogant.
The User is ALWAYS Right
Nope.
Neither is your UXD Team
I am so sorry to tell you this, but the user is not always right. Of course, I’m also not naïve enough to actually think that I’m the first to put this copy. I’m not making an effort to be controversial—there is no controversy about it. It’s a fact—and even though we strive to provide users with what (we think) they want, they often do not even know what they need. For more case studies on this, well, look around the space you are currently occupying. Nearly everything in that space around you has an 800 number associated with it to a call center that deals with all kinds of customer requests (thank you, Mark Dronen). There are a lot of calls received to those call centers from people who need some assistance or support—and a lot of calls are also receive from people who have misused the product (let’s leave intention out of this for the moment).
Users often are the culprits of innovation as the mis-use something that was intended for another purpose. In the case of Flickr, companies may adapt. In the case of someone trying to use a hammer as a weapon, well, it’s not supposed to be a weapon. So, you know, the user is not always right.
Obviously, however, neither are clients.
Neither are you
Neither am I.
Can you swallow that? You’d better. At the core of all of this is something that we, as User Experience Practitioners, live in every minute of our professional lives:
The User Experience Never Ends
We all agree on that, right? We’ve all had someone ask us this in an interview as they’re trying to be clever and weed out the (ahem) fakers amongst us. If you have not experienced this, well, maybe hiring companies are finally figuring it out that we can all guess the correct answer to the question by now.
So, if the User Experience never ends, then we need to come to grips with the notion that the design process never ends, right?
Right.
It also means that we are forever striving to meet any number of objectives that are allegedly for our users and also happen to meet business goals and/or objectives, make stakeholders happy and make the people who sign the checks continue to sign those checks.
It means that, while we serve many masters and we must ALWAYS remain ever-diligent to our user goals/needs/objectives (and, ahem, that’s our one true master, right? Right.) and we do our best to accurately interpret them—nay, sell them—to our clients to deliver what is often perceived as a lesser evil, or that which is least wrong. Right?
Right.
As long as we’re being honest here, let’s remember that we’re very much steeped in the world of throw-away work (or “tries”) and iterations (“near misses”) that get us to an eventual sign-off (“conditional” or “x level” of “approval”) in order to get us to the point where prototypes (more “tries”) can lead to revisions (“post-approval enhancements”) prior to ever getting beyond development (“serious commitment”) and going live (“really serious approval”) where real users will give us real feedback that we will (should) turn into enhancements and improvements (“deviations from our best guesses and influenced decisions”) which can lead to another new project (“try, try again”).
Whew.
So What?
Now that’s the big question that should always be asked—and answered. No one should be surprised this heading is here as long as I am the author.
Everything we do when it comes to user research and user testing is done from a sampling. We do this to make best assumptions as to what behaviors are and what feedback is that can drive our projects/products to being the best that they can do for the largest possible audience.
So, we have to admit and be willing to accept a few things:
Some of those users are wrong. We need to either convert them, provide them with something that is useful to them or we simply need to find the right way to get rid of them. Sometimes users are not right for whatever it is that we are doing, and that’s okay.
We have to be willing to lose some users. We have to accept that we cannot be all things to all users and any change will bring about a risk in losing users. Because of this, we have to set an expectation to users that we are working very hard for them; we are evangelizing a never-ending user experience on their behalf and, by gosh, sometimes we have to get it wrong to get it right.
We have to get companies to admit that, along the way, there may be some mis-steps and there may be some mistakes and there may be some things that tested well but fail upon delivery. We have to get companies to talk about the fact that they are actively striving themselves to try and meet the moving target of user needs and that sometimes something goes a little wrong.
We have to talk about it. Our community needs to be able to educate our clients that this will happen.
We have to get clients to talk about it. Clients have to not only admit all of this to themselves, but to their users, as well. And no, they cannot call it BETA. Or my head will explode.
And we have to get customers to understand that one mis-step—maybe even two, or three or “x” mis-step isn’t a deal breaker. It is not enough to leave a company, a brand, a product for.
In fact, an acknowledged mis-step is all the more reason to stay with a company, a brand, a product.
Why?
Because, in my humblest of opinions, any company that is willing to make mistakes—and claim those mistakes as their own—in order to make “something” better for its users, is a company that a user should want to be connected to.
Really.
Keep Doing What You’re Doing. And More.
So, dear User Experience community, keep up the good work of educating your clients and evangelizing the never-ending UX Lifecycle. You’re doing a great job and I’m right there beside you in the thick of it all everyday.
(Really—I am!)
Do not forget, however, to educate your users. Help them understand that improvements and enhancements (or modifications, adjustments, tweaks, etc.) are being done their behalf.
Help them understand that we, and our clients, are learning from them and that every engagement they have with our clients is an engagement that we are all learning from—for them.
We may will make mistakes
We may make a left at Albequerque when we should have taken a right.
We may really, really make some wrong decisions on their behalf.
But it’s on their behalf, and that is important—because if we weren’t willing to make mistakes on their behalf, we would not be willing to learn from them so that we can better serve them.
We are constantly in flux, Some places claim to be “always in beta”. That’s lame—the intention may be to put out the message as I have been describing, but it’s also an excuse to never deliver a complete thought to users, and that is not what this is about.
Users are not stupid
Live Beta is the lie that is used to “go live” with mistakes and incomplete thoughts. It is an excuse to let someone else, sometimes users, write the requirements. It is a scapegoat that ensures that no one has to fully take the blame for an idea gone wrong. It’s “beta”, after all.
(There is a caveat here—some companies, like Adobe, Microsoft and others engage in live beta product releases that are successful and that are close to completion. They get a pass for certain cases.)
And to clarify: Beta releases are for a select group or for a select period of time–or both. Mini-releases and updates are just that: mini-releases and updates. They do not constitute a beta, they constitute making improvements, enhancements and updates. They fix something broken. The beta should be over by then, so let’s just stop the lie.
Forever Web is the truth we use to let users know that we have though through all that we’ve learned and we’ve navigated the numerous corporate political battlefields to put forth the best that we can deliver. Forever Web let’s our users know that we are willing to make the mistakes on their behalf to move closer and closer to providing the best experience.
Oh, and that we’re going to keep doing it as long as we’re around.
Posted in Rant, Usability, User Experience, User Experience Design | 4 Comments »
Russ: You must have missed your round of Design Thinking Kool-Aid this morning.
There’s a cost to what you’re talking about. The ‘optimal’ is in a constantly moving balance between exchange of value. If ‘some’ value can be added while what the ‘better’ value might be can be discovered, all the better.
The real issue is in not paying attention at all, not the early release.
Fight the battles where they deserve to be fought.
I suggest this is not one of them.
Really?
What is the cost to better communication–and more honest communication?
I suggest that users are more forgiving than we think. I suggest that they are smarter and that we’re not always supplying them with the clarity that they want and need.
I also suggest that the more users know, the more users will appreciate mis-steps in the wrong direction.
Slapping a Beta label on something is a cop-out.
In any case, I’ve always found that it is more expensive to lie in the long run than it is to tell the truth immediately.
You’re young. The use of the term ‘beta’ is almost like a badge of courage…a counter-culture statement. There is at least one generation of people still in technology for whom anything ‘beta’ would never be considered worthy to be put into production. Indeed, there are still strong cultures in organizations where until a product meets certain criteria, it cannot be put into production.
The ‘beta’ label is the way to differentiate “old school” from “new school”, it was the precursor to “2.0″ as a label.
The label had meaning at one time. Perhaps the need for that distinction will wane, but the distinction is not driven by the point you raised.
I’m young? I’m unsure as to why my age is relevant (or young, I suppose).
Beta is frequently not used as a badge of courage–it’s used as an excuse. Many companies used it as I’ve described it.
Few, such as Critical Mass, use it in the right way–a way to test ideas and notions and to see what sticks with a limited release and/or audience.
Even so, the post is clearly pointing out that it’s time to be truthful to ourselves and our users and our users will understand that the world of “constant change” is before them. And for them.
And they can be forgiving of mistakes if we let them.
Beta badges aren’t worthy of that.