UX starts at the front door

What's the message you've designed?

No matter how good the customer experience is within your doors, if your customer can't actually get through those doors, everything else is wasted.
I had lunch in a steak house in Milton Keynes yesterday as I prepared for a meeting with a colleague.
I was seated near the window and close enough to observe as potential diners approached the entrance.
I think I could make one, simple, physical change to that entrance and at least double conversion.
In the short time I was there (a little less than an hour) I saw at least 15 people walk up to the front door, try to open it, fail, and walk away.
People rarely see your embarrassment at failing a simple test like opening a door on the internet (so perhaps they try again and again, allowing us to get away with poor online design?). But in the real world, in front of your friends and passing pedestrians on a Milton Keynes pavement, that embarrassment is real and all that you need to prompt you to keep on walking to the next restaurant.
By the time I came to settle the bill there had been so many failed attempts to get in that I felt it fair to point out the issue to the fella taking my credit card details. To confirm my point, it happened to another would-be customer as we discussed the problem. The member of staff dashed off after that one, but they'd already gone.
To put this in context, there were less people inside dining than had failed to get it. Half the revenue was failing to get past the front door.
What, I wondered, makes this door so great a challenge?
The door very clearly states 'pull'. And the instruction is correct. And to be fair, I had managed to get in, hadn't I?
The problem, I think, is that we typically expect an entrance to open inwards. My front door at home does this and, I'm pretty sure from the pov of entering the room, so do the rest of the doors in our home.
My guess is we come to expect doors to open inwards when they are entrances - no matter whether they are covered with explanations to the contrary (signs don't work, by the way).
The episode highlights how important it is to really push out the ends of end-to-end when we map customer journeys. Sometimes you must, literally, put yourself in your customers' shoes and walk it.
So Middletons, my free piece of advice to you today is, change your entrance door to one which opens inwards. You could double your revenue overnight.

Could VW fines lead to a dirtier planet?

I note that VW is cutting $1bn a year from its investment budget as it strives to balance its reputation-and-fine ravaged books.
Let's imagine that the rest of the car industry takes this as an opportunity not to get ahead, but to take its collective foot off the gas too on investments. After all, they face many margin pressures of their own.
So perhaps the consequence of VW cutting back is that the whole industry will cut back - perhaps $10bn of investment gone per year for the next three years.
What was that $30bn being invested in? New more efficient, less polluting, more recyclable carrs - and the plant to make them.
The consequence of VW being fined for cheating on emissions may well be a less clean planet than might of been had nothing been done.
Surely the aim is a greener planet?
To that end the concept of punitive fines - and the attendant public furore around them - is not doing its job.
Perhaps instead VW should be directed to ring-fence greater amounts of investment for innovation in green technologies, that may actually have the consequences intended.

Listen Again: Antifragility and Digital Transformation

I had the pleasure and privilege of being invited to join an international panel to discuss antifragility and digital transformation on Wednesday October 7, 2015.

The panel was broadcast live at 5pm-6pm UK time but is already available to listen to at your leisure on the following link:

LISTEN NOW>>

If you are hoping for a detailed discussion on the digital architecture required to make your business antifragile, this probably isn’t the discussion for you. But if you are interested in the human elements, the value of connectedness, openness, and the development of the truly networked, purpose-led organisation and the role these play in the sustainability of business, you’ll find plentiful riches.

Naturally, I brought my take from The 10 Principles of Open Business (which I note is suddenly scaling Amazon’s ‘Strategy’ book sales charts – perhaps no coincidence) and Anne McCrossan – founder of Visceral Business (link) spoke with passion for the humanising of the org and Todd Nilson who is director of consulting at Feverbee, the online community builders.

My sincere thanks must go to Sinan Si Alhir (Si), for his relentless sharing, connecting, openness and humanity. He brought us together and hosted the panel and never rests in his efforts to build a better future.