It sounds bizarre that a service can be unique in today's world with such simple principle - being user friendly. Earlier in one my blog texts I mentioned Apple's iPhone/iPod, maybe the world's best known example of user friendly design. It is another proof point that being user friendly is uncommon in today's world because it gets so many applauses of being one.
Along with balancion.com I was introduced to the guys from Idean who had designed the service. Very passionate guys who live and breath user friendly designing. Also Idean is able differentiate itself from others with this simple principle - helping companies to design user friendly services, software and different gadget user interfaces.
Last spring a year ago I was giving multiple presentations across Finland about how to build successful online stores. One of the key message was based on a very large customer research that online store itself is a way to differentiate yourself. Being user friendly added with tools to interact with customers (also part of being user friendly) is a way to acquire customers and especially to get them back to be your regular customers. Majority of the participants didn't buy this message because they were in a rush to sell shoes, apparel, or what ever they were planning to sell. For some reason they didn't think store design had something to do with running a successful online or multi-channel business. Back to the idea that user friendly design is a way to differentiate yourself.
Earlier in my career I was responsible for selling (and partly developing) an IT B2B solution which had an online component - customers could track their performance by using an online based service. Design of the service was terrible far from being user friendly. When I indicated this problem I got blank looks from many. It was already thought to be user friendly mainly because it just existed - knowledgeable customers know how to use the service I was told. Problem is how many times you have customers with this knowledge or time and interest to gain this knowledge. Unfortunately not many times. Of course as a good salesman I continued to tell customers about this service as a great value add in the solution.
Ten years ago I was involved in building online portals related to home and housing management. Already then we thought they were way a head of time because design was based on customer's housing management occasions not on single items company was in general selling. Naturally at that time we got blank looks and also lot of complaints that why the focus is not in the point of selling than in the usage value we wanted to provide.
That was ten years ago and today things should be different but for some reason they aren't. Still majority of online presences of companies indicate their organization structure or internal way to classify their offerings. Just look many B2B companies how they have in the navigation menu different areas for products, services and solutions - how potential customer is supposed to understand what is considered to be a product vs. service or service vs. solution. Shouldn't the online presence help customers to understand how the company is able to support their business not just communication the aspects of offering.
What is interesting that same design principle can be adopted to business - business design. Do you build your business around customers or your say manufacturing? But that is another story.
So take a look at balancion.com, unfortunately today only in Finnish, and you understand... if you can think like a customer. I know you can because I have no design related education and my career is filled with sales, marketing and business development experiences not design mgmt. roles.
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