Author: paulcorrado

A business of nuance and change

~ paulcorrado ~ Leave a comment

The main points I want to get across in looking at e-commerce theory is that it, like any kind of retail, it is a business of nuance and change.

1. The type of online retail experience that is perfect for one shopper; product or situation will not always work for another.

Each selling situation has different:
– types of products
– types of customers
– situations the customers are in.

2. As new technology and norms come into existence we have a chance to change how some people with some products in some circumstances choose to shop. It is important to understand these nuances as we work to make better shopping experiences for these individual niches.

Next day shipping is important in some situations and not others. Some individuals only care about price and others about convenience. Some products i can wait weeks for while others I want in 5 minutes. We must be careful when making overreaching general statements about all online shopping situations.

Jeff Bezos from Amazon has been famous for saying the customers will always want low prices, fast delivery and a large selection. These are probably good general rules but as we will see these are not equally important in all situations.

Let’s look at a few examples of products, individuals or situations that will determine what we look for in an online retail experience

Type of product:
– Does it need to fit just right or is it standard size for all?
– If it is not what I wanted or expected, what will I loose?
– Does it have a material I need to touch?
– What if I have to return it?
– Is it to big to ship?
– Do I have enough information if i can not see it in person?

Type of customer:
– Do I feel comfortable putting financial data online?
– Does my shipping address safely accept deliveries?
– Do I trust a store where I can not see or talk directly to a person?
– Am I tech savvy in general?

Type of situations
– Do I need this now, soon, next week, next month?
– Do I enjoy the act of in store shopping?
– If it comes late what will I loose?

As new technology and customer norms change we will be able to find new and better ways to fit more products into the e-commerce equation. We will slowly be able to provide better experiences for each of these three areas and in the process more and more products will be purchased in new ways, many of these online. 

Retailers need to understand the changes happening both technologically and culturally and utilizing creative thinking or the new norms to make sure that they stay relevant to the customers, use cases and types of products they are currently fulfilling with their business model.

 

 

Health is not a single concept but a group of concepts.

~ paulcorrado ~ Leave a comment

Health is not one concepts but a number of concepts put together. It can have to do with how long you live, how you feel when you are living, your mental, physical and emotional state and so on.  These are some of the concepts people think of when talking about health.

Did a person have a healthier life living to 120 but be being sluggish and sick most days or vibrant and alert until a painless death at 90?

Are you healthier with a Broken leg or a cold, depression or with cancer.

When we talk about health we are not talking about one thing but a number of concepts that we group together even if they are not easily compared or agreed on by all people.

Rationality of crime depends on your situation

~ paulcorrado ~ Leave a comment

A specific crime can be rational for one person and not for another.

Assuming you have people who are thinking clear (not on crack or what not), and not committing a crime out of the excitement (think vandalism) it can depend on life circumstance on whether or not a particular crime is rational. Imagine I accurately know the chance of getting caught for stealing a car and I can get $500 for it at a chop shop. If I need to pay rent or pay for food or heat for my family I am more likely to steal the car than if I just wanted a new pair of shoes and a jacket. The down side is the same, going to jail, paying a fine, stigma in society but the upshot is much higher if I succeed, providing for my family, being warm and safe from environment.

It is not alway irrational to commit a crime (assuming we have a goal of our own or those we care about wellbeing and not those impacted). What determines the rationality is the chance of getting caught and what happens if we do not commit the crime.

Value can be created by getting more of what we want or changing what we want

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We traditionally think that getting more of what we want is how we get more things of value. But we can also change what we value.

Value is a relationship between the thing of value and the thing that experiences it.

1. If we change the number of things we have that we find valuable we will have more or less of what is valuable to us.

2. If we change what we find valuable we will have more or less of what is valuable to us.

These are two complete different ways of looking at gaining or losing valuable things and we often only look at the first when talking about having more or less things of value.

This is one of the main points in stoic philosphy.

It is also very useful in thinking about economics. If wealth is having more of what we value changing what we value is as useful as getting more of what we currently value.

Apple: keep it simple, keep it human, do a few things great, brand bank

~ paulcorrado ~ Leave a comment
Here are a few principles that i have learned from reading about Apple.

Apple:  keep it simple, keep it human, do a few things great, brand bank

Keep it simple: get rid of anything that will distract and is seldom used. Other operating systems, computers or phones can have more features, more slots and more bells and whistles but apple has done a great job of eliminating those things that are not used as often or are not as important. They have less disk drives or slots than many other computers. Less buttons on many of the devices. Less ability to change the battery or do updates. Allowing these things comes at a cost and they believe that if the feature is not used often enough or is not important enough it is better to leave it out.
Keep it human: make sure to think about what humans want and not just what we can add. Think about how the customers use the product and design for that, not just extra features because we can. One other aspect is thinking about benefits that people get, not new features. People care about the benefit and the feature is just a means to the benefit. Apple says “1000 songs in your pocket” and not 5 gigs. Think benefits, not features when marketing to what humans really want.
Do a few things great: do not attempt to be the best at everything. 2 desktop, 2 laptop, pro and home use, not 30 variations like Dell. Apple now has more products but they still keep it very focused at what they can do best. The famously say they can display all of the products they sell on one kitchen size table. They are not creating 15 different phones and 15 different laptops, 15 printers and so on. They focus on a few products and just do them better than anyone else.

Brand bank: think of your positive brand reputation as something you can add to (do something good) and take deposits out of (do something bad). If you take too much out you will go broke. People will not have a positive feeling about your brand but if you do a great job most of the time you will be able to mess up once in a while.

Ethics – Meta, Normative, Descriptive, Applied

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One of the main issues in talking about ethics is that people are referring to different aspects. Ethics can be talked about in a number of ways.

Some people separate ethics into:
Meta: what it means when people talk about right and wrong
Normative: what is actually right and wrong, or how should we decide
Descriptive: what do people think is right and wrong
Applied: what actions should we take to do what is right

These are all very interesting but different concepts. One person may be talking about normative and someone else may be talking about descriptive. This can cause a lot of disagreement and confusion. (this problem also happens in a lot of other areas of disagreement between people)

This is not to say people do not have real disagreements on the topic. It is just that many of the disagreements have to do with what aspects of ethics people are referring to.

staples.com – site review

~ paulcorrado ~ Leave a comment

I am looking for some packing tape on staples and starting my search here. first thing i notice is:

1. extremely large search bar.
2. nothing special in the search results

The page that is clicked on (packing tape) has products with popular on top.
good: 
1. very detailed product detail page. one of the best product detail pages i have seen.
overall a great site (much improved over past designs)

2. they clearly eliminate any worry by adding this on the checkout page

bad: 
1.after adding to cart the site has a light box that shows other products. that is fine but they stand out more than the product i ordered. this is fine but i would like the product i added to stand out more and not take that extra second to questions if i accidentally ordered some other products. overall that is not that bad.
2. I am not a huge fan of the logo in the center but it is fine in this design

 

Design Principle: Speak the users and systems language 

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In order to communicate effectively you have to speak the language of the person you are talking to and the language of the system you are using.

Language of the User:
If you sell garbage cans and the user calls them “garbage cans” but you call it “waste receptacles” you are not speaking the users language. This can happen when the consumer refers to things differently than the industry does. This can also happen when the designer is in a different age group, culture or demographic from the user. Always make sure you are using the language that the user is accustom to or you will not be providing a great experience.

Language of the System:
If you have a home page button you could call it “start”, “home base”, “first”, “begin” or anything else you will probably cause some confusion. Most people are familiar with the term “home”, not because it is intrinsically better but because it has become the standard tern for starting point on a website.

We can always think of exceptions to this principle but in general it is best to speak the language of the user you are designing for and the system you are designing in.