How often have sat in your comfy chair, seen a commercial and thought "Oh, I want that!" Only to discover, what you want isn't available, or isn't available at the advertised price? Here's a bit of reality for those of you who still don't know...that's what advertisers do! The purpose of advertising is to grab your interest...peak your curiosity...get you in the door by any means necessary. When you arrive, you may not find the thing that got you there, but maybe you will discover many more alternatives, and some more expensive than the item you originally wanted.
But what does this have to do with the usability? Everything. While there may be some consumers who are okay with realizing the product they sought is not available, there are others who are disappointed. What does that discovery do for their perception of that company? What if the consumer concludes that company did not truthfully advertise? The possibilities are that the consumer may be disappointed enough to voice their opinion in the store...in earshot of other consumers or provide negative feedback online where they can reach a much broader audience.
Marketing does what marketing does. It is not wrong - it just sometimes leaves the consumer wondering what happened. Can UX involvement in marketing strategies bring value to the company? Yep. In fact, the more marketing and UX work together, the less likely there will be such instances.
Let's use a TV commercial I recently saw for a chain of clothing stores. In the ad I saw a sweater I really would like to have. I went to three different stores looking for this sweater. Finally I asked a store manager about the sweater and I learned that none of their stores receive the same merchandise AND merchandise is distributed based on the store region. So the reality of me finding the sweater in any one store in Texas had odds of 1:1875 in the U.S. The manager, of course, did let me know that they had great deals going on other merchandise, but I had my heart set on that sweater. I did not buy an alternate product, I simply left that store. My user experience was less than desirable. I was not able to complete my goal. But I didn't give up immediately. I went to the company's web site and got further disappointed. While they had a web presence, they did not have an e-commerce tool and to make matters worse, they actually had a FAQ that clearly shut the door on all hope of accomplishing my goal. The FAQ statement expressed that they're policy prohibited them for performing a merchandise search on any of their products. If it's in the FAQs I can assume someone else has already tried what I was thinking of. In summary, I've driven over 40 miles and spent more than 2 hours of my time trying to find something that was never really available to me.
What could the advertiser have done to keep me interested AND responsibly informed? A simple disclaimer would have been better than nothing at all. A clear statement that "inventory may vary by location" would have caused me to pause before exerting additional energy to find the sweater.
But what does this have to do with the usability? Everything. While there may be some consumers who are okay with realizing the product they sought is not available, there are others who are disappointed. What does that discovery do for their perception of that company? What if the consumer concludes that company did not truthfully advertise? The possibilities are that the consumer may be disappointed enough to voice their opinion in the store...in earshot of other consumers or provide negative feedback online where they can reach a much broader audience.
Marketing does what marketing does. It is not wrong - it just sometimes leaves the consumer wondering what happened. Can UX involvement in marketing strategies bring value to the company? Yep. In fact, the more marketing and UX work together, the less likely there will be such instances.
Let's use a TV commercial I recently saw for a chain of clothing stores. In the ad I saw a sweater I really would like to have. I went to three different stores looking for this sweater. Finally I asked a store manager about the sweater and I learned that none of their stores receive the same merchandise AND merchandise is distributed based on the store region. So the reality of me finding the sweater in any one store in Texas had odds of 1:1875 in the U.S. The manager, of course, did let me know that they had great deals going on other merchandise, but I had my heart set on that sweater. I did not buy an alternate product, I simply left that store. My user experience was less than desirable. I was not able to complete my goal. But I didn't give up immediately. I went to the company's web site and got further disappointed. While they had a web presence, they did not have an e-commerce tool and to make matters worse, they actually had a FAQ that clearly shut the door on all hope of accomplishing my goal. The FAQ statement expressed that they're policy prohibited them for performing a merchandise search on any of their products. If it's in the FAQs I can assume someone else has already tried what I was thinking of. In summary, I've driven over 40 miles and spent more than 2 hours of my time trying to find something that was never really available to me.
What could the advertiser have done to keep me interested AND responsibly informed? A simple disclaimer would have been better than nothing at all. A clear statement that "inventory may vary by location" would have caused me to pause before exerting additional energy to find the sweater.
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