Goals and User Journeys - the only brief worth reading?

During the daily battle to keep onto of my my inbox I received a perfectly valid request from a new member of the client's marketing team that I thought worth of sharing to garner other people's thoughts (how would you have handled this differently?) 

"I am working on a new website brief and we wondered whether there was a Drupal module that we could add for a blog?"

I can only but imagine the immediate thoughts that this would spark or groans this might induce. To me this was an opportunity to reinforce some of i-KOS' collective wisdom......

------ my reply ------

As the Drupalists like to say 'there's a module for that'. In fact if you look at Drupal.org you will see there are over 14,000 modules - yikes! However in practice we nearly always utilise and configure one or more module (we sometimes refer to as a Features or Feature-set) to deliver the desired and best result. 

HOWEVER if I maybe so forward I'd like to share a method of briefing which, in our humble opinion, is where the overall goal and individual goals for each task is expressed and done so via user-stories. This method, we find, helps the authoring process as it makes you consider the different users. 

A simplified examples might be: 

Overall goal: We would like a blog to allow for editorial that is neither official news, events or product information. The driver of this request is to help us publish more regular content and thus assist us in terms of SEO. 

User goals:

As the Site Administrator
  • I would like to be able to create a new blog post which allows me to create a title, bylines, sub headings and body copy using a simple WYSIWYG editor.
  • I will need to add links to other sources
  • Upload images and ideally be able to perform a basic crop
  • Associate a .pdf document although not mandatory 
  • Classify the post by way of a pre-determined classification 
  • Tag the post using free-form text 
  • Moderate comments prior to publishing, edit them if required, have the rights to delete or publish them 
  • etc. 

As a site visitor:
  • I would like to be able to share a blog post to my twitter followers or facebook friends 
  • Post comments; I would like to be able to post comments. 
  • I don't mind logging-in but I'd prefer to use my twitter or facebook credentials 
  • etc

Development of new features for a website used to be wholly dependent upon the technology or rather the limitations of the technology. Whereas we are heading towards a time when we can, within the confines of time and budget, deliver what is actually wanted to meet the project goals. The time and budget is therefore the cornerstone of what we might set out to achieve; meaning we may still in fact revert to what a particular module or modules can do to meet the goals.

Goals and user journeys help us to assess if a feature is actually a good idea (does it achieve the goals) it also helps us and you in terms of guidance and feedback which can be difficult to frame or receive without goals to reference.

Myles

Steve's Biography - initial thoughts

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Reading Steve's biography was a roller coaster of emotional highs and low's and thus a microcosm of his entire life.

It deserves to be read in hungry chunks.

Jobs will be this decades greatest CEO - although many of his traits should never be emulated.

A true genius who saw how to fit things together and make them more than the sum of each part. In this way he was a true inventor.

You will thank yourself for reading this book and I believe it will instil in you a desire to go and do something great.

Vector versus Bitmap - an attempt to explain the difference

This post is an act of trying to save some old information should I ever need it again (I had to dig in the memory banks as it was). 

Vector_bitmap_image
Background Info:
We are working on the design and development of an ecommerce Drupal site for a really cool retro clothing label for a startup venture run by two very exciting entrepreneurs and probably the last people we expected to deliver a brand new logo as a hand-drawn piece of artwork (mounted and everything). With permission I will share the artwork as a followup. 

Anyway @dereckjohnson and I are, we know, seen by most in the office as the old duffers at the best of times but this sent us on a nostalgia trip which culminated in Dereck giving a 5 minute monolog about the different skills that the Mac has 'undone' to a poor unsspecting Drupal themer whose Idea of old school is  HTML 3.0.

The premise of this inane ramble is simply that I had to try and explain and defend the additional work required to create 'artwork' from such a joyous but ultimately 'unquoted' piece or art. 

Here is an extract from my communication... I know you can get a much more exact description from Wikipedia and other sources but they are hardly written in 'client-speak'. 

Bitmap - The act of scanning an image turns it into a bitmap. A bitmap defines an image as a grid of coloured pixels, and it stores the colour for each pixel in the image (if you think of pixels in terms of large printed posters you might get the idea of what happens when you enlarge a bitmap - i.e. the 'pixels'  become almost as large as a marble). 

Photoshop is the world leader in editing bitmaps. A JPEG, as you requested earlier, is the most universally popular format of a bitmap – mainly due to its very clever compression (I’ll save this for another day – I wouldn’t want to bore you anymore in this post).

We could use Photoshop to ‘repair’ the scanned bitmap image but this really is best suited for continuous tone images such as photographs. 

Our recommendation is to redraw the logo as a vector shape. Here's how I attempted to handle this part of the communique: 

Vector - The wiki version - a vector shape is a mathematical description of a geometric form that includes the thickness of the line, the fill color, and additional features of the line that can be expressed mathematically (phew glad I pasted that; I'm sure this would win some kind of crystal mark from the plain english society).

Let me try and make sense of this jargon. A vector shape is most appropriate for a simple, smooth, and clean-looking image. It typically includes less detail than a bitmap, but you can resize it without distortion.

What we are proposing is to redraw the logo using ‘Illustrator’ – the leading Vector editor which, like Photoshop, is made by Adobe. This process involves tracing the logo using lines and curves. Once completed you have a master logo that could be used as the basis for any application – as it can scale to infinity without ever degrading – so car graphics, exhibition panels, huge posters you name it.

In short we are looking to digitally remaster the logo - I especially liked this line :-)

Once mastered we can export (save it 'down') it to a JPEG or whatever is needed. 

Anyway this post is dedicated to those with a publishing or ad agency background or anyone who might get excited about wet proofs or Cromalins!

Enjoy and follow me at http://www.twitter.com/mylesdavidson 

Best regards

@MylesDavidson

p.s. by all means correct my aged memory and add any other examples of trying to explain a lost art. 

eCircle Connect Europe Review in Pics | #eceuro11 @ecircle @duncanbanantyne @dcobley

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@LucyAHudson | Lucy Head of Marketing at eCircle UK introduced all the big names to the main stage whilst managing to smile at all times. If Lucy was nervous it didn't show. 

 

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@dcobley | Dan Cobley | Google's VP of Marketing | See the materials at http://goo.gl/uqj8t.

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Dan reminded us about the power of making people happy. In a day full of psuedo-science and statistics this was a simple, compelling and welcome reminder. 

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Making reference to Maslow's hierarchy Dan showed this bus shelter that had been turned into a human oven - depicting warmth (on a winters day) as a way to make people happy (and warm). 

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Personalisation: Being Noticed

 

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I too got one of these e-mails from LinkedIn and it having faces of people I knew definitely made take notice. 

 

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Torn open: Wired's extreme example of personalisation caused controversy and made for, for one, think about how much I readily share on social sites. 

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Dan's colleague (Anthony Hall) got a shock! 

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The Old Spice "smell like a man campaign" totally eclipsed it's initial groundswell; gained virally from it's YouTube video's by actually providing personalised replies to comments on YouTube. The responses to video's reached over 17m viewers! 


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Barney Willis | eCircle | Spoke in the performance theatre on the topic of Display versus Email – The SEAT Study,
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There were some great stats from the top 100 retailers | the one that struck me was that 60% do not send a thank you or welcome message to signing up. A) how rude B) wasted sales and brand opportunity. 

 

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This slide lead to a question that I asked Philip Storey - "do you think technology is still holding companies back when handling e-mail marketing". Philip said no. The person sitting to my left was from the largest incentive card programme in the UK and agreed (with my view - that tech is still a hindrance for many). 

 

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Making one customer happy at the expense of the masses is a fools errand.

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Inbox relationships with people, Philip Storey, eCircle (sorry for the pic Quality Phil I didn't want to use a flash whilst you were in full stride)
 
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I was really looking forward to hearing Groupon's story. If I'm honest this presentation was a bit of a disappointment. Claiming Groupon got so big so fast because they are agile and were funded from the start only rings as partially true; the well funded bit. Forbes naming Groupon the fastest growing online business ever, raising serious VC money (from ebay founders) and buying an established (BIG) business, followed by Google giving them the ultimate kudos,  (offering $6bm and now an IPO floatation of $15bn) might have something to do with it.
Don't get me wrong, I buy into the fact that 'everyone loves a deal' - and being 'service only' is working - but was 'letsbuyit.com' so different? What I wanted to hear more about was how they actually help clients deal with the huge sales volumes they deliver in a day, and maybe even a case study of five! 

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Groupon's Jonathan Mann

 

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Groupon is definately a beter brand name than mycitydeal

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What I would love is for Groupon to allow me to select the type of offers they send me. I'm really not interested having my lady-parts waxed on a daily basis.

 


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Everyone with money then.

 


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Strange benchmark. Unless there is a correlation between people checking their bank balance before committing to a deal. 

 


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Still Jonathan was a huge hit with some fans in the audience. 

 


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A huge thank you and a hearty well done to @lexi_clarke (pictured) along with @AllyBurt and the whole @ecircle team. 

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The networking and sponsors' area. The hotel was a fantastic venue. 

 

 

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How IBM helps Wimbledon deliver a rich experience to millions of fans around the world, Alan Flack, IBM

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It was the demo of the IBM 'seer' reality app that blew me away; with its live data and video footage from the BBC - awesome. 

 

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This really is the future of sporting events; for geeks like me anyhow. 

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Inbox Relevance – Optimising Halfords Lifecycle Marketing, Saj Bhojani, Halfords & Adam Bennington, eCircle - this tag cloud, specifically the orange highlighted words, were, according to Saj Halford's main areas of focus for 2010. 

 

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I liked the categories used to describe the different campaigns. 

 


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Re-targeting with relevance, Chris Journeay, Adobe

 


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Chris's presentation was very analytical. The cool bit for me was Adobe's ability to dynamically change an e-mails content based on what, I assumed, is a complex set of rules. If anyone knows how this really works please add the comments here. 

 


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One stat to rule them all! 

 


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automate, automate, automate 

 

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The journey from e-commerce to o-commerce, Steve Robinson, MandMDirect.com started with a trip back in time. 

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e-tailers should be able to get to 10% 

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Looking for questions. 

 

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@duncanbanantyne got up and told his story. An unapologetic, funny, and frank talk with more than a hint of fraud! 
My takeaways: Be bold, be persistent, ask lots of questions, learn how to speak the lingo, entrepreneurs are the answer! 

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Lively Q&A's | plenty about 'den' stories. 

 


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A few pints of the black stuff were enjoyed in Club X and under good advise I tool the lift to the roof garden for a breathtaking view of St Paul's
All in all a great day away from the office; listening to some truly knowledgeable speakers to pick up new stories and stats. My gratitude to eCircle. 
Please stay connected with me @mylesdavidson