The Credibility of a product is absolutely critical, whether it is coming from a brand-new startup, or an established corporation. There is a great deal that goes into the Credibility of a product, from the people that hype it, to its visual presentation. However, there are a few basic elements that go directly to the foundational aspects of product Credibility upon which the rest of the product’s truthfulness is built.

Quick-UX provides for the rapid, simple and quantifiable assessment of a product’s User Experience (UX). In answering the question of Usefulness, "Should I use it?" the sub-category of Credibility is one in the frequent discussion of cautious engagement, especially in the ever increasing, in both frequency and size, waves of introductions of online products.

Establishing and maintaining Credibility is the removal, or minimization of concerns arising from these types of questions. Many elements (design, accuracy, usability, timeliness, advertising, etc.) contribute to the positive, or negative, perception of overall product Credibility, but for Quick-UX’s evaluation we assess only the most elemental. For a refresher of the Quick-UX Credibility Rubric visit: Quick-UX & Credibility: Do you believe?

Today, we will look at the first of two general examples of products with Average Credibility values, from 0.45 – 0.75.

Average Credibility

Example 1: MakingOf

On the low end of the Average Credibility range is MakingOf, founded, in-part, by Natalie Portman, as a social network for people interested in the movie making industry.

As previously highlighted, a contact form is an acceptable, credible means by which a company can be contacted.

And, while I was able to find very few obscure typos, none would rise to the occasion of being considered to be of the Obvious variety.

Celebrity

Celebrity founders confer valuable Credibility-boosting cachet upon the projects that they touch. Typically, with celebrity backed products, it is understood that the celebrity will be quite busy (with all their celebrity ‘duties’) and are expected to have little time to work directly on the product. As a result, beyond the positive impact on the Quick-UX Credibility value, the presentation of a comprehensive team, accompanied by individual biographies, contributes greatly to nurturing an atmosphere of trust and shared confidence.

Should Do

Having a celebrity on the founding team is a major shot in the arm, especially when it comes to Credibility. However, having…

A physical address, and
More direct means of contacting important members of the company…

… would go a long way in establishing this product’s Credibility and raising its Average Credibility value of 0.45.

New users are more comfortable participating in an online community if it is clear that the community is not a momentary whim (of a celebrity), but a real product, with a real address, with real ways to reach out to team members, that is also intended to last.

Quick & Useful

Over the next few weeks I will be exploring and ins-and-outs of Credibility, walking through real-world examples of the Quick-UX evaluation of Credibility…

No Credibility
Barely Low Credibility (part 1, 2, 3)
Solidly Low Credibility (part 1, 2)
Average Credibility & Tech News (part 1, 2, 3)
More Average Credibility (part 1, 2)
High Credibility

Update: Renewed Pogby
Update: Likexo

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the Usefulness and Credibility components of Quick-UX, the quick and easy method of generating quantifiable and comparable metrics representing the understanding of the overall User Experience of a product, as well as other insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Every week I read thousands of blog posts. Here, for your weekend enjoyment, are some highlights from my recent reading, for you.

	On Starting Up… http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/07/startup-hotbed-inferiority-complex.html On those with a startup hotbed inferiority complex.
	On Design & Product Experience… http://designreviver.com/inspiration/100-sites-with-outstanding-login-forms/ 100 inspirational approaches to the Login Form.
	On Modular Innovation… http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2009/07/the_dark_side_o_1.html An interesting perspective on openness in a time of Modular Innovation.

Have a great weekend!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Quick-UX provides for the rapid, simple and quantifiable assessment of a product’s User Experience (UX). In answering the question of Usefulness, "Should I use it?" the sub-category of Credibility is one in the frequent discussion of cautious engagement, especially in the ever increasing, in both frequency and size, waves of introductions of online products.

Quick-UX is a method that I have developed and refined over time and frequently utilize when quick assessments are best suited to the task.

Quick Indeed

In this latest series on Credibility, 2 products were chosen as worthy representatives of specific Credibility values, and explored in the articles…

Unbelievable Likexo, and
Puzzling Pogby.

And, shortly, excitingly, after these articles were posted I received appreciative comments from their respective CEO’s, as well as an invitation to take a look at the rapid improvements to their products that these articles spawned. This week, I decided to revisit Likexo.

Real Progress

The earlier state of the Likexo product resulted in an assessment of No Credibility and a Quick-UX Credibility value of0 (zero).

I received heartfelt email from Cristian Venture, CEO at Likexo.com…

"Hello Jeremy,

I’m Cristian Ventura, from Likexo (yes, i am a real person! ) and i have read your blog post about Credibility (that one in that you kill us ), and I wanna thank you about that.

Reading your post was very hard, but as any member of the Likexo team, I really appreciate all the feedback that help us to grow (at least) any little step.

We are a really early Start Up, and we know that we have a lot of work to do to improve our site, but we are really passionate about our job!

In this week (with other features) we improved the "about us" of our site, and we like to show you the new info about us.

Thanks for get the time to inspect Likexo and give us our feedback. If you got more things to comment about Likexo or how can we improve some things, are you free to contact us.

Regards,

Cristian Ventura

CEO @ Likexo.com "

… to which I could do nothing short of taking an eager look at the latest improvements. The results of the evaluation and side-by-side, before and after, comparison follows.

The before and after results are as different as night and day. Likexo went from a product presenting an air of dubiousness to one emanating solid credibility.

Not only do all the previously found typos appear to be eliminated, but…

…general and telephone contact information is readily accessible on the ‘About us’ page, and…

…background and direct contact information for the Likexo team is provided.

Somewhat Direct

The downside to the direct contact information is that you have to be logged-in to see and avail oneself of it. Such a direct means of contact is borderline acceptable in meeting the requirement for ‘team member bios with direct contact information’ (It would be much better to always see the ‘Contact’ button, even if the non-logged-in user, upon clicking this button, is immediately prompted to log-in. Even better — let people, logged-in and not, be able to directly contact team members.)

Awesome!

This outstanding improvement is a great demonstration of just how easy, with passionate and eager people behind a real product, it is for products to create that sound foundation of Credibility upon which to build a company and a brand. I am, for one, looking forward to many new and exciting developments coming out of Likexo as they evolve and grow.

And perhaps best summed up in the words of Cristian Ventura, Likexo’s CEO,

“Quick-UX in particular is very quick and simple, and can serve as a guide to improve many products."

"Likexo is an early stage start-up, and we know that we have many things to improve every day, but we are making a great effort to create an application in which people can find useful information and express all the things that they like."

Quick & Useful

Throughout this series I have been exploring and ins-and-outs of Credibility, walking through real-world examples of the Quick-UX evaluation of Credibility …

No Credibility
Barely Low Credibility (part 1, 2, 3)
Solidly Low Credibility (part 1, 2)
Average Credibility & Tech News (part 1, 2, 3)
More Average Credibility (part 1, 2)
High Credibility

Update: Renewed Pogby
Update: Likexo

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the Usefulness and Credibility components of Quick-UX, the quick and easy method of generating quantifiable and comparable metrics representing the understanding of the overall User Experience of a product, as well as other insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Every week I read tens of thousands of blog posts. Here, for your weekend enjoyment, are some highlights from my recent reading, for you.

	On Starting Up… On charging your customers sooner, rather than later. http://www.undertheradarblog.com/blog/why-you-should-charge-money-sooner-rather-than-later/
	On Design & Product Experience… Good rebuttal to Jacob Neilson’s desire to ‘Stop Password Masking.’ https://blogs.sans.org/appsecstreetfighter/2009/06/28/response-to-nielsens-stop-password-masking/
	On Modular Innovation… On early trends on Modular Innovation. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/something_new_in_2009.php

Have a great weekend!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Quick-UX provides for the rapid, simple and quantifiable assessment of a product’s User Experience (UX). In answering the question of Usefulness, "Should I use it?" the sub-category of Credibility is one in the frequent discussion of cautious engagement, especially in the ever increasing, in both frequency and size, waves of introductions of online products.

Quick-UX is a method that I have developed and refined over time and frequently utilize when quick assessments are best suited to the task.

Quick Indeed

In this latest series on Credibility, 2 products were chosen as worthy representatives of specific Credibility values, and explored in the articles…

Unbelievable Likexo, and
Puzzling Pogby.

And, shortly, excitingly, after these articles were posted, I received appreciative comments from their respective CEO’s, as well as an invitation to take a look at the rapid improvements to their products that these articles spawned. This week, I decided to revisit Pogby.

Stepping Forward

The earlier state of the Pogby product resulted in an assessment of Low Credibility and a Quick-UX Credibility value of0.325.

Spurred onward by Pogby CEO, Josh Gooch’s message…

"We made some rapid changes last night. Please check it out when you have a chance. Appreciate the feedback – josh"

… I decided to see how these changes stacked up and look at their impact on the product’s overall Credibility (if any). The results of the evaluation and side-by-side, before and after, comparison follows.

Kudos to the Pogby team in addressing the issues that the Quick-UX analysis along the variable of Credibility was able to provide.

Special Note

Particularly well executed is the new ‘Who We Are’ page, with background information for the team, and direct contact email address provided to both the CEO and Chief Architect.

In the previous article I took particular note of the awkward content and structure of the header region.

But, now users are presented with a very much welcomed and improved header region for this product, negating the previous confusion of ownership, sponsorship, advertising, etc.,

• Labeling, prominently, the ‘Featured Venue’, and
• Providing clear separation between venue and the product’s name / logo.

Broadly Speaking

Recently, I caught up with Josh Gooch, CEO of Pogby, and we discussed the broader impact of, and his thoughts about, Quick-UX. Out of this exchange there were some important points that Josh sought to make, and I am flattered to share…

“All the evaluation was terrific! I am thankful you are out there taking the time to provide guidance. You have a solid methodology and are trying to provide guidance to companies that may not fully understand how to best relate to customers of their site. It was honestly an honor that you did this for our site. It was great direction that you provided and we rapidly worked to improve things. Your points were all accurate and supported gaining Credibility. All of the content you’ve written has been a great guide for us.”

…and on companies, from big to small, and whether or not they should use Quick-UX…

“Absolutely. We are a startup, so the feedback is key … especially when you don’t have a full-time staff focused on the website. But, bigger companies seem to struggle with this (too) … it is whether or not the company has an interest (or feels the value) in making changes …”

Great Work!

Resulting from an analysis that took minutes, Pogby was able to take focused, quick action, and implement changes with a significant impact on this product and its Credibility.

Quick & Useful

Throughout this series I have been exploring and ins-and-outs of Credibility, walking through real-world examples of the Quick-UX evaluation of Credibility …

No Credibility
Barely Low Credibility (part 1, 2, 3)
Solidly Low Credibility (part 1, 2)
Average Credibility & Tech News (part 1, 2, 3)
More Average Credibility (part 1, 2)
High Credibility

Update: Renewed Pogby
Update: Likexo

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the Usefulness and Credibility components of Quick-UX, the quick and easy method of generating quantifiable and comparable metrics representing the understanding of the overall User Experience of a product, as well as other insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Every week I read tens of thousands of blog posts. Here, for your weekend enjoyment, are some highlights from my recent reading, for you.

	On Starting Up… Stifling startups and healthy competition with noncompetes. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/06/21/start_ups_stifled_by_noncompetes/
	On Design & Product Experience… On the challenges facing the future of web product testing. http://javascriptchicago.com/?p=91
	On Modular Innovation… The everyware perspective of Modular Innovation. http://www.experientia.com/blog/reflecting-on-everyware-the-era-of-ubiquitous-computing/

Have a great weekend!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

The Credibility of a product is absolutely critical, whether it is coming from a brand-new startup, or an established corporation. There is a great deal that goes into the Credibility of a product, from the people that hype it, to its visual presentation. However, there are a few basic elements that go directly to the foundational aspects of product Credibility upon which the rest of the product’s truthfulness is built.

Quick-UX provides for the rapid, simple and quantifiable assessment of a product’s User Experience (UX). In answering the question of Usefulness, "Should I use it?" the sub-category of Credibility is one in the frequent discussion of cautious engagement, especially in the ever increasing, in both frequency and size, waves of introductions of online products.

Establishing and maintaining Credibility is the removal, or minimization of concerns arising from these types of questions. Many elements (design, accuracy, usability, timeliness, advertising, etc.) contribute to the positive, or negative, perception of overall product Credibility, but for Quick-UX’s evaluation we assess only the most elemental. For a refresher of the Quick-UX Credibility Rubric visit: Quick-UX & Credibility: Do you believe?

Tech Blogs

One field, in particular, stands out when talking about Credibility. That field is the news. How better to have a discussion on Quick-UX and Credibility than to see it in action, applied to products that deliver the, hopefully trustworthy, news.

Today, we will take an interesting look at the third of a set of three Technology and Web Blogs with Average Credibility values, from 0.45 – 0.625.

Example 3: GigaOM

Just eking out the claim to the strongest foundation of Credibility within this sub-series set of tech blogs is GigaOM, with Average Credibility and a value of 0.625.

Let’s start by taking a look at each of the touch points that GigaOM executed well, starting with contact information.

This product’s ‘Contact’ page contains contact information for…

• Key individuals by name and department,
• Departmental email addresses, and (+0.175)
• Telephone numbers. (+0.175)

It should be noted, at this point, that the department heads are listed alongside the department emails and, in some cases, the associated phone numbers. However, due to the impersonal and generic nature of the provided contact information, none of methods of email contact would be considered an example of ‘direct contact information for team members,’ as valued within the Quick-UX Credibility framework at +0.125.

On the ‘About Us’ page, this product, like the other products in this tech news group, provides a…

• Good history of the organization,
• Sense of breadth and scope of the GigaOM Network, and
• List of key team members, with accompanying biographies. (+0.125)

Should Do

While GigaOM may have the strongest foundation amongst the tech blogs reviewed, addressing many of the core elements of Credibility, there is always room for improvement. Some such simple examples are…

• Supply clear direct contact information for the members of the GigaOM team, (+0.125)
• Present real pictures of these real team members, and
• Demonstrate this real organization exists in the real world, let the readers know where it is located, e.g. the physical address of HQ. (+0.125)

Quick Note: On Typos

Seeing as this is the last post in this sub-series I thought I would take a moment to discuss a Credibility value component that could be seen of unique import within the market space of online News and Content products.

Quick-UX is a constant and consistent measuring stick for both internal decision making as well as inter-product comparison, within and among industries. Its value is in its ability to minimize the subjectivity of User Experience evaluation and to provide a more structured way of thinking about the User Experience, from its parts to the whole.

Quick-UX heuristics do not vary from market to market. This, in turn, provides a commonality of quantitative features for simple learning, and quick assessment and comparison. However, you could also argue, in these circumstances, that should one of these news products have had a typo, or a systemic problem with typos, such an occurrence could have a much larger overall impact on the product’s Credibility.

This perceived supplemental level of impact represents a secondary order of analysis, beyond Quick-UX. Quick-UX, in a scenario where typos were a problem, would have quickly highlighted the issue, distinguishing key characteristics (or lack thereof) of Credibility, focused the attention, and provided direction as to one possible avenue of deeper analysis, market and strategy specific analysis.

Quick & Useful

Quick-UX Credibility is a measure of the starting point, the foundation of a product’s Credibility. How products, and the people behind them, strengthen, or erode, their trustworthiness through their subsequent actions governs the Credibility imparted to the product’s consumers over time, through extended exposure to the product. However, this extended exposure is only achievable after these products have successfully enticed and converted their visitors into returning readers, by way of a comprehensive User Experience, in significant part due to an initial demonstration of sound and, in these examples, Average Credibility.

Over the next few weeks I will be exploring and ins-and-outs of Credibility, walking through real-world examples of the Quick-UX evaluation of Credibility …

No Credibility
Barely Low Credibility (part 1, 2, 3)
Solidly Low Credibility (part 1, 2)
Average Credibility & Tech News (part 1, 2, 3)
More Average Credibility (part 1, 2)
High Credibility

Update: Renewed Pogby
Update: Likexo

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the Usefulness and Credibility components of Quick-UX, the quick and easy method of generating quantifiable and comparable metrics representing the understanding of the overall User Experience of a product, as well as other insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Every week I read tens of thousands of blog posts. Here, for your weekend enjoyment, are some highlights from my recent reading, for you.

	On Starting Up… On the government regulation of venture capital. http://www.pehub.com/42323/private-equity-and-venture-capital-to-be-regulated/
	On Design & Product Experience… http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/15/take-your-design-to-the-next-level-with-css3/ An interesting perspective on taking design to the next level by shirking web standards.
	On Modular Innovation… http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2009/06/17/my-own-thoughts-on-unite/ Great debate, by way of Opera’s Unite, on the future forms of Modular Innovation.

Have a great weekend!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

The Credibility of a product is absolutely critical, whether it is coming from a brand-new startup, or an established corporation. There is a great deal that goes into the Credibility of a product, from the people that hype it, to its visual presentation. However, there are a few basic elements that go directly to the foundational aspects of product Credibility upon which the rest of the product’s truthfulness is built.

Quick-UX provides for the rapid, simple and quantifiable assessment of a product’s User Experience (UX). In answering the question of Usefulness, "Should I use it?" the sub-category of Credibility is one in the frequent discussion of cautious engagement, especially in the ever increasing, in both frequency and size, waves of introductions of online products.

Establishing and maintaining Credibility is the removal, or minimization of concerns arising from these types of questions. Many elements (design, accuracy, usability, timeliness, advertising, etc.) contribute to the positive, or negative, perception of overall product Credibility, but for Quick-UX’s evaluation we assess only the most elemental. For a refresher of the Quick-UX Credibility Rubric visit: Quick-UX & Credibility: Do you believe?

Tech Blogs

One field, in particular, stands out when talking about Credibility. That field is the news. How better to have a discussion on Quick-UX and Credibility than to see it in action, applied to products that deliver the, hopefully trustworthy, news.

Today, we will take an interesting look at the second of a set of three Technology and Web Blogs with Average Credibility values, from 0.45 – 0.625.

Example 2: Mashable

Founded by Pete Cashmore, Mashable, the tech blog "focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news," provides an experience that achieves a Quick-UX Credibility value of 0.575.

Mashable demonstrates both common and unique approaches in addressing the key touchpoints of Credibility. The general product contact methodology is handled cleanly; even with quick access to some of the most commonly desired reasons for contacting Mashable.

The drop-down menu provides access to both the contact form (and associated email addresses) for the various product departments, along with the somewhat awkwardly located ‘About Us’ option (also found within the page footer — the location where I initially spotted it).

Further buttressing the positive Credibility, the Mashable product’s ‘About Us’ page does a very good job of presenting the product’s history and origins alongside the team’s biographies …

…complemented by pictures and other social profile information (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

Direct Contact

Mashable clearly believes in robustly leveraging as many of the social media channels of communication as possible, thereby allowing their consumers to use whichever methods are most comfortable and familiar.

Within news products the user will typically see an image associated with the article or the article’s title before seeing the author’s image or name, in a left-to-right content prioritization.

Mashable, through their site design, places a greater emphasis on the authors, the real people creating the content. The emphasis is even more striking when compared with other online news and content-oriented products. This Credibility enhancing approach, uniquely differentiates this product and acts as a conduit to further author-consumer social interaction.

Uniquely, on the homepage, users can (for those who happen to stumble upon this functionality) access supplemental author communication channels through a simple mouse-over of the author’s image — similar to the functionality found on the ‘About Us’ page.

On the whole, a positive, while being somewhat mixed in the implementation, is the method of direct communication. While individual’s emails are not provided, anyone who signs up for a Mashable account (a slightly inconvenient hurdle) can directly message many of the key members of the Mashable team by way of their profile pages, linked from the ‘About Us’ page. This goes a long way in establishing honest dialogue, between those that create/maintain the product and those it serves, and, in turn, the product’s Credibility.

Should Do

The Mashable product has a slight edge over TechCrunch on the foundational elements of Credibility. It is what they do upon that foundation that determines their long-term, overall credibility as judged by their, as well as their competitor’s, user bases. In the meantime, some steps Mashable can take to build upon their Credibility success, as evidenced through this Quick-UX assessment, have to do with establishing Mashable, the product, as coming from a real organization within the real world, for example, by…

• expanding the methods of contact to include telephone (e.g. for tips, suggestions, etc.), and
• showing where Mashable HQ is located, the real address at which this real product resides.

Quick & Useful

Quick-UX Credibility is a measure of the starting point, the foundation of a product’s Credibility. How products, and the people behind them, strengthen, or erode, their trustworthiness through their subsequent actions governs the Credibility imparted to the product’s consumers over time, through extended exposure to the product. However, this extended exposure is only achievable after these products have successfully enticed and converted their visitors into returning readers, by way of a comprehensive User Experience, in significant part due to an initial demonstration of sound and, in these examples, Average Credibility.

Over the next few weeks I will be exploring and ins-and-outs of Credibility, walking through real-world examples of the Quick-UX evaluation of Credibility …

No Credibility
Barely Low Credibility (part 1, 2, 3)
Solidly Low Credibility (part 1, 2)
Average Credibility & Tech News (part 1, 2, 3)
More Average Credibility (part 1, 2)
High Credibility

Update: Renewed Pogby
Update: Likexo

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the Usefulness and Credibility components of Quick-UX, the quick and easy method of generating quantifiable and comparable metrics representing the understanding of the overall User Experience of a product, as well as other insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Every week I read tens of thousands of blog posts. Here, for your weekend enjoyment, are some highlights from my recent reading, for you.

	On Starting Up… http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/06/self-awareness.html Learn from the self-awareness of a wise VC.
	On Design & Product Experience… http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2009/06/09/implementation-focus-squarespace/ Learn about how design and interface quality have bred success at startup, Squarespace.
	On Modular Innovation… http://www.appscout.com/2009/06/google_apps_get_outlook_syncin.php The growing Modular Innovation of Google Apps by through ever increasing Interoperability.

Have a great weekend!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks: