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 second of a set of three products that just barely (and almost) achieved a Low Credibility value of 0.325.
Low Credibility
In the set of examples of Low Credibility, that we are exploring, each demonstrates a severe lack in fundamentals. Interesting to this group is the fact each just barely (or almost) achieved the Quick-UX Credibility value of 0.325, resulting from…
No obvious typos, and
Some form (some very minimal) method of contact provided.
Example 2: ToRSS
ToRSS is a product that enables users to receive their email via RSS.
This is a nifty product for those with non-personal email within non-personal email accounts.
What? You say you don’t get much non-personal email.
Another likely reaction of any user to this product is…
What?! You want me to enter my email address and password? And, who are you? LOL
Credibility is always important. And, in this case, Credibility is critical. ToRSS is requiring their users trust them enough to provide an email address, an email password and full access to all the user’s email.
The good news is that there is an email address provided to contact the product’s creators.
However, this very non-descript means of contact is surrounded by no context clues as to who or what is being emailed.
The only other link that may provide some basic information is the link…
"Thanks for desing"
Possibly mistaken as thanking the individual(s) who created this page, it merely links to another template website. And, upon a bit of word un-jumbling, one is likely to realize that ‘desing’ is not the name of the individual, nor the group, responsible for the creation or look-and-feel, but rather a typo for the word ‘design.’ Until this realization, this was a product with a Low Credibility value of 0.325, but when a product, that already has very few ties to anything from without, goes about trying to thank another organization, and fumbles the attempt with a typo, any meager credit held along that element of Credibility vanishes, resulting in an adjusted Credibility value of 0.175. It’s too bad that even in ToRSS’s attempt to connect to something potentially more real than themselves, achieving some Credibility by association, falls flat since they misspelled the link.
Should Do
Prior to the typo adjustment, the Credibility value was already very low. The elements that contributed to the Credibility value were already a very weak foundation, especially when taken together with the necessity of High Credibility associated with sharing an email account and its password.
ToRSS has a high requirement for Credibility and, therefore, has a good deal more to do to build it up and maintain it. After fixing the silly, careless typo, the product needs to go about establishing the facts that not only are there real people behind this real organization, and they are reachable, but that all this confidentially sensitive email information is treated with the utmost of care within a secured environment.
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 CredibilityUpdate: Renewed Pogby
Update: LikexoQuick-UX Credibility, In Conclusion
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
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