Give me an experience

Not only do I want to enjoy using applications, I also want to enjoy interacting with the IT organization. So don't bore me with your tedious inside-out service level metrics, communicate with me. Well, at least try to communicate. Think about what kind of experience you think I should be having when we engage. Use every 'moment of truth' to reinforce that experience. And get some meaningful feedback from me (not yet another badly though out survey) and do something with what I tell you. 

Social information management

Managing information from a business perspective has always been a challenge. How do you motivate people to use information systems as they're supposed to be used? How do you ensure data quality? How do you discover what improvements will make a difference? How do you manage change and transition? How can information help your business strategy?

 

Engage your users

-          Get raw feedback (be prepared for a shock)

-          Inform users when there are incidents or outages

-          Generate ideas for improvement

-          Improve relationship with clients who use your apps

 

Stockholm System Syndrome

Ever felt happy with an application when you've completed a longish transaction without it having crashed and losing your data? Yep, that's the Stockholm syndrome: "a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness."

I think of some applications as benevolent dictators. You're obliged to use them and they direct your actions in a polite but firm way: "Please re-enter your data".

Emotional application lifecycle

Your relationship with an app will probably go through a lifecycle something like this.

 

·         Anticipation – you're looking forward to getting the app or being authorized to use it

·         Disappointment – Too high expectations

·         Resignation – Guess you'd better get used to it

·         Acclimatization – It's not that bad after all

·         Frustration – It's habits are annoying me more and more

·         Alienation – The thrill has gone

 

Seeing as all relationships seem to come with a 'best before date', it'll probably end up ugly.

Appersonality

Let's anthropomorphize a bit. Can applications be happy, grumpy, authoritative, lazy, reliable, fickle, cruel, stupid, intuitive, responsive, sexy? Sure they can. Think about it.