After last night’s informative Heavy Chef Session with the inimitable Tim Bishop, the founder of Prezence Digital, we asked him a few pointed questions on his thoughts and observations about building mobile sites in South Africa.

Thanks for chatting to us here at Heavy Chef Project, Tim! You disagreed quite intensely with Jason’s sentiments on “Less Is More” in his post on mobisite design three weeks ago. Can you explain your view?

“Less is more” is very much a design phrase and in most cases is absolutely true, however, this phrase cannot be used for ‘functionality’. Less functionality is definitely not more in your car, on your PC or on your website and is certainly not true on mobile websites. There is a huge misunderstanding in the fact that mobile sites have to be the poor cousins of their ‘web’ counterparts, but this misnomer is spawned by ignorance in the market place (including poor info being disseminated by trusted and so-called industry experts who claim to be mobile specialists) and the inability of ‘mobile’ agencies to deliver a well balanced technical experience on smaller devices.

Mobi is massively powerful. In some cases, more powerful that its web counterpart. Users should have the choice to use as much functionality as they like. It is our job to give them that choice in an user-friendly way which is accessible for any kind of device.

Tim, you speak a lot about the lack of progression in South African mobile development. What do you think SA brands need to do to catch up to their cousins abroad?

I am not worried about the lack of progression of SA mobile development as I believe that some of us are on the forefront of technology and amongst the leaders in the world. These advancements, however, sit with a handful of companies in SA with limited direct brand exposure. The rest of the agencies who have the working relationships with the brands have simply added ‘Mobile’ to their list of services thinking that it is just a matter of scaling down the client’s web and campaign components. This process is called miniaturizing as opposed to properly ‘mobilizing’. It undermines the true value and ROI of mobile deployments.

Brand owners, of course, trust everything their agencies are telling them which immediately limits that brand to the mobile capabilities of their agency which at best is usually basic and naive. If brands want be at the forefront of mobile and enable extended reach to their customers (or potential new customers) it’s simply a matter of talking to the right people, researching and using the great examples out there as well as attending conferences or making sure that their agency does!

Mobile in SA is pretty much where we were in web when Prezence started in 2002, very few are good at it, very few understand it, but many are charging a fortune for it.

Transactional functionality is not something you see often in South African – or African – mobisites. Why do you think this is?

Mainly due to the points I raise above. It is not just internal technical limitation or lack of knowledge of those companies advising the brands. User experience design is infinitely more important on small devices and this has to be tightly woven into strong technical function. This combination is rare in SA right now.

Transactional sites on smaller devices need a slightly different approach in user flow. Creating easy to use, secure transactional sites is somewhat of a craft that involves many aspects including technical ability, usability and a solid understanding of how all 6000+ possible devices will handle things.

Remember that mobilizing is not just about enabling the people who use your website to gain access to you when on the move, it is also about reaching a further 10m+ audience who do not have that privilege of desktop internet access. On a transactional front for accessing those people comes with its own set of problems. Alternative payment methods are very close to being realized, so start the work now and the customers will come.

The Kulula example is a good one, it really offers no useful functionality whatsoever from a brand that is purely a transactional one (Very similar to SAA). At the moment on this site I can see how much I am going to miss my flight by, I can check the weather in where I should have been flying to if I had made my flight, and I can read all about how I could book a flight, a car, and change my booking if I wasn’t on my mobile! The simplest things are not even taken care of…. for example on their contact page. In mobile we have the oldest technology called ‘Click to call’ which acts like a hyperlink. This enables a phone number to simply be clicked and your phone will call it. On the Kulula site they don’t even do this, so you will need fetch a pen and paper (as you won’t be able to type it into your phone because you are browsing on it), squint to read the number, write it down, and then close down the mobi site and dial in the number and phone them! I don’t know who did this site and don’t particularly care, but no doubt good money was paid for it and it can only have been implemented by a company who does not even understand these basics of mobile access which is not really going to get us as mobile champions, Kulula or the Kulula user anywhere.

Apologies, if this very poor user experience was Kulula saying to the agency.. “No guys, we want it to be impossible for the user to hassle us on the phone so make this basic thing as difficult as possible for them”… but I somewhat doubt it, but even if that was the case, there are times where us as agencies have to forget about the paycheck and do the right thing regardless!

There may also be a strategy that surrounds the broader non-functionality and they’re intentionally limiting it for some other reason unbeknown to us, but there is no ‘user’ or ‘technical’ reason why this mobile site could not be a fully e-commerce enabled mobi site which not only offers flight booking/changes but also other transactional functions such as online check-in, car hire and hotel bookings. It is especially easy on a site such as this (airline) due to no requirements for 3D secure type payments (although those are in the offing). It would still have a ‘less is more’ design approach but instead of its current limited offering it could offer much more use and relevance to those wanting to access via their mobile phone. Transactional functionality is not restricted to smartphones, even the most basic of web enabled phones (available for R300 on pay as you go) have this ability.

For me, this site demonstrates everything that is bad about the way SA brands and their agencies approach digital technology and it is clearly wrong and more valuable money goes down the drain. They are surely not doing it on purpose, but these guys just need to change who they get advice from when making decisions in the digital space.

You’re behind some progressive mobisites like Ster Kinekor and Computicket. Can you give us a glimpse of how these sites are evolving?

Prezence built SterKinekor.mobi over 4 years ago now and is starting to show its age but all those years ago gave SA a glimpse (and a very big hint) as to what was coming in the mobile space and the importance of mobile commerce. Much has progressed in usability and handset detection and adaptation since then and we are very much looking forward to the release of SK2 ‘The sequel’ in a month or so. The new SK mobile site will recognize and adapt to the newer phones a lot better to give an enjoyable experience including geolocation, better quality trailers and a much slicker search and book process, but also offer everything the most basic user needs for mass penetration. More importantly it will be available to all mobile web users and will be bolting in all new methods of payments, wallets and tools to aid the unbanked and the ‘un-credit-carded’ along a constantly evolving roadmap as the technology involves.

Computicket themselves have recently become a lot more than just an event ticket company with the addition of a very strong flights, hotel and car hire offerings. Needless to say, this will of course be mobilized to take advantage of the benefits that brings to the user. When mobilizing anything in Africa we look at deploying lowest common denominator technologies and a design approach to enable access for all, but have the ability to upwards enhance for the smarter phones. This essentially means that even through mobi technology we are able to detect the advanced features of some phones and automatically and subsequently enhance the  mobi site’s features to take advantage of these. Examples of this include: GPS and mapping/directions capability, HD video and streaming audio as well as more user- functional enhancements such as Ajax, HTML5 and dynamic CSS.

We’re seeing a significant growth in mobile browsing – how would a retailer like, say Pick n Pay, can take advantage of mobile?

Well, in theory there is very little PnP could not do on their mobile site that they do on their web site and enable all their current commerce activities, but obviously for major ‘basket size’ sites (size meaning the number of items rather than their value) involving users purchasing large varieties of products in a single transaction on a small device comes with more challenges than using a large screen, keyboard and mouse.

Whilst mobilizing a retailer with millions of products is not a problem (as great usability allows the user to drill down and find them), it is purely the amount and variety of items that a user may require on a weekly or monthly shop that would make usability slightly more of a challenge on a smaller device. That said, there is no reason why the functionality should not be there if you really did want it, after all, the technical functionality to add one item to a basket is the same as adding 500 items, it just takes more effort on the user’s side to find and add the 500!

PnP of course also allows you to save your large weekly or monthly shops. This helps mobile quite significantly as additions and amends to this saved basket of 500 items is much less time consuming to order via mobile. In our view, there is no reason why you should exclude any possible digital functionality from mobile. If you made the effort to develop it for web or your other digital channels then there is twice as much reason (population usage) to make a little more of an effort and enable it for mobile.

Mobile brings all sorts of other advantages to a major retailer such as a Pick n Pay such as real-time vouchering for redemption at the POS, basket suggestions as you walk through the store and in-store price scanning and comparisons. Every one of the customers walking around the store have a mobile phone in their hand, and this furthers the opportunities for a bricks and mortar retailer to enhance consumer interaction. For the non bricks and mortar retailers or those with much smaller basket sizes such as wine clubs, electronics, books, music and clothing, there is every reason to go mobile, however some of the biggest brands in this regard have not even activated ordering over traditional web channels. In the UK you will struggle to find a high street retailer who has not enabled online ordering and is not in the process of mobilizing those services. the logistics of affordable and safe delivery in SA can no longer be an excuse.

Do you foresee people actually ordering and paying for groceries via their mobile phones?

In certain circumstances absolutely (see above)… but why would we stop even the few if they wanted to, although not ubiquitous, there are handsets that would make this as easy as the web, and whilst it would probably be very much a long winded process on lower end handsets – if you had to do your shop and you did not have the luxury of a PC you would be grateful for the ability to do it. At this stage for a large grocer I think the focus would be in managing and adjusting their preselected monthly shop and those more premium items and packaged offers such as a case of ‘Winter wine collection’, ‘Braai for 4 hamper’, etc. This is where context comes in where we properly analyze why a user might be using the mobile to access the brand and the circumstances surrounding that access. The retailer is actually best positioned to determine what those ‘just in time purchases’ might be as well as the ‘Oh damn I forgot’, or ‘I cant be bothered’ packaged type products.

The approach to getting all of these things right and providing a great mobile and product offering whilst taking the user, context, content and the technology into consideration is what Prezence call ‘mobilizing’. Just making it smaller is not enough.

Thanks Tim for sharing with us and coming to talk to our guests at Heavy Chef! Also, big thanks to our sponsors Deloitte for the incredible venue with a view; Corona and Backsberg for the tasty beer and lovely wine; and Channel Mobile for making our events so amazing!

We’ve spent the last few weeks discussing community management on the Heavy Chef blog and we decided that it was time to put some of the theory into practice.  To do this, we’ve developed a home-page wireframe for Homer Simpson’s community blog.

Wireframes are often described as the stickmen of web design – they are simple mock-ups of a web page that allow us to quickly determine which elements need to appear on a page and their relative priority.  The wireframing process is usually the first step after you have taken the time to understand the website requirements from both the business and user perspectives.

The idea for the Homer Simpson community blog was to create a place for Homer and his friends to write about topic which interested them (i.e. beer, donuts and TV).   Based on these topics, Homer then wants to build a community of like-minded people (starting in Springfield) with the goal of getting them to discuss the pressing issues around beer, donuts and TV.

Navigation and banner

The main navigation for the community blog is created around the blog topics.  This structure allows visitors to the site to quickly find articles about the topic that they find most interesting.  This structure works best if the topics which you are going to be focussing on are well defined.  Non-blog related pages are put together on the secondary navigation.

From a community management perspective, it is important have a clear content strategy – this means that the topics you are writing about should be well defined and fit in with the business and website objectives.  Having content that is consistent, on-topic and well written means that users will want to come back to Homer’s community blog because they know that is the best source for information relating to beer, donuts and TV.

Below the navigation is a large banner which can be used to promote something important or popular.  The banner be the first thing that the user will notice when they land on the home page and it should therefore be used effectively. It also helps if there are recent articles on the home page which relate to the banner so that users can continue reading about the topic if they find it interesting.  Once of the key elements of successfully building a community is to give your community a cause which they can get behind – i.e. an emotional reason to get involved.  In the case of the Homer Simpson’s blog, we have decided to use the banner to encourage users to donate to his foundation.  Through the donation process, users will be encouraged to sign-up as members so that they can follow the progress of the fundraising and be involved in the handover of Duff and donuts.

Below the fold

Scrolling down past the banner and the top of the latest post reveals that the rest of the home page is made up of widgets on the left-hand column and recent articles on the rights-hand side.  The first widget is used for a big, clear call-to-action that encourages the reader to become a member.

By making the top article bigger and better designed, we hope to direct the user’s attention to it.  For each blog post, the following information is shown: title, author, category, date, comments and shares.  Each of these elements has a specific benefit with regards to community building.

By showing the authors name for each post and by having a featured blogger widget, we are able to highlight the different personalities of the bloggers.  Users who read the blog often will start to form an emotional bond with the different authors as they see their stories beginning to emerge through their writing.  Relating posts back to authors also helps remind the user that the blog is run by real people who are knowledgeable and passionate about the topics discussed.

Showing the date that each post was posted to the blog shows the user that the blog is alive and being updated constantly.  When building a community, users will always be looking for reasons to keep visiting the website – having up-to-date content is one of the main drawcards.

Finally, making the number comments, shares and likes clearly visible indicates to readers, at a glance, that the community is active and vocal.  This lets the user know that they will not be alone in joining the community.  Another one of the benefits of giving the like and share buttons prominence is that they encourage content syndication which in turn will bring new people to the site.

Social networking integration

Facebook and Twitter integration indicates to users that your community extends beyond the blog.  This is important as a lot of people would rather join Homer’s community through a social network that they already part of.  Twitter and Facebook are very different tools with different communities and communication styles.  It is important to not just syndicate content automatically to both but to rather talk to the communities on both sites in the way that they like being talked to.

Together all these elements provide the basis for community building but at the end of the day, it takes good content that is updated regularly by bloggers who engage with their audience to build a community on a blog.

Doh!

So, when I stumbled across Comcast Town, I was reminded of Justin’s words of wisdom.

Comcast Town is an online contest where creative minds can design a digital apartment via Comcast Town’s amazing, interactive portal.

Creating a totally new, cartoonish world, the portal provides users with a Sims-like navigation – allowing you to explore Comcast Town, interact with elements (including listening to guitar-playing squirrels!) and, ultimately, create your own little apartment.

Competition mechanics aside, this is a truely grand design of a marketing campaign. A creative masterpiece. The case study of all digital marketing case studies.

Pay Comcast Town a visit at ComcastTown.com.

I’ve embedded a brief intro video on Comcast Town below (0:59) – check it out:

lochness-logo

This is just too cool. I saw this on Logo Faves (one of my favourite RSS feeds) and was gobsmacked by how spot on this design is. It’s always the simple stuff that kills. Love your work Mr Designer.

[Original logo link here]

apple

The sales team at World Wide Creative have probably used the Apple website in a few of our client pitches as an inspiration piece for a combination of great design and usability. Nice, squeeky clean and conversion-focused. So, check out this classic piece of reinvention from a guy called Dave Lawrence that’s doing the interweb rounds right about now…

[Via Flickr... and email and Twitter and Digg, etc.]

In fact I often wonder if they’re built to transact. It doesn’t seem as much, considering their failure (in my opinion) to find even a swift of balance between creative design and the user-experience.

That being said, FNB has changed my perception.

This weekend, FNB’s new site went live. And frankly speaking, creatively and user-experience-wise, FNB’s site blows their competitors out of the water. six-luv. six-luv. six-luv.

Consider some of South Africa’s top bank’s websites:

www.absa.co.za

www.standardbank.co.za

www.nedbank.co.za

www.investec.co.za

Now, compare them to FNB’s (screen shot below):

fnb

Andy Hadfield, FNB’s social media guy, gives us a glimpse into their thinking behind the new design with his blog post “The New FNB.co.za“. An excerpt…

“From the very beginning, we started out with a couple of lofty strategic ideals centered around the customer experience. It (the site) had to be:

• An experience
• Friendly
• Intuitive
• A bit 2.0ey
• Personal
• More visual more often
• About the conversation

Make it easy for customers. Full stop.”

FNB’s brand message is simple: “How can we help you?”. I’m starting to believe them.

Nice work FNB.

I’m wondering if we should add ‘Elegance’ to that pledge?

Guy Kawasaki recently interviewed Matt May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing, about tips to pursue elegance.

According to Matt, his definition of Elegance:

“Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful. One without the other leaves you short of elegant. And sometimes the “unusual simplicity” isn’t about what’s there, it’s about what isn’t. At first glance, elegant things seem to be missing something.”

“Unusually simple” and “Surprisingly powerful”. Beautifully brilliant.

ozlogo

Genius.

birdlove

This little guy is a peach, although, if it was me, I would have chosen a better font. Love the icon though.

Awesome stuff. Once again, point your browser at Logofave – always good for a little logo porn.

design porn

I’ve added LogoFaves to my reader and can’t help but featuring these little numbers.