A set of wonderfully practical do's and don'ts of usability testing for stakeholders in usability tests (such as designers, engineers, product managers) on UX Matters. Some of my personal favorites:

DO: Get involved and observe usability test sessions.
DON’T: Jump to conclusions based on a couple of test sessions.
DO: Perform iterative usability testing.
DON’T: Leave target user groups out of your studies.

[Thanks to Waprile for the tip, photo: Luma Institute]

An explanation of the how and why behind Philips' Sense & Simplicity brand proposition, and how it did not just change consumer perception, but also influenced the company internally, by Andrea Ragnetti (BusinessWeek profile), CEO of Philips Consumer Lifestyle and former Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Royal Philips Electronics.

The Senseo coffee maker was introduced on the Dutch market in 2001. At the time the coffee market was saturated, mature, locked-up. Even a small gain in market share was considered a success. Enter the Senseo. A coffee machine that makes one or two cups of coffee within 30 seconds, with espresso-like foam on top, made from coffee pads in varying tastes. In the first four years, fifteen million of these devices were sold worldwide. By 2007 one-third of the coffee in the Netherlands came from pads (Volkskrant, in Dutch only). Somewhat of an achievement in the once locked-up coffee market.

Due to its ease of use, the Senseo coffee maker is also one of the poster boys for the Philips slogan Sense & Simplicity. It was prominently featured when the Dutch electronics giant introduced its new slogan. The Dutch wikipedia page about the Senseo mentions that Douwe Egberts and Philips developed the Senseo in 'close cooperation'. The usually well-informed Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant describes Philips as a driving force behind the Senseo (Philips reinvented itself, in Dutch only). However, the Senseo was conceived and for the most part developed by Douwe Egberts (a Dutch Subsidiary of SaraLee) with the help of external consultants.

Below is a short overview of the development of the Senseo, primarily based on an article in the July 2001 edition of Dutch product development magazine Product, and a lecture I once attended by Philips marketeers.

The first spark to lead to the Senseo was in the spring of 1996. SaraLee/Douwe Egberts wanted to innovate, and started the department Innovation & Quality. One of its first projects was what was then called the 'Coffee Solo'. The concept for the new product was based on four developments (I guess at present they would be labelled 'insights') that Douwe Egberts had identified in the market:

1. Individualization: coffee drinking was no longer a family moment, so people brew cups rather than pots of coffee
2. Personalization: people want control over the taste of their cup of coffee
3. Ease of use: making the coffee had to be easy and fast (within 30 seconds)
4. Appearance of espresso: people love the feeling of luxury of the foam on top of espresso

In 1997 the design agency Waacs creates the characteristic slightly forward-leaning design. The choice to make the device blue seems controversial. When the Senseo had just been introduced I heard a food and brand expert explaining that the Senseo would never be a success, because blue was simply not a 'coffee colour'. Well, so much for experts. What I think the blue color did for the Senseo was to make it clear that this was not a regular coffee maker. But that may be too easy a conclusion, in hindsight.

Now that the design was somewhat mature Douwe Egberts figures it is time to approach Philips to join the project, because it has a big home appliances division that also produces lots of coffee makers. No such luck. Philips is interested, but cannot join the project because of 'other obligations' in the coffee market. Other attempts at finding partners fail as well. And now Douwe Egberts does something remarkable. The coffee maker decides to become a product developer and to move forward with the project anyway, with the help of consultancies. It gives Well Design the assignment to take the working prototype and WAAC's design and develop into a production-ready design. By the time that finally ten working prototypes have been made, all of a sudden Philips reappears on stage. Why the Senseo regained Philips interest, no one really knows. It is speculated that CEOs met each-other.

Anyway, Philips steps in and takes over the role of Well Design. And maybe at the right moment, because the prototype at that time was nowhere close to being production-ready. But getting things from a prototype into production just happened to be one of Philip's core strengths, and with the help of German engineering agency Hoffmann & Hoffmann, the design is thoroughly optimized. A second advantage of Philips joining the project is the company's expertise in the marketing and distribution of consumer electronics. And thus in February 2001 the Philips/DE Senseo Crema entered the market, leading to somewhat of a hype and being sold out in most stores the Netherlands just half a year later.

[Illustration: Product magazine]

NN/Group's Bruce Tognazzini compiled an excellent and exhaustive overview of principles for interaction design, that he considers fundamental for the design and implementation of user interfaces. Fundamental, so regardless of the application area, so I guess they apply to electronic consumer products as well.

The overview covers (alphabetized) subjects such as: autonomy, consistency, defaults, latency reduction, learnability, and track state. I especially like what he has to say on explorable interfaces:

Give users well-marked roads and landmarks, then let them shift into four-wheel drive
Mimic the safety, smoothness, and consistency of the natural landscape. Don’t trap users into a single path through a service, but do offer them a line of least resistance. This lets the new user and the user who just wants to get the job done in the quickest way possible and "no-brainer" way through, while still enabling those who want to explore and play what-if a means to wander farther afield.

More on interaction design principles and guidelines
> 101 things I learned in Interaction Design School
> Ergonomics crash course for interaction designers
> Pattern library for interaction design
> 30 usability issues to be aware of
> iPhone human interface guidelines (Apple)

McKinsey recently announced the results of a study entitled How the recession changed consumer behavior, in which they claim that the recession has caused a lasting preference shift of consumers towards more basic products in a sector they call consumer packaged goods (e.g., beer and allergy medicine). Maybe I should be pleased, because basic products tend to be more usable, an effect that people at Nokia called the usability knee. But I am not so happy, because McKinsey's conclusion seems to be stretching it a bit.

A fundamental change in consumer preference?
First, let's take a look at the central claim of the study:

Of the consumers who switched to cheaper products, 46 percent said they performed better than expected, and the large majority of these consumers said the performance of such products was much better than expected. As a result, 34 percent of the switchers said they no longer preferred higher-priced products, and an additional 41 percent said that while they preferred the premium brand, it “was not worth the money.”

So, what do the researchers base this claim on? Well, on - and I quote - "new McKinsey research". However, to be able to read what new McKinsey research is you need a premium subscription to the McKinsey Quarterly (previously I ran into a similar issue with a study by Accenture). However, based on phrases such as "...46 percent said they performed better than expected...", I suspect we are talking about a questionnaire-based study. Being a PhD candidate, I don't have the budget for a premium membership for the McKinsey Quarterly, so I'm going to give myself some room to speculate here. I might be wrong, but hey, maybe then McKinsey should have disclosed how they performed their research. So bear with me while I release my Psychology 101 knowledge on McKinsey's study.

Post-decision dissonance
The survey results showed that people reported to have bought cheaper products, and reported that they actually liked them. And when asked whether they would continue to buy these simpler products the response of a large groups was: yes. So basically the line of reasoning was this:

1. The recession caused people to buy cheaper products
2. Cheaper products are more basic
3. Consumers liked these basic products
4. They will keep buying them, even when the recession ends

That people bought cheaper products makes sense. It's a recession, we are all on a tighter budget. Well, maybe not so much if you're working at Goldman Sachs, but for us mere mortals, it's a matter of tightening the belt. So, to deal with this tighter budget we buy cheaper products. And cheaper products tend to be more basic. And then we try them, and it turns out we actually like them. Now we get to my point: people always tend to like what they have bought. Regardless. The phenomenon is called post-decision dissonance (the consumer version of cognitive dissonance): we rationalize ourselves into feeling good about about a decision we made or had to make. In a recession you hear people saying things like: "You know, evenings at home can be wonderful. You spend the night cooking together, you watch a good movie. You don't have to go out to have a good time." That does not mean they will not go out and eat in restaurants if they once again have the money for it. It just means they don't want to feel bad about not going out.

People want to be consistent
Now back to the results of the study in which McKinsey reported that: '34 percent of the switchers said they no longer preferred higher-priced products, and an additional 41 percent said that while they preferred the premium brand, it “was not worth the money."' Based on the wording ('said') I again assume the source of this was a question in the survey. This seemingly led to the conclusion that "it may also have fundamentally altered the behavior of numerous US consumers, who are now learning to live without expensive products". The 'learning' part is in line with previous research that showed that non-quantifiable product qualities - such as quality of use - are communicated best by experiencing the product. However, the aforementioned conclusion was based on a survey in which the line of questioning led to this 'dialogue' with the participants:

• You said you bought more basic products
• You said you actually liked them
• Now, in the future, do you think you will continue to like them?

In other words: do you think in the future your behavior will be consistent with what you've just told me? And we want to be viewed as consistent (see heuristic #5 'be consistent'). So the answer is likely to be skewed towards: "Yes, I will keep buying these basic products."

No 'fundamental' change
So, to sum it all up, I don't think the newfound preference of consumers for basic products is 'fundamental' and thus lasting. Instead of McKinsey's line of reasoniong, I would like to propose the following one:

1. People defend their choices
2. The recession caused people to buy cheaper products
3. Cheaper products are more basic
4. People liked the products, because they want to like what they buy
5. People want to be viewed as consistent, so they will say they will continue to buy basic products
6. Some people may keep buying basic products but there's no guarantee

More posts on consumer preference and simplicity:
> Defeating feature fatigue
> Don Norman: Simplicity is highly overrated
> Simplicity: functionally and visually
> When simplicity wins over features: Philips DirectLife

[Photo: Wootang01]