Smartphone in Cross-Channel User Experience

Monday, 1 December 2014

Cross-Channel Experiences

Today users engage with companies and organizations across many channels,

including full/mobile websites, mobile apps, email, social media, online chat, phone

call, kiosks, and by visiting physical locations. It is critical for an organization to think

about the entire ecosystem of their brand and what the user experience is across

each channel. Regardless of which channel or what combination of channels people

choose to interact with the organization, the expectation is that the tone, interactions,

functions, and visual design will all be cohesive.

Nielsen Norman Group's research on Cross-Channel User Experience identified 4

key elements of a usable cross-channel experience:

Element Guidance

Consistency People should be able to move from channel to channel without

having to relearn how to complete activities. Consistency across

elements from visual design to interactions to content helps users

move between channels easily.

Seamlessness It should be possible to complete a task across multiple channels,

if desired.

Availability Users should be able to complete desired activities regardless of

the channel.

Context

Specificity

The experience should be optimized for the channel.

Considering the 4 Keys in Smartphone UX Design

Consistency

As users move from channel to channel to complete a specific task or many different

tasks over time, they are exposed to the visual design, functionality, interactions and

overall tone of voice of the company or organization. Creating consistency across

these disciplines, regardless of channel, helps users build expectations for future

interactions with the organization. Each interaction is part of the overall user

experience with a company. If the user experience isn’t consistent across channels,

users will question the organization’s credibility.

Dominos' Pizza has a consistent user experience across their full website and mobile

website. The visual design and tone of voice are persistent, and users can complete

most tasks following the same sequence of interactions.

Pizza Hut's mobile site offers limited content comparing to its full site, which also

changes some of the interaction flows of completing activities. Customers who move

from full site to mobile site are likely to be disappointed.

Availability and Seamlessness

Users expect to be able to complete a desired task in the channel of their choice.

When they reach a dead end, they become frustrated. When a task can’t be

completed on the preferred channel (e.g. mobile phone app), users must move to

another channel. Switching channels is time consuming and inconvenient.

Furthermore, users might make the erroneous assumption that if one thing does not

work on one channel, it is not available across all channels".

For example, customers booking flights on Jetstar's mobile phone app are not given

the opportunities to require specific assistance or add travel insurance. People

requiring assistance would have to switch to its full website after they fail to find the

option essential to them. Customers wanting travel insurance may even assume that

Jetstar does not sell this product.

There are times when it is not possible or not optimal to allow users to complete

every task on mobile phone. For example, payment by POLi is available on Jetstar's

full site but not on its mobile phone app. This may be due to the limitation that POLi

is not supported by mobile phones.

In this case, it is important to provide seamless transitions to other channels when

users attempt a task within a channel that isn’t optimal or doesn’t support the activity.

In the above example, ideally the app should be able to save progress for signed-in

members and / or email progress to all consumers to keep them engaged, allowing

them to move to full site for completing bookings. If this is also not possible due to

certain concerns (e.g. prices change dynamically), the app should at least inform

users of the alternatives on the other channels before they reach a dead end.

In their report, The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-platform

Consumer Behavior,Google found that 90% people move from one device to another

at different times to accomplish a task or activity, and that the prevalence of

sequential usage makes it imperative that ognizations enable customers to save

their progress between devices. Google also indicated that "smartphones are the

most common starting place for online activities".

Many times, users initiate an activity on their smartphone and later move to PC or

tablet to complete it, after an interruption or as things become complex. Allowing

users to continue their tasks / activities from any device will differentiate companies

from those that provide a clunky and disjointed experience.

Consumers shop differently across devices, so businesses should tailor the

experience to each channel. It’s also important to optimize the shopping experience

across all devices. For example, consumers need to find what they are looking for

quickly and need a streamlined path to conversion on smartphones.