Customer Heaven

Designing a Heavenly Experience for your Customers

San Marcos, CA 92078:  Dr. Grace Joely Gardner, the CEO of Human Factors Research, Inc. of Lake San Marcos, CA 92078 will be speaking on Emotional Design: The why's, the how's, and the to do's at the  October 13 session of SandCHI at Websense, the  Atrium, 10240 Sorrento Valley Road San Diego, CA 92121.  

Emotional design has become a buzzword in UI (User Interface) but there's not a lot of  help or direction on how to do it. The October 13 session of SandCHI  will include a short presentation on some proven techniques to elicit emotional feedback and some examples of how this information can be incorporated into UI changes for websites, devices, and services.

The second half of the session is envisioned as a free-flowing discussion among attendees of challenges they face in this area and some of the solutions and results they have achieved.

Human Factors Research, Inc. specializes in Voice of the Customer research, in defining the emotional needs and profiles of customers for their clients and in showing them how to increase business by listening to their customers. Understanding the emotional needs of customers is increasingly becoming the goal of major corporations. The message being sent to consumers, according to Mike Jackson, Vice President for USA Marketing for General Motors was all wrong. “We worried far too much about the sheet metal, color, etc.,” he explained. “What we really needed to worry about was connecting emotionally with our consumers.”  Business Week 3/26/07 

For more information on the meeting, call 760-510-1166  and ask for Don Chambers.

Quick Links:

San Diego CHI

Websense 

Customer Heaven

Contact us for a free consultation and quote on usability and/or strategic customer-focused market research.

David C Gardner, Ph.D. Linkedin

Heaven for Visually Challenged Part II

As I mentioned in Part I, I had "failed eye surgery" four years ago which left me basically blind in one eye. (20/25 in the other one, thank God!) The real downside is not so much losing the sight in the one eye (our brains somehow compensate for the lack of binocular vision.) as it is that I have trouble reading books.

My first solution was to buy large print books (solution courtesy of my wife). The upside of this was that I could read again without going to my 1MAc 24. The downside is the financial cost for an avid reader. Large print books cost $25-$35 each. Kind of punched a hole in my satisfaction baloon!

And then along comes technology. Two months ago I bought a Kindle 2.

Among its many features are a non refectivew screen and the ability to increase font size. I couldn't believe my eyes when I discovered I could read the Kindle 2 without my glasses on the patio with the Southern California sunshine glare.  WOW!

My wife loved it so we bought a second Kindle 2 with our Amazon account. This means we can both read the novel(s) at different times and only pay once!



My wife (who is also my business partner) does a lot of business travel and loves the fact that she can carry a lightweight reader with her instead of a bunch of heavy paperbacks!

As of my writing, Amazon has just announced the forthcoming model called Kindle DX which is a larger, magazine size unit. It is not availbe but you can sign up for it. It is quite pricey, $489 versue $359.

I am so pleased with the Kindle 2, I can't imagine why I would want to go to a larger unit. Especially at that price given I just bought a Kindle 2. Time will tell however. When you are hooked on "Kindle," you never know where the addiciton will lead you.

Interesting review on Forbes:
Forbes

In the meantime, we are racing through the Stephanie Plum series of novels about a female Bounty Hunter from New Jersey.

Stephannie Plum

Contact us for a free consultation and quote on usability and/or  strategic customer-focused market research.

Linkedin David Gardner Ph.D .

Heaven for Visually Challenged Part I

I had failed eye surgery four years ago that left me basically blind in one eye. Thank God I still have 20/25 vision in the other eye! Because our brains somehow compensate for the lack of binocular vision the real downside is not losing the sight in the one eye but the fact that the failed operation left me very sensitive to glare and bright lights. It also made it difficult for me to see standard size fonts. This is a real issue for a writer and researcher who spends his life on the computer. Here is one of my heavenly solutions:


I bought an iMac 24 because it has a  large screen and excellent zoom functions.

To zoom in, simply press and hold the Option key and the Command key at the same time while tapping the plus key to increase the zoom size (Option key + Command key + “+” key). While still holding, you can tap the minus key to reduce the size of the zoom. They will be pleased to demo this function for you at any Apple store.

Here is a screen on the iMac 24 before zooming:




And here it is after zooming:

The ability to zoom is a godsend, but it doesn’t solve all my problems. The glossy screen was a nightmare for me until:


1.  I figured out how to reduce some of the glare with background colors. But this did not reduce the glare enough for me.

2. I found, purchased and installed (with the help of my wife) a non-glare filter screen manufactured by Photodon. A mere $55.00 plus but well worth it. To see a review of the product in action; click on this link to learn more:

Watch the Macworld review
Download Mwvodcast103

To purchase, go to:  http://www.photodon.com/

Macs are not cheap but are well worth it. You can buy refurbished macs on the Apple website that have the “new car warranty”. That is what I did for my business system.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

Watch for a new book I am writing on converting from PC's to Mac's for small businesses.

Contact us for a free consultation and quote on usability and/or  strategic customer-focused market research.

Linkedin David Gardner Ph.D .