Persuasion
CTM #9: Continue

INTRODUCTION

"You'll have to fill out these forms.  Please step to the complete rear of the line when you are complete."

"You forgot to complete one of the 200 test questions.  I'm going to have you retake the test completely over again."

What do these processes have in common?  Atypical situation occured, but instead of being able to CONTINUE, where you left off, you had to start all over again.

Do you think a service company can survive if it behaves like this?
The USPS allows you to come back to the service counter if you just need to fill out a form.
Written tests allow you to navigate the questions as you choose.

PERSUASION

Today I hope to persuade you to think instead of tasks, to think of process.  Provide services that allow people to CONTINUE.

PROCESS IS KEY
Business writers of the 90s say process is key.  You need to be easier to do business with than the other guy (ETDBW).  Unfortunately services, especially e-commerce services today are still transaction-based.  That means if you started to order something this morning yet you didn't finish, you can pretty much bet you have to start over this afternoon.

To the naysayer who says, I want everything to work like my email, what happens when you write a lengthly email.  Now you append an attachment?  But the attachment is too large?  Does your webmail recover your long story you typed in before?  What if you upload the file but you have to go away from your computer?  Is the attachment and e-mail ready to go when you come back and it has logged you off?

Services designed with process in mind will be prepared for this.

INTERRUPTIONS
Key realization that interuptions occur a lot, more perhaps than normal work.  Answer a question for this person, discuss a strategy with someone else, have an impromptu meeting to discuss some topic.  In fact interuptions seem to be growing.  People can interupt you via e-mail, instant messaging, cell phone, normal phone, or the de facto standard knocking on your door.

If you design with a process in mind, you can ease transition of context switching.

Instead of you're on your own, the philosophy is: "Welcome back.  There are more processes awaiting your attention, also I remembered that when you left you were in the middle of completing a supply order".  If the software can assist bringing the user back into the process, there is less likelihood of orphaned records, incomplete transactions, etc.

Interuptions are what makes life and work interesting.  Why humans enter the equation.

Accept that interuptions are here to stay.  CONTINUE when they are over.

BROKEN
There are a multitude of reasons why a process may stop.  The user might leave during the middle of the process.  The network connections could be severed.  A power failure occured on the user's machine.  Or the user had to go change a diaper, or clean that mess the dog made.

The software could have a fault, a bug, or the user could have entered unexpected or faulty data.  The software could have failed to talk to a database, or simpley the software on one machine couldn't communicate across the wire to another machine.

Accept that you should be tolerant when things are broken.  CONTINUE when they are fixed.

ACTION
What can be done?

Last fall, as part of course project, I investigated just how many sites can recover from a failure during the last step of an order process.  I ordered a book from 10 e-commerce sites, Amazon.com, A1Books.com, many more, the end result is that although they had my contact information, none of them contacted to find out why I did not complete the last step of the process.

Isn't is time for an e-commerce site to be more proactive?  Someone ought to be the one company that understands users are not task oriented, that they understand processes better than the designers probably think, and that they appreciate saving time by not having to redo everything again later.

ebay starting to realize this
	icons to show, paid, shipped, feedback left.

Change your view of tasks - all tasks are really part of processes.  Processes that need to CONTINUE if you want your business to succeed.

CONCLUSION
Realize that people get interupted with real-world problems, and your service has to deal with it, for them to not get frustrated.

Realizing this simple fact can help you to design services that are more fault tolerant.

Users will appreciate that they don't lose data and waste time with your service and keep returning for business.