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Insight Combination |
This process combines insights generated from interview transcripts with a design pattern library to generate solutions and new ideas. The yellow cards on the left each hyperlink back to the section of the transcript which created the insight. The blue cards are from a pattern library wiki generated by the dev team over 2 months. The green cards represent combinations of those 2 groups as a solution. |
These are some nice charts. Might be useful for presenting alongside tabular data in internal or external interfaces
Scroll to the bottom of the page near where you would go to "next" page, slides out from bottom right
Featuring photo content with text can be super-interesting if done selectively in context (and tastefully!)
Give user indicator of percentage completion of their ad vs. an 'ideal' profile.
Use ajax updateable search results pane with blend of facets and narrowing criteria in left pane
Dark background and large bolded fonts in white for headers really pops on the page. pics look really crisp. simple tab system
Give a little to get a little - acclimate gradually to interface and goals.
Daniel Burka and facebook guy talk about the "Ah ha" moment. Quickly conveying why a site is valuable.
Concept of getting your successful users in front of other users to demonstrate what is ideal.
Ebay brings disintermediated competitive layer to car buying process.
Efficient use of humans to step in and solve only difficult issues, while automation handles easier tasks.
If you can make them relevant valuable they will drive lots of traffic
Personalized customer service can be aided by selectable canned scripts as starting points
Make using your product fun so that users associate your brand with fun.
Find or create a supporting metadata set to apply to a user-generated collection - generating metadata/narrowing options automatically
Allow users to ask questions and have other users answer. Conversations get promoted.
Create tags in stories so that readers can snap it with their iphone and get extended content
Use async server calls to validate form field entries as people interact with the form
Closed system to allow customers to provide feedback on sellers with whom they do business.
Partner with data vendors to create products. Google uses business info vendors like infousa to augment Google Maps.
Use real world interfaces people are familiar with as the basis for online interfaces. See Reason Audio mixers.
Consider each dimension in live search separately. Adapt the facet presentation accordingly
Add human intervention to the classified approval process to create an index value for ad quality. Combine this with user generated rankings from "thumbs up" widgets on ads as well as the number of times the ad was selected for viewing. Use this index value to help determine what ad content is really compelling and use that criteria to rank what ads to feature and export. Use this as the core value of a syndication strategy.
Render accurate representation of the ad as the user builds it. Make it fun and explanatory. Ask the user for make/model information up front so that as soon as they are presented with the choice of formats we are showing them real data in that preview.
Use AJAX interface for ad search results that allows a low-cost (no refresh) modification of search criteria. The most obvious criteria should be a way to omit ads without images or prices.
Establish "Best of" ads that demonstrate effective ad construction, use of video, photo systems and descriptive approaches. Select candidates using a combination of admin guidance and quality/completeness index - possibly even a metric that measures the most-contacted ads. A gallery of these ads is always available during the ad creation process to guide and inspire customers to create better ads.
The contact form is a typical preset message "I am interested in the [YMM] you have listed on Hemmings.com. My name is _____ and my phone is ______. I can also be contacted via email...". The user can opt out and use free text or modify the final message but will have to do less thinking to compose this text and follow through with the contact process.
Users can omit all but the most basic aspects of the ad when they create it. A progress indicator like the one on LinkedIn will give them a hint about completeness of the ad. A bulleted list will be shown along with the meter and give them clues on how to increase effectiveness along with data like "Ads with 6 or more photos get contacted 75% more" etc. Low completion will prompt a personalized email with tips on how to make the ad better.
Allow search options, dimensions and layout to adapt to context of search. Example: When dealing with parts ads, we need to restructure the classified to allow parts-specific data and alter the search form and results browser to reflect that new context. Batches of parts that are similar can be accomodated in one transaction "list 10 parts in your garage for "
When a user shows up to the site make sure we convey the value/purpose of Hemmings as quickly as possible. Give them the shortest, most obvious path to the cars they want to see with great ads. obvious type-ahead search area and quick nav to makes. Feature our best ads in promo spaces to convey what kind of quality is available in the system.
Use faceted display during browsing to convey how many ads will be available when narrowing options. Instead of just showing a "No photos" switch show "With Photos (4), Without Photos (65)" to give the user an immediate sense of what effect narrowing will have on the results set.
Show actual photos of advertising coordinators along with contact info. If outside of office hours change the message on the page and gear it towards email communication. Try to avoid introducing full "on call" hours.
Remind people why they are on our site and not on Ebay. They dislike auctions and would prefer to deal directly with a person. Use house ad spots to explain this. Leverage these ads across networks to draw users in on this premise. Our business cares about them and cares about the hobby in general and we make it clear with our interaction. Jim could write blog posts about the business of the hobby - see Tim Suddard's editorials in GRM, very effective.
Throughout any online interactions with customers we can create a more robust customer service experience derived from Lynn et al.'s actual interactions distilled into usable cut/paste scripts. Any communication between our system and users should carry that level of personal attention. The admin that approves ads will be the name signed to communications and the customer can know to ask for that person if they have questions.
Without adding load to the customer interactions, use admin interactions and front loaded car-specific data to add narrowing options. A given type of car is known to be rwd or fwd, we can infer a lot by using general secondary data. Admins can have supplementary tasks during approval such as selecting the color of the car and adding category information. Lynn and the other classifieds coordinators spend a lot of time right now working on broken processes of the website, it would be terrific to fix and repurpose that time to interact with the customers more and directly improve the ads.
Choice is confusing - limit number of packages and make the best package obvious through some visual distinction. 37 signals' package selection screens are much better than a sterile "feature grid" approach and were good enough to get ripped off by turbotax.
Use flash or other widget as optional multi-picture upload interface. Have it resize and send the images to reduce upload times. Also investigate uploading zip files of photos to be auto-unpacked and managed. Reducing effort by dealers will be a powerful tool for retaining and attracting dealers.
Spend as much time as needed developing a high-feedback, usable photo uploader and management system. The system should be quickly understandable to novices, display thumbnails of photos as they upload, use ajax as needed to prevent refresh disruption of the interface, do everything possible to overcome customer existing issues with uploading.
Avoid imposing limits on content provided by advertisers. If an advertiser wants to provide 100 pictures, 5 pages of descriptions and 3 walk around videos we should let them do it for no additional charge. The user will be happy for not being "nickel and dimed" and we can potentially get much more compelling classified ad content for the site. Balance this with revenue realities.
Borrow metaphors from StackOverflow for user moderated question and answer community. Have Hemmings staff participate in the board and use it to generate new content for print and online.
Dealer directory should be more yelp-like in presentation to help search and organize dealers. We need to create branding value for the dealer and help dealers create credibility and connect directly with users. Conflicts around display advertising revenues may prevent us from allowing genuine social media interaction with the profiles.
All form interactions should use modern best practices for validating individual entries as they are provided by the user. This could be extended to the search form to help give an idea of how many search results might be displayed before a user commits to a set of search criteria
We have 600k accurately tagged hi-res pictures from various sources. Create a turk interface for supplying "interestingness" metadata for these images. Create photo explorer interfaces for mobile and web and even open API so outside sources can refer to use for quality, curated images of cars. Think of google images for cars that starts with high quality photos and bubbles the outstanding ones to the top. These photos can be the foundation of profile pages for makes and models.
Hi Res ad images are commonly ripped and used to perpetrate scam ads. Experiment with applying a watermark feature in order to make it more difficult for scammers to use our sellers' inventories for bad purposes, and also to brand our site when our content flies the coop.
Allow dealers to send customer survey forms to customers who came to them from our site. Customers can rate and leave comments that will be displayed alongside the dealer profile. The system is somewhat closed and has manual intervention to avoid too much channel conflict. A simpler version could be a form where people could lodge complaints about dealers on our site which would be investigated by Mary Brott.
Make it clear what kind of audience is available via the print publication and show pictures of the magazine so that people can better understand what choosing combo ads might do for them. It's a great way to explain our print products to web-only users.
Give away ad spots as part of other transactions as a way to introduce different products to our customers. If someone advertises a car they get a free parts listing, maybe they will use it again in the future and they will supply us with valuable "private" listings as content. If someone places an ad they get a free copy of the digital edition of the magazine featuring that ad. If someone places a web-only ad give them a free 1-liner in print. Mix and match and find what works.
Purchase existing automobile-data like that used on canned parts sites and pricing information from vendors to form the basis of a Hemmings-branded pricing service. Combine and operate on multiple datasets (ebay, insurance cos, NADA) as the basis to create our own rigorous version of the truth, as vetted by us. Begin publishing data service and printed books. Be very transparent about how we create pricing data so that the user can make informed judgements about our pricing assertions.
Create highest quality interfaces for dealers to enter data. Negotiate transfer formats of other classifieds services to transmit to them. Become most valuable online partner of classic car dealers and extend the idea to individual sellers.
A lot of car guys need help to get to our content. They don't understand that we have a blog, we put articles online, etc. Between curated ads, Hemmings Find of the Day, Kate's tweets and featured blog posts we have enough online-only content for a great daily email. The most effective product strategy ever implemented by bizjournals.com was the daily update email. We could even allow the user to add daily search criteria to show them all of the new ads they might be specifically interested in as a personalized alert aspect of these emails.
Make sure our print products are represented in the digital marketplace, even if it has no positive revenue. Use this as a newsstand 'single copy' opportunity to introduce new customers to our brand and hedge against a rush to that format.
If a user frequently picks certain options from our dropdown menus, we should move those menu options to the top to make them easiest to select.
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