It was the terrifying (fictional) spin doctor Malcolm Tucker who first coined the word “omnishambles.” You couldn’t find a more appropriate name for those Labour strategists at the UK elections who decided that to literally carve Ed Milliband’s promises in stone would be a stroke of genius. Weeks after the election the tabloids are still gleefully hunting for the defunct #EdStone. The fate of its former owner is well documented.
I see similar things happening in digital. Every couple of days I’ll encounter a website that brings me up short. Whether because of bland company messaging, convoluted social strategy or simply the sense that the user experience could be much better, there’s no shortage of brands that don’t stand out.
In their defense, it can be hard—particularly when outside your comfort zone—to think objectively about your audiences and customers, and how they’ll react to you. But that’s precisely why you need to step back and have a sober moment.
Which is where Scotty Allen’s 64-year-old mom, Pam, steps in. Allen and his friend Richard Littauer are UX professionals who have stumbled on a neat way to offer outside-in-reviews of websites and their usability. Visit The User is My Mom and for $75 you can hire Mrs Allen to test your website (here‘s her review of Twitter.com).
It’s no joke. Mrs. Allen is a high school tutor with a master’s degree who regularly goes online. But she uses the Internet with purpose rather than as recreation, and she doesn’t necessarily have the same context that younger users have. The simple pitch is that, “if she can’t understand your site, others will struggle as well.”
Failing that, you could hire Littauer to review your site while “very drunk,” though this costs a little more. His reasoning is simply that any feature of your site (particularly for retailers) has to be able to be used by someone who could be drunk—so why not test for it? There’s also the chance that the booze might make the presentation of the facts a bit more interesting.
There’s sense behind the irreverence. These are off-the-wall ideas, but they make a serious point. It’s easy to try so hard to engage that you end up making whizzy new activations out of emojis, miss your core customers all together and end up in an omnishambles. It sounds simple but building in checks and remembering what your customers need can make all the difference.
