22 of 95: How do you measure a user experience?

22. Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.

[Part 21]

The question that most likely lingers from the last thesis is - how do you become accessible, relevant and/or useful?

This all ties back to the beginning, all the way back to thesis #1: markets are conversations.

What makes someone work in a conversation?

As you might imagine, this is not a question with a simple straightforward answer. It's all about context, situation, moods, relationships, power relations, subtle dynamics of the social world - and, more often than not, if food has been eaten recently.

Bring food to the table. It's guaranteed to be both relevant and useful.

Conversational piece aside, what is accessibility? What is relevance? What is usefulness? What are these things that people so unerringly search for?

It depends.

And it depends to such a degree that the best way to find out is to stop being an external part of the process that is your businesses business. To stop being a service provider that simply shows up, services and then leaves, and start being one of the users.

Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins; don't judge a customer until you've run the gamut of your customer service.

What's accessible? - Well, what are you providing? What are you not providing? What are you counting on the customers to bring? What are the demands that your providance make on the provided?

If what you provide demands the patience of an angel, the technical knowhow of a bored hacker and the time represented by a well done legal study - then that is the opposite of accessibility.

What's relevant? - Well, who are you? Who are your customers? Who are you in relation to them? Why are you in relation to them? What genres are at play when you say what you say? What can make you relevant in and to this genre?

Nothing exists in a vacuum. The closest thing to that is the secluded workplace that does what it has always done, no matter what. Don't be that - or you'll suddenly find yourself a maker of irrelevant widgets and popup ads for 404d casino pages.

What's useful? - Well, what are you doing? What are people doing? How are things done? How do these things relate to each other?

We've all seen the disconnect between the one and the other here. Many a times, if we happen to like software updates. Especially those that include features that doesn't make any usable sense at all, but were made anyway -

It all depends. And the only way to show you're dependable is to be a part of the community of people you call your customers.

Or, for that matter, voters.

I'll see you tomorrow for part twentythree.