Have you ever just gotten tired of this whole Web thing? Sick of DNS failures, device configurations, search strings, and authentication requests? Ever wish you could just point and click your way to interesting stuff, avoiding the inane hoops we jump through every day just to stay online?
You're not alone. While the industry screams along, developing new Web technology at a faster and faster pace, millions of consumers are just trying to get online. Look at the troubleshooting section of the manual that came with your VCR ("Is it plugged in? Do you have a tape in the machine?") to see just how far the Web is from a seamless experience.
Mark Hurst has a vision. As founder of Creative Good, he has dedicated himself to making the Web easier to use. His Web site offers daily columns on the fundamentals of using the Web for information and entertainment, and charges readers with a simple task: If something is confusing, write to the company responsible.
But he doesn't stop there. Creative Good is a consulting firm, too, offering to help those confused Web companies make their products usable.
Mark and I spoke recently via email about the current state of the Web and what he's been doing to fix things.
JEFF: Tell me about how you got into this, why you started Creative Good, what its goals are, etc.
MARK: It all started with my master's thesis in computer science at MIT. I designed and wrote a program which allowed construction workers to calibrate satellite dishes. The worker goes into the rice paddy, pours the cement, bolts down a few things - and then has to pull out a PC to do some low-level hardware config. Well, the company's existing software was so hard to use that they were having to fly engineers out to Asia just to help set up these dishes! I wrote a program which simplified the calibration process: The user interface was so simple that any construction worker with zero computer experience could do the job. The workers loved it, the company loved it (less geeks to fly across the Pacific), and I graduated.
During the thesis work I delved into all the great literature on sensible design: Donald Norman, Ben Schneiderman, Richard Saul Wurman. I felt great about the thesis work because not only had I saved the company money, I had made lots of people's lives much easier.
JEFF: So why aren't you writing productivity apps for some large corporation?
MARK: I was hooked on the Web, and I knew I wanted a Web job - but most of the companies trolling for MIT geeks weren't interested in the Web. I saw my probable future as one spent under fluorescent lights in a Dilbert cubicle, coding my brains out, meeting deadlines, and helping a bottom line somewhere. Where was the joy of making people's lives easier, which I had tasted in my thesis work?
One day while reading Wired, I came across a help-wanted ad for a company that was getting involved in Internet games. Perfect: unconventional, Net-based, and involving games - a lifelong interest of mine.
In the 18 months I spent at Yoyodyne, I designed all the games and user interfaces that over a million Net users played. I designed email games, Web games, Shockwave, Java, real-time, chat, AOL, MSN, you name it. Any environment online, I was there. My official title at Yoyodyne was director of product development. By the time I left in January, they had secured US$4 million in funding, and had grown to 30 employees.
Why did I leave? Because my interests and the company's were beginning to diverge. Yoyodyne changed its focus from making games for the netizenry to being a marketing tool for companies. Yoyodyne's change was fine, but I wanted to "do my own thing" and focus on the end user, not the marketing.
So on 7 Jan., I started my new job as president of Creative Good. My mission is to make the Internet easier to use. My focus was back to where it had been during the thesis, and the early days at Yoyodyne: making regular people's lives better and easier.
Desperate for simplicity
JEFF: Sounds admirable, but how does it play out in reality?
MARK: One of the key insights I had at Yoyodyne, which formed my Creative Good thinking, was that consumers find the Internet confusing, frustrating, and just too hard to use. Companies, on the other hand, are desperate to make money online, and nearly every business model online depends on getting and keeping a ton of consumers on the Net. Yet instead of making their services accessible to the very people who will support the business model, most Net-based products and services are getting more and more complex and harder to use.
There is a serious disconnect between companies and consumers on the Net, and very few people are paying attention to the plight of the consumer. I intend to fix it - for the good of the consumer, and yes, for the good of the industry.
I started writing a column every weekday - five columns a week, each one describing a different problem online and helping "regular" netizens to overcome it. Example: "How to Use AltaVista" points out that AltaVista has some of the poorest help files online, and in half a page I describe most of what anyone needs to know to use AltaVista. I've gotten letters from people who have been online for years, saying the column "finally" explained AltaVista to them. Other popular columns are "What is Java?", "What's a Plug-In?," and "What's a Cookie?"
Seven months later, after getting hundreds of comments and thank-you notes from netizens, it's plain as day to me that the vast, vast majority of consumers are way behind where most Net companies think they are. Consumers are desperate for simplicity and ease-of-use - and the company that capitalizes on that desperation will be very successful.
So, the Web site is just one of the goals of Creative Good. I need to help more companies make their products and services easier to use. I'm accomplishing this in part through the columns on the Web site, which organize readers to send email to featured companies - which raises the companies' awareness about ease-of-use - and Creative Good.
But I still need to contact more companies. I believe in it because it's for the company's good (since they'll make more money with better products), it's for the consumers' good (since they'll get an easier-to-use product), and it's for Creative Good (since I'll get paid consulting fees).
Inciting consumers against bad design
JEFF: You seem to be walking a fine line between providing an editorial point of view and marketing your company. You may be effectively inciting people to act against poorly designed software and badly managed companies. But are you inciting them to recommend your company as the solution? How do you balance these issues?
MARK: Heh heh ... I like that, "inciting." Like I'll start a riot or something! ;) Seriously, it's a good question.
It's true, and I'm extremely up front about it on the site, that I want Creative Good readers to email offending companies and tell them to get Creative Good to help them. Of course, it's voluntary - readers don't have to participate to get the benefit of reading the columns. This is in stark contrast to the model of most other help sites, which paste banner ads all over the screen to scream out at the readers. Would you rather see one line of text at the bottom of a help column, or an obnoxious, animated, loud, crass, commercial banner ad which contributes nothing substantial to the column?
But that's a defensive reason (i.e. "it's not so bad"), which doesn't do it justice. Consider it this way ... readers actually benefit from the little "incitings" at the bottom of the page. Here's why:
There is a huge problem of ease-of-use on the Web, and I'm trying to fix it. If readers want to help, they can. If I help the company, the company makes its product easier for the consumer. Read that again: If the reader emails (again, voluntarily) ... then I help the company ... and the user gets an easier-to-use product. Which is why they came to Creative Good in the first place, because they wanted to figure things out!
One other thought on the topic. Creative Good is on a mission to make the Internet easier to use. I firmly believe in the mission. It's good for the consumer, and it's good for the industry. I guess that makes me the head evangelist of the mission. But "evangelist" is such a misused term in this industry. I mean, so many companies are on a "mission" to - well, to sell their product. If you believe in our mission, says the corporate evangelist, show us the money. Money money money. Creative Good, on the other hand, asks for no money. Not from readers, not from advertisers. This mission is fueled by the belief of the readers in Creative Good's ability to make things easier. If a reader believes, they'll spend 10 seconds sending an email. No banner ads, no login screens, no cookies, no intrusive surveys, no membership fees, no micropayments, nothing. Just some Creative Good helping the reader, and a little faith from the reader turning into a quick email.
Eyes off the money, give 'em what they want
JEFF: You know, when I was an editor of a newspaper, I would have given anything for a connection with my readers like I have now on the Web. It seems ironic to me that companies doing business on the Net would be disconnected from their customers. Why do you think this is? Is it cultural, or just a matter of maturity not yet fostered in this embryonic medium?
MARK: That's an excellent question. The Wall Street Journal ran a piece, about a year ago, talking about the state of customer service on the Web. The reporter sent an email to several consumer-oriented companies, asking each a simple question about their product, and then timed how long it took to get a response back. The results were astonishingly bad: Most companies took forever - days or weeks - to send a note back, and most of the notes had little or nothing to do with the original question.
The obvious conclusion is that, as you pointed out, most companies are severely disconnected from their customers. It's obvious from the results of the WSJ article, and even more obvious to the millions of consumers who are irritated every single day by firsthand experiences with these companies. For example, I can't tell you how many Creative Good readers have written in with their own frustrating stories about how Netscape has snubbed them, either by not answering their emails or by giving incomprehensible "help" to their problems. But if you go to the Netscape Assistance page, what does it boast? "world-class customer service." Someone at Netscape needs a boot to the head.
So, you're wondering why this happens. I see two main causes: a lack of competence online, and an entirely wrong attitude about business.
Of course, no one is a true expert online right now, since everything is too new for us to know anything, really. But it's safe to say that many companies out there simply don't know what they're doing. Either some net.clueless VP is running the show ("Give us some Java! I don't know what it is, but just get it!"), or the Web staff hired by the company just isn't up to speed, or some other lack of competence. I see it all the time: Companies don't know what they want online, or they don't know what to do to accomplish their goals - I spend a lot of my time talking about basic goals and tools - and this lack of competence impacts the customers' experience with the company.
My solution for these adrift companies? Define your goals, and learn the tools to get there. Of course, I recommend a good consulting firm to help, since clueless VPs need to get their clue from somewhere, and full-timers are too expensive for a "jumpstart" task ... but then, I'm biased.
I'm going to be very judgmental here and tell you that, in my humble opinion, many companies doing business on the Internet have absolutely the wrong mindset. These companies have forgotten the reason they're in business (to make people more productive, or knowledgeable, or entertained, or whatever) and have gotten caught up in IPO fever (or some equally destructive obsession about money).
One potential client I met with, and I am not making this up, literally stopped the meeting so that they could check the company stock price. Here I was suggesting some ways to improve the ease-of-use of their Web site, thereby making their users more loyal - a real win-win, right? Nope, they were more interested in the money than in the user.
I could go on and on with examples I've seen that support that same attitude - show me the money, and screw the user. It's sad. A few people might get rich with this kind of attitude, but on the whole the industry will suffer. Surveys have shown it, and my own reader email shows it: Users are fed up with the lack of ease-of-use online. If the industry wants to keep its consumer base, it has to focus on - gasp! - its consumer base. What a concept.
Focus or fail
JEFF: So how successful have you been at this? Beyond the valuable resource of your columns, has Creative Good scored many contracts for this kind of work specifically?
MARK: Keep in mind that my start-up capital in January was $500 to open the Creative Good bank account. Creative Good has received no other funding.
Now, to answer the first question, I consider Creative Good to be very successful so far. Back in January, I wrote a business plan which stated the goal: To consult for companies on Internet ease-of-use while helping consumers. Eight months later, I'm still paying the rent with exactly the same focus. To me, that's a success ... an Internet start-up that retains its original focus for more than six months and is profitable!
As for the second question, no, the company hasn't scored many contracts - numerically. I count five different clients I've billed so far. Much more important to me than the raw number of clients, however, is the quality of relationships I'm developing with the clients. Getting paid is a pleasant (and necessary!) side effect of the relationship - but the point of the client relationship is to learn and grow and help the client learn and grow.
For example, I feel wonderful about working with Agency.com. Here's one of the world's top interactive agencies, with a slew of awesome and happy clients, and what do you find inside Agency's walls? A team of people honestly grappling with how to get better at what they do. They could make plenty of money by resting on their laurels, but they don't. They work their asses off trying to get better. See how that's an ideal client? They want to grow, and they can help me grow. Success is about relationships, and personal growth, NOT about making money. Making money is (as I said above) a pleasant and necessary side effect. I love being profitable, but that's not what I'm here for.
JEFF: Your idealism is contagious.
MARK: All of us working in the Internet industry have the opportunity to make an incredible difference in the world. We can improve democracy, build communities, invent new media, and yes, even make a ton of money. But ultimately, in every last one of those goals, we will fall short of our potential if we don't address a fundamental question: Are our users able to use what we've made?
It's so magnificently simple. If the users can use it, they will use it. If the users can't use it, they won't use it. Without users, all our Internet dreams vanish. If we don't focus more on ease-of-use, we will fail.
The mission of Creative Good is to help the Internet reach its full potential, by helping companies make products and services that are easier to use. If Creative Good succeeds, then our clients will make more money, netizens will be less frustrated, and hopefully we'll all continue to have the privilege of making history online.
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
