Jason Shah

Starbucks has nailed the user experience around providing free wi-fi. This post will be a little different than my others in spending less time on subtle UI elements and novel UX effects, and more about the broader user experience, including offline (gasp!) user experience. From there, I draw 3 UX lessons we can apply to web app experiences.

• Consistency -> Trust -> Retention
  Starbucks, like most chains and brands, gives a consumer peace of mind because they can reasonably expect a consistent product. The same coffee, the same spinach and feta wraps, the same ambience, similar layouts, and reliable Wi-Fi. Even the network name is always the same in my experience (‘attwifi’).
  
  We can almost always expect a screen like this to show up without having to turn Wi-Fi on/off, open a browser tab, etc. And while this isn’t the most recent image, the screen is the same, everywhere. Consistency -> Trust -> Retention. 
  
  What We Learn: Web apps can use tools like Twitter Bootstrap, well known and consistent color schemes, and standard rounded corners/on-hover interactions to help a user feel at ease. While this trades originality for consistency, it is a fine baseline. Maintaining consistent interactions, placeholder text, and page structure help establish trust and provide peace of mind to a user.

• Protect a User from Themselves
  
  I tried to break my connectivity like an errant user might. 
  
  -Closed the laptop (bathroom break, friend joins you at table to chat)
  -Turned Wi-Fi on and off (perhaps connectivity was poor for a moment)
  -Restarted my device (some other app crashed; want to start fresh)
  -Joined a different network, then returned to ‘attwifi’ 
  
  Many users may do the above actions. Not having to reconnect (which may lose data or progress with something) is a huge life saver.
  
  What We Learn: Users will forget to save data (e.g. a post on Tumblr). Users will click away from a page before it is done processing. Users will modify shopping carts accidentally (e.g. duplicate, identical items). Anticipating corner cases where users need to be protected themselves is a prime opportunity for you to come to the rescue.
• Build the Tool; Let Users Craft Their Own Use (even if it is not what you intended!)
  
  Starbucks could throttle speeds. It could block sites like Hulu and YouTube that suck up bandwidth and probably worsen the customer experience for other users. Instead, between trying to foster a pleasant atmosphere and others perhaps being able to see what you are doing, people are softly discouraged from sucking up bandwidth. It still happens, no doubt. But imagine if Starbucks took a top-down, draconian approach and told YOU how to USE the Internet. Crazy, right.
  
  What We Learn: With web apps, especially early products, we don’t know how users will make use of the tool. I use Twitter as a personal bookmarking tool almost as much as a social sharing platform. Twitter could throttle my sharing to control noise, but they don’t. Groupon was The Point originally, intended to let “you start a campaign asking people to give money or do something as a group — but only once a “tipping point” of people agree to participate” Users found a way to leverage the platform for other purposes. Groupon ran with it. In our UX models, we can either block natural user behavior, or learn from our users and analytics, and let our UX be a platform for expressing behavior rather than a platform for controlling it.
   

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What do you think? What other offline experiences power useful online UX ideas?

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