Lack of Consistency Can Crash The User Experience
Issue #43 - January 9, 2025
I’m a big fan of the Formula One (F1) motor-racing series. I’ve been following the sport for a long time, in fact this year will mark my 50th year of watching F1. Last year things got really interesting as we had one of the most competitive years in the series for a long time.
A new aspect to the sport in recent years has been the introduction of an operating cost cap for the ten teams to follow. As a result many of the media outlets that follow the sport have started to report on the cost impact when a driver has a crash that caused damage to their cars.
At the end of the 2024 season, one of the leading websites published this chart showing the total damage costs per driver.
At first glance it made for interesting reading - and a note of congratulations to French driver Pierre Gasly for not costing his Alpine (Renault) team a single cent - or is that penny?
Because as I looked at the chart in more detail I became a little confused. As you worked down the chart the cost figures between the first and second placed drivers suddenly switched from US Dollars to UK Pounds, and then carrying on down it continued to switch, seemingly at random, between the two currencies.
Which makes the rankings totally irrelevant. If you take the figure of the driver in second (Alex Albon of Williams) shown in Pounds and convert it to Dollars at today’s exchange rate it comes out to be more than that shown for the driver in first (Checo Perez of Red Bull). - The same is true as you work down the graphic. Converting all to a single currency drastically changes the order.
On another point I also have a problem that this graphic makes the assumption that you can recognize each driver from a small headshot photo and know which team they drive for. - There is no context for the information presented.
Think about how you present ranked data to your customers.
Are you using a consistent criteria and measurements to derive the rankings?
Consistency and context are keys to understanding - without them your data is just a big wreck.
Alan
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Talking About Storytelling
Recent Events
Just a reminder you can find my recent conversation with Larry Swanson on the Content Strategy Insights podcast about the power of storytelling at https://ellessmedia.com/csi/alan-porter/
Or you can catch the video version below.
If you missed it you can still access my webinar on Customer Focused Storytelling that was hosted by The Content Wrangler
Upcoming Events
On March 15th I’m scheduled to speak at the Boston DITA User Group meeting.
I’m looking forward to presenting “Is DITA Just a Story” at the ConVex conference in San Jose in April, 2025.
And in June I’ll be making a return to the CX Behind The Scenes podcast to discuss the AI Hype Cycle.
Weekly Thought
We have so much data available about customer interactions that the true meaning is often forgotten. The problem is that most metrics record what someone did in the past. They don’t tell us why the person did what they did.
Customer Focused Storytelling Workshops
We are now taking bookings for our popular Customer Focused Storytelling Workshops for Q1/2025, and we wanted to make sure that as a newsletter reader you got an early opportunity to lock-in a date.
“Weaving storytelling into the mix makes the content more compelling, accessible, and effective!”
Learn how to deliver content-driven experiences that your customers relate to on our two-day Customer Outcome Focused Storytelling workshop.
In this workshop, we will:
Examine content from the customer’s perspective.
Plan how to adapt content delivery to meet the needs of a rapidly changing marketplace
Examine why every business transaction is a story
Outline the 10 Rules of Storytelling as applied to Customer Experience
Apply proven storytelling techniques to your content.
Identify potential opportunities for incorporating storytelling techniques
into the production of your customer-facing content assets.Facilitate an interactive feedback session on your existing customer-facing content.
If you would like more details, or you like to discuss reserving a date for yourself and your team to benefit from a Customer Focused Storytelling Workshop, just email us at ajp@4jsgroup.com to reserve your date.
In The Bookstore
If you enjoy the contents of this newsletter and would like more, we have three books always available from XML Press.
You can also check out The Content Pool website or follow us on FaceBook. - you can also find Alan on most of the social media platforms @alanjporter.
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Till next time - have fun paddling in The Content Pool.
Alan J. Porter
The Content Pool™ is a division of the 4Js Group LLC