using intentions

Why Designing for Customer Intentions is the Future of Business

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Sign that reads "come in we're open"
Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

Summary: Customers pay attention in many different ways, and it is up to them how they use said attention. Businesses need to cater to this fact or else suffer the consequences.

In the first post of this series on Designing for Intention, I introduced the need for businesses to change the way they decide on, and structure, the information they include on their websites, apps, and digital products. (It should be noted that deciding on information and communication for ANY product or service should tie back to customer intentions, but for the purposes of this discussion we’ll focus on the digital realm.)

I also stated that currently too many businesses, when including information in their digital mediums, only house information and content their business needs and wants, instead of showcasing more information which aligns their business values and their customers’ intentions for conducting business with them in the first place.

Said more simply. Businesses talk far too much about themselves instead of focusing on helping customer reach their goals.

One topic I introduced, but didn’t delve deeply into, was my thoughts and evidence around WHY I claim businesses need to make a change and design their information for customer intentions. In this piece, I aim to do just that.

We start the argument with a discussion on customer attention. An arena all businesses, especially those who either sell their products digitally (i.e. selling physical products through a website) or who sell digital products (i.e. selling a subscription to an application), compete in is that of earning and securing customer attention.

Customer attention, more generally human attention, is a tricky thing. We often think of it as two dimensional; either you have someone’s attention or you don’t. But, there are more than two modes of customer attention businesses need take into account when considering their customers.

I’ll provide a quick synopsis here:

One scale of attention is that of voluntary versus captive attention.1 Voluntary attention is the type a person pays to things they “find innately interesting. These are items you’d focus on even if explicitly forbidden.” On the other hand, captive attention “is thrust upon you”.

A second scale of attention is that of aversive versus attractive attention. People pay aversive attention to items to “avoid negative consequences”. They pay attractive attention to items because they believe whatever they are paying attention to may bring on positive experiences.

A third scale of attention is that of front-of-mind versus back-of-mind attention. Front-of-mind attention is conscious, focused, and explicit. People use this type of attention to write reports, pay taxes, and have a conversation. Back-of-mind attention is tied to “things that may never come into your conscious awareness unless something unexpected appears”. People use this type of attention when driving but paying more attention to a side conversation instead.

Hopefully you can see that when a customer is using your website, application, or other product, they could be applying, or not applying, any of these types of attention. Couple these dynamics with that of human brain function, and you’ll see there’s a lot more going on in the head of your customer than you may be giving credit for.

In a recent article2 aimed at discussing, and disproving, the myth that customer attention spans are decreasing given the increase of technology, several quotes showcase this human brain function piece.

First is this one by Dr. Briggs, “How we apply our attention to different tasks depends very much about what the individual brings to that situation”.

Meaning, your customer may come to your website one day with a certain set of life experiences behind them (maybe it was a calm day), and then arrive the next with a completely different set (maybe they arrived stressed from a long day at work and home). You can imagine that what kind of attention they pay to your information will depend greatly on these experiences.

Another quote takes this a step further; “We’ve got a wealth of information in our heads about what normally happens in given situations, what we can expect. And those expectations and our experience directly mould what we see and how we process information in any given time.”

This means that not only are there different types of attention customers pay, and not only does their environment influence how they use these types of attention when interacting with your information, but their human brain also has a great deal of preconceived notions about how certain information and products/website should work. So, in addition to all the aforementioned points, your customers are also applying their preconceived notions to how they pay attention to your information.

As you can see, it’s not simply about putting your information out on your website, application, or product and customers understanding it. The equation is much more complex due to all the dynamics at play. To make matters even harder on you, there is one final factor to consider; maybe the most important factor.

Your customer is the one in the driver’s seat determining when and how to use their attention.

That’s right, it’s your customer’s decision, not your’s. And, your customer will make this decision based off all of the previously discussed factors, and then will pay attention only to what they want or need from your business. If they don’t see something that they want or need in the moment this decision is taking place, they will go elsewhere.

It’s that simple.

We see customers going their own way with business content all the time3. Whether in doctors’ offices or when using websites, customers make the call that benefits them.
Therefore, your business’s philosophy for deciding on and structuring the information you communicate needs to take all of these factors (types of attention, environmental influences, biological functions, etc) into account then design its information for these factors to be successful.

This is what designing your information for customer intentions does.

It’s a process for determining and communicating information that first meets customer needs, and then aligns the information to showcase your unique business values. Following this process ensures your content is captivating, attractive, and front—of-mind.

These are the qualities of customer attention you want to trigger, and you don’t do so by meeting your needs, you do so by meeting theirs.

What’s the bottom line then for you and your business?

If your business chooses not to go the route of determining and designing information for customer intentions, you will continue to overload your customers, and they will choose to go elsewhere to get their needs met.

We need no further evidence than these cases to prove my point:

If your aim is for your business to be successful and survive in this digital world, you need to secure customer attention. Updating how you choose and design information from focusing on you to focusing on your customers is the key to earning this attention.

By considering then designing for customer intentions, you move from yelling information about your business at your customers to having a conversation that satisfies their needs and meets yours. Not only is this more morally sound, but it’s a foolproof way to secure happy customers who keep returning to your business to get their needs met.

The best part is all making this change requires is you putting your business ego aside and bringing your customer’s views to the forefront.

Surely the ends, a successful, long-term business, justify those means.

Customer Intentions vs Jobs To Be Done

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“The plan of this world is infinite similarity and yet infinite variety.” ~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

In this series we introduced Designing for Customer Intentions and talked about how to Define Customer Intentions. We discussed the importance of putting your Unique Business Values First and described the practice of Putting Customer Intentions to Use. Throughout, Customer Intentions remains a subject we’ve been excited to experiment with and develop further.

It was with this excitement that a few months ago I found myself explaining the theory to a close colleague. Instead of responding with the same excitement, she countered with, “Oh I get it. That’s like Jobs to Be Done, right?”

“Jobs to be what?” I answered.

This interaction led me to question:

Is Designing for Customer Intentions really just a replica of the Jobs to Be Done method?

I swallowed my embarrassment, opened Google, and attempted an answer.

For those of you like me who haven’t yet run into Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), it’s a method which became famous through the 1997 Clayton Christensen book, The Innovator’s Solution. I haven’t yet read the text, but through my research I found a few summaries helpful in explaining JTBD further.

To elaborate, the Jobs To Be Done theory basically says that any company which describes itself as “technology X for demographic segment Y” is eventually doomed. If you tie yourself too closely to a technology, you’ll get blindsided by the next big thing. Similarly, if you define your customers by their demographic attributes, you learn very little about how you can help them better. On the other hand, if you get under the lid of the jobs they are trying to do, and understand their Psychology – i.e. their needs, goals and mental models around these jobs – then you’ve defined the problem in a way that brings the solution into focus, and it isn’t tied to a particular technology or approach. ~ User Experience and Jobs To Be Done, Harry Brignull

It’s a straightforward principle: people “hire” products and services to get a job done. For instance, you might hire a new suit to make you look good at a job interview. Or, you hire Facebook to stay in touch with friends on a daily basis. You could also hire a chocolate bar to relieve stress. These are all jobs to be done. ~ A Practical Model for Jobs To Be Done (JTBD), Jim Kalbach

These sources and a few others began to illuminate the JTBD world for me. They also helped relate the concept back to Information Architecture and User Experience Design. I highly recommend reading these works further if you’re interested in applying them to your own business and/or practice.

After my research, I could see how the idea of a product or service being “hired” to do a job for a customer sounds similar to:

“Focusing on customer intentions starts with considering what customers intend to accomplish when interacting with a website.”

I could clearly visualize how one could consider the website a service the customer hires to get one to many jobs done.

Still, I fought giving in to the idea that the methods are the same. I read article after article to prove my intended narratives; i.e. “Customer Intentions is based more on the actual customer, whereas JTBD only focuses on products”, “Customer Intentions has a deeper emotional angle than JTBD”, and “JTBD can only be used for simple feature and task definition whereas customer intentions can be used for larger strategic initiatives”. Unfortunately for me all of my resistance was for not once I landed on this piece.

Reading it, I saw my battle was lost.

Designing for Customer Intentions and Jobs to Be Done are in fact almost one in the same. I’d say they are the same, but the Intentions theory isn’t nearly as robust as JTBD so I won’t pretend they are equivalent.

However, I won’t stop using the Intentions language anytime soon either. Nor will I stop utilizing and developing the theory further.

Why?

I hypothesize using the Customer Intentions language may be better in some scenarios, while Jobs to Be Done may be more effective in others. For example, some business partners may respond better to JTBD language especially if they are familiar with, and have already bought into, the method. Others may be more favorable of the Customer Intentions language due to it’s direct tie to customers.

I have further theories on when these cases may apply and a few data points to back up said theories, but I’m afraid these aren’t yet ready for center stage. Though, I do plan on sharing them as we gather more evidence.

As to why I don’t plan on ceasing my exploration of the theory, I believe that in seeing the theory through just a bit a further, the potential of new insights may arise. I’ll be sure to keep you updated in this regard as well.

For now, I aim to continue my research as well as focusing the language I use for the method based on both the Customers I’m working with and the Context in which we are working. An idea which I’m sure rings a bell with you other Information Architects out there.

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After-all if the language we use can serve our customers better, why not make it more specific and tailored to their needs? We could even look at the language as a product or service that does a job for the customer.

Too soon?

Maybe. Either way, I’m grateful for my colleague pointing out these similarities when she did. Without her insight, I’d still be in the dark on a theory that holds much promise and exploration in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned!

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Putting Customer Intentions to Use

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Our journey through understanding designing for customer intentions, defining said intentions, and communicating unique business values has hopefully been informative. However, despite whatever knowledge you may have gleaned I’m sure one question still remains:

Once you have customer intentions defined, how do you put those intentions to use?

There are a myriad of ways one could and should use intentions when designing their website. In what follows I’ll share a few of the ways we apply intentions in our work. I do so simply for inspiration’s sake, as I encourage you to use intentions however and wherever you can. After-all, you’re in business to make your customers lives better. One surefire way to do so is to ease their path to success by designing a website that’s aimed at helping them satisfy their intentions.

More on that another time. For now, let’s talk answers.

For these answers let’s bring back the example Customer Intentions list defined earlier in the series:

When a customer goes to the website they intend to…

  1. Buy an item
  2. Stay up to date
  3. Understand what (our business) makes
  4. Understand what (our business) does
  5. Find a retailer
  6. Investigate / research a better solution
  7. Return a product
  8. Get questions answered

Allow me to walk you through some example exercises and outputs we’d create using this list. I’ll start with the most abstract/strategic exercises, then work down to the concrete/detailed.

1. Concept Modeling

One of the exercises we do at the start of any website project is to create a concept model. We use this model to define the overall groups of information which need to exist on the site to communicate the unique business value while satisfying customer intentions. Here is a concept model based off our list:

Example Concept Model
Example Concept Model

If you compare the list to the model you can see where intentions overlap with groups of website information. I’ve mapped this out below:

When a customer goes to the website they intend to…

  1. Buy an item – Products
  2. Stay up to date – Company
  3. Understand what (our business) makes – Products, System
  4. Understand what (our business) does – Company, System
  5. Find a retailer – Company
  6. Investigate / research a better solution – Stories, Products, System
  7. Return a product – Company, Products
  8. Get questions answered – Company

In this example, we know when coming to the site one intention the customer has is to understand what the company makes. Using intentions here means we ensure our concept model includes one to many groups (i.e. “Products”) that will contain the information necessary (i.e. a list of products) to satisfy this intention. The important point here is to be sure each intention can be mapped to a group, and all the groups map to at least one intention.

2. Content Modeling and Mapping

Another way we use intentions is when we define the details of the concept model groups. These details include the pages and content/features that will need to exist on the site. There are many detailed steps we take during this time, and below are just a few examples which show intentions usage:

Example Content Map
Example Content Map

To get to the above content map we’ve asked ourselves questions such as “If a customer intends to ‘understand what the business does and what it makes’, what type of information or features do we need to have in our groups to meet these intentions?”. The answers become a long list of content and/or features. We take this list and organize into pages to create the content map.

At the same time, we organize our long list of features and content into a content architecture spreadsheet. Example:

Example Content Architecture
Example Content Architecture

We map each page (Levels 1, 2, and 3) directly to one / many customer intentions ensuring all website content and features related to at least one intention and vice versa.

Full Disclosure: Be sure to brace yourself during this exercise as for most teams it is the moment of truth.

During this time each page of the site and each feature or piece of content that exists on a page needs tie back to satisfying one to many customer intentions. If an intention isn’t represented in a page, in the content, or in the feature list we know something needs to be added. Easy enough.

Here’s where it gets difficult. If a page, piece of content, or feature exists without a matching intention it probably isn’t needed and should be discarded. This is usually very hard for business to accept. Yet, this is the most critical piece in creating a site geared towards meeting intentions. Miss this and your business is back to throwing too much information at your customers which means your site and your unique business value re-enter the realm of confusion. This is the exact situation designing for intentions is meant to avoid.

I encourage you to stay strong and have faith in your business value and your customers’ intentions. They won’t fail you.

3. User Flows

A third way we bake intentions in is when modeling how the customer could move through the site to satisfy an intention.

Example User Flow
Example User Flow

Understanding that customers are humans who don’t move linearly through sites, we’ve been inspired to update our model. This model aims to capture the many dimensions of navigating a website. The center hexagon represents the page a user is currently viewing. Surrounding that spoke are the potential pages the user can click to based off of the content or features are available. We model out as much as needed to visualize and validate users can indeed satisfy their intentions using the pages and content we’ve defined.

4. Interaction and Interface Design

With this foundation we move forward into interaction and interface design. For us this means looking at our content map to see which pages needed to be created, looking at our content architecture to figure out what goes on each page, looking at our user flows to understand the interplay between pages, and then constructing an interaction model which serves as the template for our interface design.

We’ll then use the customer intentions list to fact check the resulting outputs. This ensures the design and development deliverables line up with the strategy we’ve defined.

5. Content

Lastly, we’re sure to keep intentions in mind when reviewing the content of the site. This means we work to check that the messaging, tone, and voice all communicate what the customer need in order to understand the unique business value, formulate their intentions, and use the website to satisfy those intentions.

In Conclusion

By now you’ve gotten a few ideas of how you can utilize the customer intentions you’ve defined to help your customers more easily meet their goals. As we’ve said time and again, working through this practice is key to increasing customer loyalty and your business’s bottom line.

Something we haven’t yet discussed is how designing for customer intentions is also key to aligning your site with how the web has shifted, and will continue to shift, the ways we humans take in information.

More on this point in our discussions to come.