Any time you mess with the user experience, you’re going to risk backlash. If change is based on a solid understanding of your customers and the extent to which this disruption will – eventually – work for them, the effects will be not just survivable, but allow you to thrive.

Netflix committed a customer experience faux pas and the question is – Will Facebook do the same with their new total site redesign?

<< Check it out on Forbes >>

Usually companies don’t point out their usability issues and problems, but Microsoft’s manager of Office programs, Jennifer Michelstein decided to try using a game to help train users (See Jennifer’s post).

Here’s CNET’s post on the interesting strategy.

Here’s Microsoft’s Ribbon Hero game.

What do you think of this strategy???

<< View the Presentation >>

<< View the Video >>

“In many cases, the administration says incomplete forms or errors in the information submitted by dealers are slowing the process. Workers have reviewed about 40 percent of the applications filed, and many have been rejected and then returned to the dealer for possible resubmission.

Laura Sodano, a sales manager at Curry Chevrolet in Scarsdale, N.Y., said dealers were not told why their applications had not been approved and were having to review the entire form to determine what went wrong.”

<< View the Article >>

Why are so many things broken? In this entertaining talk – one of the favorites of Gel 2006 – Seth Godin gives a tour of things poorly designed, the reasons why they are that way, and how to fix them.

Watch the Video

A New York Times article describes the following impressive improvements in business metrics:

* 180% higher utilization of coolers
* 125% better delivery truck productivity
* 50% increased storage space utilization
* 16% lower milk prices for the end consumer

However, customers are reporting that it is very difficult to pour milk from the containers, resulting in constant spilling and loss of milk.

Here’s the full scoop! Video included – New York Times, June 30, 2008

Worth a read on Slate (Aricle by Michael Agger).

Here is a cellular phone that *really* can multitask! The Sumsing Turbo 3000 Xi mobile phone!

View the video!

1. The Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read “Are you lactating?”
2. Coors put its slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer from diarrhea”.
3. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.
4. Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick”, a curling iron, into German only to find out that “mist” is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the “manure stick”.
5. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what’s inside, since many people can’t read.
6. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
7. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of “I saw the Pope”(el Papa), the shirts read “I saw the potato” (la papa).
8. Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” translated into “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”, in Chinese.
9. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as “Ke-kou-ke-la”, meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”, depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent “ko-kou-ko-le”, translating into “happiness in the mouth”.
10. Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish as “it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate”.
11. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, “it won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. Instead, the company thought that the word “embarazar” (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant”.

And my personal favorite from my tennis travels….

During a US vs. Mexico Davis Cup match in the United States, a Mexican company was passing out free baseball hats. To their surprise, few people, and no women, were taking the caps. In fact, people were kind of upset! Why did this happen? Well, the company was Bimbo Bread Company, well-known in Mexico, but not well-known in the States. An you wonder why women didn’t want to wear a baseball cap with the name, “Bimbo” written on it!