"From the very start, e-commerce has empowered the customer to an unprecedented degree...
If the customer is in the driving seat, the logical next step is to rethink everything from that perspective."
Electronic commerce, 2000 Special Report on the Financial Industry
CAP GERMINI, ERNST & YOUNG
  

Susan Harkus
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"Beware the user agenda" - Susan Harkus

In the aggressive world of the information user, the cost of reading is only paid in full by the desperate - all others drop off as soon as the reading task is too demanding or stops being relevant to their conscious task.

The user agenda...
always at play in the online space

If business can deliver what customers require, why isn't online engagement a given?

The answer is simple. It's because something else, the user agenda,1 determines engagement with business websites, emails and intranets.

A conscious priority like price; a subconscious resistance to marketing hype; an assumption, a preference or an expectation - they can all be part of the agenda that users bring to an online task.

Ironically, business knows user agendas well but despite confronting them at every customer touchpoint, regularly ignores agenda implications for online design.

  1. I published my first paper about the user agenda in 2001 and most of the articles I have written since then explore agenda implications for online design.

Cassandra's rings

It may be an uncomfortable truth but online business success is delivered by your users.

Cassandra's rings2 illustrate the challenge for online design - to deliver an online user experience that maximises the intersection point between user agendas and business agendas.

Without a significant intersection of agendas, the website, e-communication or intranet will fail to deliver profitable outcomes.

  1. Cassandra was cursed by Apollo to speak the truth but never to be believed so it seemed somehow appropriate for me to name the agenda rings after Cassandra - they represent a truth that is so often ignored by business and creative designers.

About Susan Harkus

As a User Experience Specialist and Information Architect, I have been privileged to work on many exciting website, intranet and email marketing projects.

In every engagement, the task and agenda-based analysis and design tools that I use have enabled a productive collaboration with cross-functional client teams.

Our work together has energised and enriched the vision of the ongoing management of the online solution, be it website, intranet, online documentation or e-marketing.

A focus on the user agenda

Designing to engage online users

My work & experience

Special projects

© Susan Harkus 2009

Contact Susan Harkus