July 19, 2004

Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

by Bruce D. Temkin

Helping Business Thrive On Technology Change

FORRESTER BIG IDEA

F O R R E S T E R B I G IDEA
Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience
by Bruce D. Temkin with Harley Manning, Paul Sonderegger, and Michelle Amato July 19, 2004

EXECUT I V E S U M MA RY
Firms know that customer experience is important but they deal with it haphazardly. As a result, customers suer through needlessly painful interactions. Thats why rms need a more disciplined approach to customer experience. Forrester recommends that companies adopt Scenario Design, a concept built on a simple assumption: No experience is inherently good or bad, it can only be judged by looking at how well it helps customers achieve their goals. This approach requires companies to continually ask and answer three questions: Who are your users?; what are their goals?; and how can you help them achieve those goals?

TABLE O F CO N T E N TS
2 Your Customers Deserve A Better Experience Companies Lack Customer Experience Discipline 3 (Re)Introducing Scenario Design 1. Who Are Your Target Users? 2. What Are Their Key Goals? 3. How Can You Help Them Achieve Those Goals?
RECOMMENDATIONS

N OT E S & R E S O U R C E S
Forrester drew upon hundreds of customer experience evaluations that it has completed, as well as discussions with large corporations, software vendors, and service providers about customer experience practices.

Related Research Documents Executive Q&A: Customer Experience Reviews March 26, 2004, Best Practices
The Power Of Design Personas December 18, 2003, Report Scenario Design December 27, 2000, Report

9 Turn Scenario Design Into A Core Competence

WHAT IT MEANS

10 The Implications Of Scenario Design

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Oval Program, Forrester Wave, WholeView 2, Technographics, and TechRankings are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Forrester clients may make one attributed copy or slide of each gure contained herein. Additional reproduction is strictly prohibited. For additional reproduction rights and usage information, go to www.forrester.com. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reect judgment at the time and are subject to change. To purchase reprints of this document, please email [email protected].

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

YOUR CUSTOMERS DESERVE A BETTER EXPERIENCE Weve all heard it: Customers are the No. 1 asset. But despite this mantra, companies disenfranchise customers by delivering disappointing experiences. Our evaluations of the customer experiences delivered by large rms reveal: 1

Poorly designed Web sites. Our Web Site Review grades sites on a scale ranging from

-50 to +50.2 Looking across our last 483 reviews, we found that only 15 sites (3% of the total) surpassed our target passing score of +25.3 An astounding 245 (51% of the total) received a score of zero or less. In our most recent 130 reviews, only 29% of sites delivered on one of the most important user requirements: essential content needed to complete users goals.

Environmentally challenged kiosks. Using a kiosk while others watch and wait can

heighten customers anxiety levels. Thats why we evaluate the environment around a kiosk, in addition to its software and hardware.4 Airlines, for instance, can use signage, physical layout, and the availability of live agents to soothe customers nerves but they often dont. Delta Airlines failed half of our kiosk environment criteria in Bostons Logan Airport, and American Airlines failed just as badly in Chicagos OHare Airport.5

Unusable IVRs. When we asked companies to rate their own interaction channels,

only 18% of rms gave their IVR a passing grade.6 Thats a fair assessment, considering that only two of our last 29 IVR reviews resulted in a passing score.7 This heavily used interaction channel continues to suer from being buried in companies IT or telecom departments. And help may not be on the way only 35% of rms report doing any usability testing on their IVR apps.8

Awkward cross-channel transitions. Interactions within a single channel are hard

enough on customers, but the world gets even more dicult when a customer tries to cross channels. In a recent training session on our cross-channel review methodology, one participant sat pointing to an item available online even as the call center agent refused to sell it to her.9 Why? Because the product wasnt visible on the agents orderentry system.10

Companies Lack Customer Experience Discipline Firms dont try to make things dicult for their customers. So why do so many good intentions go awry? Our research reveals that the problem stems from a lack of rigor around customer experience management. While companies have explicit processes for functions like nance, engineering, and human resources, they often dont follow any methodology for customer experience. In the void, we nd:

July 19, 2004

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

Poorly dened business objectives. Whenever we review a companys interaction

channels like Web sites, IVRs, call centers, and kiosks we ask about business objectives. Many responses include fuzzy targets like create a world-class experience or build the brand. These vague goals cant be measured, so they provide little guidance in setting priorities and keeping scope creep at bay.

Conicting agendas. In a typical Global 2,500 company, no one has responsibility for

the customer experience delivered across interaction channels except the CEO.11 Lacking a holistic view of what makes a great customer experience, every organization (and its execs) advocate for its own interests. This plays out in problems ranging from Web menus turned into a confusing mess of promotions to inconsistent cross-channel pricing that frustrates customers and drives down margins.

Self-referential design. Companies typically understand the demographics and

purchase history of their customers but have little insight into customers motivations, goals, and channel-specic behavior. Lacking this insight, project team members assume that the users needs and preferences are just like their own. Unfortunately, the rms IVR programmers, Web designers, IT sta, and marketing groups arent typically representative of the companys target customers. So interactions often get designed to please the wrong audience.

(RE)INTRODUCING SCENARIO DESIGN Its time for companies to inject some discipline into their customer experience eorts. How? With Scenario Design.12 Rather than continuing to frustrate customers or worse yet, throwing money at ill-dened customer-facing initiatives rms can use Scenario Design to target their energy on initiatives that provide ROI.13 While Forrester originally introduced this concept in 2000, it remains a core component of the advice that we deliver to companies today. The premise of Scenario Design is simple: No experience is inherently good or bad it can only be judged based on how well it helps customers accomplish their goals. To master this framework, companies must continually ask and answer three basic questions (see Figure 1): 1. Who are your target users? Firms need to start with a clear picture of their target audience. When buying a computer, a 30 year-old design engineer whos an enthusiastic digital movie editor has dierent knowledge, desires, and aspirations than a 65-year-old teacher who just got her rst PC and spends most of her spare time with her three grandchildren. To formalize this understanding, project teams should craft personas composite descriptions of real people that represent primary customer segments.

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

July 19, 2004

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

2. What are their key goals? When people go to retail outlets, visit a Web site , or contact a call center, theyre trying to do something like select a gift, compare prices, or nd help with a problem. Customer experiences should be designed to satisfy these specic accomplishments. Word of advice: Customers dont often have goals like be exposed to brand messages or get cross-sold. 3. How can you help them achieve those goals? The nal test of any customer interaction comes down to how well it works. Firms must make it easy for target users to take each step on their way to their goals. How? By designing clear paths that anticipate what users need to know and would like to do at each decision point.
Figure 1 The Elements Of Scenario Design
1-1 Three questions drive Scenario Design

3) How can you help them accomplish those goals? Scenario Design 1) Who are your target users. 2) What are their key goals?

1-2 Scenario Design changes how companies talk about customer experience

Before Scenario Design What functionality should we oer? I dont like how this is written. How can we sell more of this product? We have to serve the needs of all of our users. We need to convey more of our brand messages.

With Scenario Design What user goals should we serve? Joan (a target persona) wont understand this product description. How can we help Joan to nd and buy more of what she wants? We have to serve Joans goals rst. We need to build our brand by satisfying Joans needs.
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

July 19, 2004

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

1. Who Are Your Target Users? Companies attempting to satisfy everyones needs wont satisfy anyone. An experience must therefore be designed to meet the specic needs of a specic type of user. To answer this rst question, rms should:14

Talk to real customers. Firms must interview customers to detect subtle cues that

reveal motivations. A series of one- or two-hour interviews might do for a Web site or call center study, but other projects can take much longer and require dierent approaches. In a monthlong study for a product design, MAYA Design gave users diaries and then paged the users as a reminder to make entries. For a plumbing manufacturer, Daishinsha a Japanese design agency gave prospects cameras to photograph xtures they liked.

Identify behavioral segments. After the interviews, rms should classify interview

subjects along ranges of behaviors like seeks highest quality versus seeks lowest cost. This approach allowed Sapient to recommend a simplied redesign of the Federal Emergency Management Agencys site for rst responder emergency personnel.15 Instead of designing for an unmanageably long list of job types like police ocer, reghter, Red Cross worker, and EMT, Sapient identied three segments based on site usage behavior: 1) occasional and loyal; 2) frequent and loyal; and 3) evangelical and loyal.

Create and prioritize personas. Firms should transform the rich data from customer

interviews into design personas a composite description of a real person who represents a primary customer segment (see Figure 2).16 Although companies will typically serve multiple customer segments, the initial design should focus on satisfying the needs of only one represented by the primary persona. This persona embodies the mainstream segment thats the hardest to serve. In the case of Ford.com the portal site for all Ford Motor Company brands the primary persona is Marie, who is just beginning the car shopping process, hasnt settled on a brand, doesnt know a lot about cars, and needs help.

2. What Are Their Key Goals? Customers dont typically interact with your rm on a whim or with a plan to build a relationship.17 Satisfying target users means satisfying their goals. When identifying which user goals to support:

Dont confuse company objectives with customer goals. Firms often have a hard time
shifting their attention away from their own needs. To turn the focus on customers, companies should translate their business objectives into the related user goals that help achieve those results (see Figure 3).

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

July 19, 2004

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

Figure 2 Example Of A Design Persona

REBA COHEN Her ecient, no-nonsense attitude as a project manager extends to her shopping habits. Sticks to stores she knows and trusts, including favorites like Banana Republic, Anthropologie, Pottery Barn, and Nordstrom Shops at stores near work on her lunch hour or on her way home Has been an online buyer for a few years Shops online from home, where she has a cable modem, and from work, where she uses the companys high-speed connection High-level goals: Find and buy the perfect item. Reba hates it when her purchase is not what she expected. Use time eectively. Reba doesnt want to be annoyed by pushy salespeople. Create a lifestyle in her home. Reba wants to craft a stylish interior for her house. Some specic goals: Get new throw pillows that match her couch Use the Web to buy Kenneth Cole shoes that were out of stock at the brick-and-mortar store near work Check out without being asked to conrm 20 times
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

AGE: 28 HOME: San Francisco

Figure 3 Business Objectives Tie To User Goals

Site business objectives Increase conversion rate Reduce call center contacts by 20% Generate 2% more leads for resellers Build brand loyalty

Related user goals Successfully open an account online Understand product sizing and t Congure a product and locate a dealer Find product info quickly and easily
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

July 19, 2004

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

Focus on goals, not the tasks involved to get there. A customer examining specs on

big-screen televisions may not be looking for a TV at all. Instead, she may be looking for trends in TV input, such as component video, in order to gure out which DVD player to buy. Thats why companies must focus on tactical goals, which describe the actual results that users want to achieve without declaring the specic approach (see Figure 4).18

Prioritize which goals to serve. Some user goals, when completed, make money for

the company. Others just make users happy. To tell which is which, project teams must evaluate how the accomplishment of each user goal contributes to business objectives.19 The highest priority goes to user goals that align with these objectives.

Figure 4 Classication Of User Goals

Be wellinformed

Types of user goals:

Research vehicle specications

Request quote from dealer

Research specs with a comparison engine

Aspirational Overarching desire that inuences customer behavior Tactical Explicit objective for interaction with company Implementation-specic Explicit objective for interaction and specic about how to achieve it

Collection of user goals Research vehicle specications View exterior/interior photos Customize vehicle congurator Research specs with comparison engine Be well-informed Request a quote from a dealer Stay in control of the process

Aspirational

Tactical

Implementationspecic

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

July 19, 2004

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

3. How Can You Help Them Achieve Those Goals? As people work toward a goal, each step they take contributes to a sense that their eorts are taking them in the right direction or not. Repeated incremental successes, such as nding answers to a series of questions, give users condence in their progress. To support customers goal-oriented behavior:

Use the personas continuously. Every design decision needs to be focused on

serving the target customers goals. How can companies maintain this focus? By using design personas across the entire organization and throughout the entire project life cycle. Discover Financial Services puts a cover sheet with the picture and goal of the persona being served on every design document, from business requirements all the way through screen comps and usability test results.20 Amazon explicitly denes steps in its design and development process where it incorporates personas into its decisionmaking eorts.21

Provide direct paths to user goals. Once youve identied key goals to serve, make

it easy for customers to accomplish them. When CVS realized that its top customers were heavy cosmetics users, it changed its store design by plucking the cosmetics section out of the rear corner and moving it front and center in more than 1,000 stores.22 And if a primary customer goal for your IVR system is to get store hours and locations, make sure that users can start the process with the rst set of menu choices.

Make content useful and usable. Overly technical jargon or cutesy terminology can

easily disrupt a users path to success.23 To keep customers on track, content must: 1) provide the required information; 2) exist where customers need it; 3) be presented in a format that is easy to digest; and 4) use language that will be easily understood by the target audience. Orbitzs user research revealed that key customers often liked to search for lower-priced ights either one day before or after their scheduled dates. So they made this functionality more accessible to customers by renaming it to Search one day before and after from its previous vague label: Flex Search.24

Test the experience. To evaluate how well an experience meets customers needs, rms

should assemble a full spectrum of analytics.25 One of the most time- and cost-eective approaches is an expert review. These evaluations, which are often called scenario reviews, can help when youre planning a redesign, validating prototypes, preparing for usability tests, or monitoring customer interaction health over time.26

July 19, 2004

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S

TURN SCENARIO DESIGN INTO A CORE COMPETENCE

Here are tactics that will help rms internalize the Scenario Design concept:

Disseminate the Scenario Design vocabulary. Customer experience eorts get

mired in a swamp of part-time experts, as everyone from engineers to execs believes that he knows best how to interact with customers. To help funnel all of this well-intentioned feedback, rms should provide Scenario Design training for a wide audience. Youve succeeded when people across the company are saying, Who are the users, what are their goals, and how can you help them achieve those goals?

Prioritize customer goals over designer chic. Firms often sacrice usability for
questionable aesthetics. The typical symptoms: decorative graphics gobbling up critical screen real estate on sites or long marketing messages eating up time on the front-end of an IVR. Begin each design session by reviewing the customer goals that the design is intended to serve. Ask the team to justify each element of its work based on how it furthers the agreed-upon customer goals.

Make Scenario Design aptitude a selection criterion. If youre looking to bring

in a consulting rm or advertising agency to help with your customer experience eorts, make sure that it understands and follows the fundamentals of Scenario Design. While the rms methodology may not use the same nomenclature, you should eliminate it from the shortlist if it isnt procient with design personas.27

Use geographic-specic personas. Dont assume that personas developed for the
US will also serve other markets. Personas should be crafted for and bought into by each local and regional operating unit. Since these assets will be used to shape the experience for behavioral nuances of target customers, it is critical that they capture local dierences like the fact that a Japanese consumer may be more likely to purchase something on account rather than with a credit card.28

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

July 19, 2004

10

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

W H AT I T M E A N S

THE IMPLICATIONS OF SCENARIO DESIGN

As companies add more discipline to customer experience, we expect that:

Personalization will be replaced by persona-lization. In theory, satisfying the

primary persona will satisfy all users. In practice, sites that need to serve many types of customers, prospects, employees, and partners optimize for some at the expense of others. This tension will lead to a revival of interest in persona-lization as a way to automatically route visitors to a version of the site that matches their user archetype.

Personas will come out-of-the-box. Companies with deep expertise on both

personas and a particular vertical industry will create models of common customer types. These prepackaged personas will be used in two ways: 1) to jump-start fullblown persona initiatives, and 2) to provide 80% of the required customer insight for companies on a budget.

Customer experience managers will displace product managers. Many

companies organize around their oerings creating operating groups for printers and computers or for wireless and DSL. While these organizational structures may be consistent with internal operations, they often create impediments to delivering good customer experiences across these internal boundaries. As companies embrace Scenario Design, theyll recognize these limitations and empower groups that deal with customer segments. Over time, these customer-facing organizations will become more powerful than product management groups.

Customer experience will determine the search wars. As the search wars rage
with Google, MSN, and Yahoo! on the Web, Microsoft, and Apple on the desktop, and players like Autonomy, Endeca, and Verity inside the enterprise customer experience will determine the winner.29 Why wont technology be the ultimate dierentiator? Because users dont often have a goal of searching they use search as an approach for reaching some other goal.30 The most powerful solutions will be those that let people search in conjunction with other methods like sorting, ltering, and navigating by links all integrated together so that users can quickly accomplish their goals.

July 19, 2004

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

11

ENDNOTES
1

Forrester uses expert reviews of Web sites, IVRs, kiosks, and email in our research to uncover best and worst experience design practices. We also use evaluations to help clients uncover their own customer experience aws. See the March 26, 2004, Best Practices Executive Q&A: Customer Experience Reviews. Over the past ve years, Forrester has documented the quality of user experience on hundreds of Web sites. Our Web Site Review methodology looks for 25 design essentials in four categories: value, navigation, presentation, and trust. In 2003, we introduced the fourth version of our methodology. See the September 9, 2003, Report The Best And Worst Of Site Design, 2003. Forrester took a look at our most recent set of Web site evaluations. While just about every site passed our criteria for page-load speed, only one-quarter of the sites provided access for the visually and hearing-impaired. And poor search remains high on the list of site failures. See the March 26, 2004, Trends Web Sites Are Fast, But Inaccessible. Kiosks are everywhere banks, airports, retail stores, hotels, and even fast-food restaurants. But many of these machines deliver a poor user experience because of bad design. Each failed interaction means lost potential savings to the company, or worse, additional costs to x problems the machine created. But a handful of tests can spot these aws before they launch. See the June 9, 2004, Best Practices Finding Kiosk Flaws. Forrester applied its kiosk experience review to airline check-in kiosks. We examined kiosks at either end of a popular route, Boston to Chicago, own by three of the largest carriers in the country American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Air Lines. United delivered the best overall experience; its Boston location received a score of 30, and its OHare terminal scored a 38 out of a possible 72. See the March 26, 2004, Best Practices Designing Airport Kiosks That Work. We surveyed 110 US rms with annual revenues of more than $500 million. While 56% of respondents use IVRs, only 18% of these rms feel that these systems almost always meet customer needs the lowest rating across all channels. See the November 12, 2003, Brief Phones Rule The Ownerless Customer Experience. To gauge phone self-service, Forresters IVR review methodology evaluates an applications performance for 10 design essentials across four categories: value, navigation, presentation, and trust. We surveyed 47 US rms with annual revenues of more than $500 million. Only 35% reported that they do usability testing with their IVRs a much lower adoption than many other evaluation eorts. See the December 8, 2003, Brief How Do Call Centers Measure Customer Experience? Forrester maintains a suite of customer experience evaluation methodologies. We hold periodic training sessions called Boot Camps that teach attendees how to apply those methodologies.

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

July 19, 2004

12

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

10

Cross-channel customer relationships can stress organizations in new ways and jack up the complexity of every interaction. But early successes show that it doesnt need to be that dicult. Forrester evaluates cross-channel experiences against six design essentials that span three categories: Choice, consistency, and continuity. See the October 17, 2003, Report Simplifying Cross-Channel Design. We surveyed 110 US rms with annual revenues of more than $500 million. Only 22% of respondents assign ownership of their diverse customer touchpoints to a single exec. See the November 12, 2003, Brief Phones Rule The Ownerless Customer Experience. Forrester denes Scenario Design as an approach to creating end-to-end, cross-channel experiences based on an understanding of users, their goals, and their behavior. See the December 27, 2000, Report Scenario Design. Following many of the tenets of Scenario Design, Macromedias Web site redesign eort increased its online store conversion by 297% and increased the number of units sold per visit by 67%. See the December 17, 2003, Brief Macromedia.com: A Redesign Done Right. Many of the practices here come from our recent research on Design Personas. See the December 18, 2003, Report The Power Of Design Personas. With the results from eld studies in hand, cross-functional teams must transform hard data into proles of sympathetic characters. See the December 18, 2003, Report The Power Of Design Personas. See the August 6, 2003, Brief Executive Q&A: Design Personas for answers to some common questions about personas, a key element of Scenario Design. Firms believe that forging relationships with customers will make them more protable. But people recognize a companys true goal: to take their money. To succeed with CRM eorts, rms must make each interaction a satisfying experience in its own right. See the March 1, 2002, Brief Build Customer Experiences, Not Relationships. Eective research can uncover hundreds of user goals. To organize this typically variable list, rms must distinguish among three kinds of goals: aspirational, tactical, and implementationspecic. See the October 30, 2003, Report The Site Redesign Playbook. Firms misunderstanding of the Web leads to poor experiences. To maximize online investments, rms should adopt Iterative Scenario Design a methodical approach for xing the highestimpact design aws. See the October 30, 2003, Report The Site Redesign Playbook. Discover Financial Services successful use of personas provides valuable insights for other companies. This persona pioneer gets broad involvement from stakeholders and maintains momentum by keeping personas front and center at all times. See the January 8, 2004, Quick Take Persona Best Practices From Discover Card.

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

July 19, 2004

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

13

21

Two of the Webs best-designed retail sites rely on personas to improve quality and break down political barriers. Others can benet from their best practices for getting persona projects funded and maximizing return on the investment. See the January 29, 2004, Brief Amazon, Staples Share Persona Secrets At Shop.org. CVS has enrolled more than 34 million members in its ExtraCare card program a group that drives more than half of the chains nonpharmacy revenues. The insights gained and actions taken from the program highlight a wealth of database marketing best practices. See the June 5, 2003, Brief CRM Best Practices: CVS Loyalty Card Marketing. Forrester evaluated the content at 20 Web sites. Product features were often described with undened jargon such as 5 mega pixels and 180-count percale. And sometimes copy just didnt make sense, as with this sentence describing a feature of the Chrysler Concorde: Even the heated, power drivers outside mirror dims automatically and tilts down in reverse to make things easier for you. See the March 4, 2004, Best Practices Web Content That Sells. Orbitz launched new designs of its home page, global navigation, and search interfaces on May 24, 2004. The improvements the company made are the result of a sound design process, measurable objectives, and user involvement. See the June 3, 2004, Quick Take Clarity And Simplicity Mark Orbitz Redesign. How can rms assess the quality of their customers experiences? A typical consumer-facing rm must assemble a portfolio of technologies, data sources, and services to know what customers do, what they experience, who they are, and what they think. See the June 9, 2003, Brief Building A Customer Experience Metrics Portfolio. Forrester uses expert reviews of Web sites, IVRs, kiosks, and email in our research to uncover best and worst experience design practices. We also use evaluations to help clients uncover their own customer experience aws. As a result, we regularly get questions about this type of testing. This best practices document provides answers to many of the common questions that we have heard along with references to a number of other research documents that provide even deeper answers. See the March 26, 2004, Best Practices Executive Q&A: Customer Experience Reviews. Design agencies arent all created equal. To help prospective clients compare and choose, we applied the Forrester Wave methodology to 17 of the largest rms that design and build consumer-facing Web sites for the North American market. Our analysis focused on the companys Web site design oerings, not other areas like oine advertising, email marketing, search engine optimization, or back-end systems integration. See the June 25, 2004, Tech Choices Web Design Agency Shootout. Multinational companies have long had diculty in creating compelling online experiences for Japanese consumers. They often face cultural, technological and procedural barriers that limit their ability to organize eectively, clearly dene an appropriate strategy, and design experiences that are globally consistent while locally eective. See the June 11, 2004, Best Practices Making The Most Of Your Japanese Site.

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

July 19, 2004

14

Forrester Big Idea | Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience

29

Over the next few years, search will be fought on three battlegrounds structured search, portal integration, and advertiser sign-ups. Google will cede the rst two to Microsoft and Yahoo!. See the February 23, 2004, Trends Where Google Is Headed. To gain dramatic improvements in search eectiveness, companies need to turn their focus away from search technology and reexamine basic, human searching behavior. Theyre likely to nd that target users dont know what theyre looking for, dont follow a linear path, and dont even want to search. See the February 18, 2004, Quick Take Weave Search Into The Browsing Experience.

30

July 19, 2004

2004, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Upcoming Worldwide Forrester Events

The Forrester Events Dierence The quality of the Forrester keynotes Presentations are backed by thousands of interviews with consumers, technology leaders, business executives, and vendors. Exclusive audiences Forrester Event attendees include executives from the highest organizational levels. Integration of organizational, technological, and business issues Forrester Events provide a complete understanding of the challenges ahead and how to overcome them.

Event Schedule Consumer Forum September 1921, 2004 Grand Hyatt New York New York, N.Y. Financial Services Forum Europe October 45, 2004 QEII Conference Centre London, UK Executive Strategy Forum November 35, 2004 The Westin Copley Place Boston, Mass. Consumer Forum Europe November 2223, 2004 QEII Conference Centre London, UK Emerging Technology Showcase December 68, 2004 The Phoenician Scottsdale, Ariz. GigaWorld 2005 May 2-5, 2005 Gaylord Texan Grapevine, Texas

For more information or questions on attending or sponsoring: CALL Forrester North American Events: +1 888/343-6786 or +1 617/613-5905 Forrester European Events: +31 20 305 4848 VISIT www.forrester.com/Events

H e l p i n g B u s i n e s s T h r i v e O n Te c h n o l o g y C h a n g e
Headquarters Forrester Research, Inc. 400 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Tel: +1 617/613-6000 Fax: +1 617/613-5000 Email: [email protected] Nasdaq symbol: FORR www.forrester.com Research and Sales Oces Australia Brazil Canada France Germany Hong Kong India Israel For a complete list of worldwide locations, visit www.forrester.com/about. For information on hard-copy or electronic reprints, please contact the Client Resource Center at +1 866/367-7378, +1 617/617-5730, or [email protected]. We oer quantity discounts and special pricing for academic and nonprot institutions. Japan Korea The Netherlands Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States

35020