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I have a bank account that rebates all ATM fees so I don’t care about which bank I visit to withdraw cash.  I’ve never paid attention to the amount of the fees, but if I did, I would consider paying more for a better user experience.  About 6 months ago, I had my first experience with the redesigned Bank of America ATM’s.  What an improvement!  Bank of America, or more likely the firm they hired, certainly thought through the user experience and did some testing prior to deployment.  As a result, if I have a choice, I will always use the Bank of America ATM solely based on superior usability.  Bank of America made these improvements in response to an update by Wells Fargo so hopefully they will continue to compete on user experience.

Of course there are other examples.  For regional travel, nothing beats http://southwest.com.  I thought their most recent updates were a step backwards, but Southwest still holds a major usability advantage that captures my business over other airlines.  In the airline business, the most frustrating brands are those that refuse to acknowledge the problem.

As more companies realize the advantages of superior user experience, usability will become a competitive matter, improving for all of us.  This trend is already accelerating in mobile applications because limited interface options dictate superior core task functionality as a requirement, even for bad designers.

Do you have any differentiating user experiences to share?

In an effort to figure out how some of these atrocities are making it on to the internet, I’ve created a two question anonymous survey to try to get an idea of the level of testing that is currently considered acceptable.  Please complete or forward to the appropriate people:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/G8VB28K

1. Yelp – http://yelp.com
Yelp is a free service that allows anyone to write an unbiased review of your business that is available to the public at any time.  Do I have your attention yet?  To stay up to speed on your Yelp page, use the site’s search function to find your own company and click the large red button that says, “Claim This Business.”

2. Local Search
- http://google.com/local
- http://bing.com/local
- http://local.yahoo.com/
Local search is the most likely way that internet searchers will find a small brick and mortar business.  All of the major search engines have expanded the capabilities of local search to include directions and reviews, another source of information about your company that you’ll want to closely monitor.  All the search engines have similar functionality to Yelp that allows you to claim and enhance your business listing.

3. Analytics – http://google.com/analytics
What good are all these new sources of business if you can’t measure the results?  Google Analytics is free and easy to install on almost any website.  In addition to always asking your new customers how they found out about you, it’s important to have solid numbers about how people find you online.  If you need help, installing analytics is a minor project that can usually be completed in a couple hours.

What other internet services do you consider essential for local businesses?

In December, Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt said “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” – Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy

That’s a bold statement for the CEO of any major company, especially Google, which has a history of criticism for their privacy practices.  Google was also recently criticized for their handling of a privacy problem with the widely used Google Toolbar.

By now, everyone knows about the famous Facebook Beacon incident.  In December, Facebook made another attempt to make user information more public with their new privacy settings.  Facebook tried to spin the news as a win for users.  However, the changes were really designed to give Facebook evidence that users consented to sharing their information with the world even if users didn’t pay attention and selected Facebook’s “share with everyone” setting, the default if the user had not previously adjusted their privacy settings.

Many other major internet companies are employing similar strategies as they all struggle with the balance between keeping users happy and running profitable businesses. I respect that balance.  However, I have a problem with companies knowingly taking advantage of people who don’t read or understand their terms or bundle tracking software with other products in a misleading way.

I’m all for personal responsibility, but the fact is, most internet users don’t understand online privacy. The average person doesn’t know very much about what information is tracked, how companies use it, or how to control information collection on their computer through browser settings, add-ons, and software.

What’s next? Are we approaching the limit of tolerance for these practices?  Will there be legal action?  Will consumers stop using some of these major services?  What do you think?