One of the most important things I’vediscovered is that well made personas make all the difference. What channels Will they want to communicate through? Level of computer sagt etc.

Seriously. Given the cost of items like cameras I am surprised how poor the customer service tends to be. Its very much still buyer beware.

I’m really interested in this debate, and see it as an issue of content strategy vs online deliverables.

That model you present is joined-up. It’s the ideal content strategy where customer engagement has been covered off at just about every point.

But I have never had a client ask for a content strategy.

Clients still ask for a Facebook page; or for SEO; or for something to do with Youtube. In short, their thinking hasn’t become joined-up.

The question then arises whether we continue to develop each piece of the puzzle – IA, UI, EX, design, SEO, copywriting – in isolation of every other piece?

Or do we invest time to educate clients that they need to stop, reconsider, and re-evaluate how they deliver their business online.

To be fair, as a smaller agency, it’s difficult to do invest that time with a client, as it will inevitably be at the expense of billable work. And it might frustrate the client into looking elsewhere for immediate gratification.

If we’re going to remain credible as strategic partners to our clients (and that is where the long-term value lies), I think our industry needs to draw a line in the sand and begin to say no to the legacy approach of delivering fragmented online solutions just to satisfy demanding but ultimately short-sighted clients.

Frankly, this is where UX will lead to – in reality the world of experience design is much bigger than UX and I am glad. When I first got going in this practice I thought that there really is more than this. We’re thinking completely digital. There will be some level of convergence – it is just starting to become mainstream. The progression is natural – as more and more companies attempt to attain a competitive edge by providing a complete brand/product experience. And when it comes to touchpoints, the first thing I think of is retail and/or automobile shopping. The complete experience from the decor, music, lighting, architecture, merchandising etc. This could also apply to large enterprise initiatives as well except your customers are actually the employees.

Here is a few resources:
http://www.servicedesign.org/
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/
http://www.minds-makers.com/en/ (good slide show here)
You can also Wikipedia it too. They have a well thought out writeup.

My 2 cents – thanks again Paul.

-Bruce

For content sites, such as this blog, I think a different stylesheet is the better option as the user interaction is pretty much identical for both the mobile user and the web user.

For an ecommerce site, as discussed above, a separate version would be better as the interactions may need to chance for users of the mobile site. For example, older phones may not be able to cope with the JavaScript required for the live chat.