Design BDAs for specific functions outside of the web convention to reach task-based boomers.
Interactive marketers continue to engage in a love-hate relationship with their boomer audience. While vast numbers of them have found broadband to unlock their true potential with interactive, many still lag behind.
Working at BankOne’s WingspanBank.com during the boom, these users were our bane. Where boomers were critical to take pure-play banking from early adoption to maturity, they weren’t pushing the needle. The question became: “What else can we give them?”
Even with ridiculous interest rates, free transfers between bank accounts (which wasn’t the norm then), and online bill pay (back when we'd cut physical checks and send them to recipients), there was some barrier that stopped boomers from investing their money.
What the banking industry has learned since then is that boomers still cling to the need for physical presence. Even if a bank has a million branches, your neighborhood branch is “your bank.” As irrational as it seems in print, boomers need a building where they can walk in and take their money if the need arises. While banks continue to make the transition to being completely virtual, they can’t let go of the building with tellers in it. Yet.
This understanding led me to question just what it was that made boomers as a generation so averse to using their computers to replace real-world tasks, even when they’re a hassle. What I found was that by looking back at the technological advances that had taken place in the lives of those who were born in the late 1940s and early 50s, an interesting trend developed. No technology ever grew beyond its own functional boundaries as an appliance.
The icebox became the refrigerator, and freezers developed in parallel. Then the refrigerator/freezer combined to form the same super-appliance for cooling we use today.
Stoves became ovens, then ranges, and spun-off the popular toaster, Toast-R-Oven and microwave. Yes, many people thought of the microwave as the oven of the future, though that perception has leaned more toward “popcorn maker and Chinese food reheater” since then.
When you look at the innovations made in media during the span between 1940 and 1980, the appliances are even more discreet and stagnant. While technology to create and deliver the content changed, the way it was consumed -- as separate televisions, movie theaters, radios and record players -- stayed largely the same. Even as movies migrated to tape, then DVD, the player is an appliance with simple buttons to operate mechanical tasks.
This is a long history of habits. What we refer to today as ubiquitous computing -- with a number of separate, connected devices helping us lead more efficient, modern lives – was back then a culture of ubiquitous appliances.
Then came the personal computer, and it was straightforward as an appliance. Far better than the Seletric with a correction tape cartridge, you could type and edit on the computer, then print. And maybe play a simple game.
As computers have evolved to become truly integrated machines, many boomers have simply lost the scent of integration within the appliance. Being “able to do anything” isn’t necessarily a good thing with this group, it is overwhelming. And many boomer users have become what we call “task-based.”
This group looks at computer programs as it does any other physical appliance, both in the sense of it having parts that work (and can break easily) to achieve a specific outcome, and the same “step 1, step 2, step 3” mentality toward operating it, as would be applied to any other tangible appliance.
Today, to many boomers, as much as web convention helps to standardize interfaces, each website can feel like looking at a brand new car or dishwasher. Where are the controls? What do I do next?
Ask these people about their computer usage, and they’ll reply with, “I do my email, write a letter, go to the internet if I have to, and that’s it,” as if the computer will wear down if they use it for too many tasks (which, courtesy of Windows Operating Systems, has reinforced this idea).
And this is where AOL has something to teach us about boomers and BDAs. Lots of users out there, even with broadband, feel as though AOL is the appliance for accessing email and the internet. As other, better technologies have evolved for both email and web browsing, this group is steadfastly sticking to its guns. Twenty dollars a month is a small price to pay for the appliance you know.
Branded desktop applications can make a tremendous difference for brands whose users fall within this category.
To start with, BDAs are discreet. One download, one brand, one goal. This is a comfort to this audience because its task is separate from the web browser in perception. For these users, having many BDAs may actually make their user experience more pleasant because the job of each is clearly defined and presented without the technical navigation, or the fleeting nature of the web.
Being able to design BDAs for specific tasks outside of web convention is another major advantage for task-based boomers. A streaming audio feed can look and operate like a physical radio. Television service and support can look and operate like the same model of television (with remote). Lexus can make a BDA that works just like the dashboard of the car that user owns.
The visual metaphors go on, but when design can be created outside the rectangular, limited-graphic restraints of web design, what results is a far more tangible interface delivering controls that this group of boomers understands, and can easily approach, step-by-step toward the goal of engaging with – and staying loyal to – their brands in this ever-connected and neglected dimension of Web 2.0.
Michael Leis is VP of Publishing Dynamics. Read full bio.