A photo of a happy Shoptiques customer

Recently, I got a style makeover. I really didn’t have a choice about it – there were a number of mornings where I’d wake up and not like anything in my closet. And shopping became a total nightmare – I felt like every store offered an overwhelming sea of possibilities and I wasn’t sure which possibility was right for me. Sure, I’d find things that looked nice on me, but I didn’t feel like they were really meant for me.

(I hope that makes sense.)

After a month or so of working with a style coach to figure out what my style needed to say about me, she sent me a bunch of recommendations as to what I should consider wearing – and many options were from Shoptiques.

I remember being at the GIANT conference in Charleston to hear its founder, Olga Vidisheva, talk about Shoptiques. I got the app right away just for a feature she described that was a little like Tinder – the app would present you with clothes or objects and you would favorite them (and build your favorites list) or reject them. Over time, you’d see your personal style develop in favorites.

I really liked their app when I used it, but I wasn’t really digging anything because I didn’t know who I was, clothing wise.

On my stylist’s advice, I bought one of the pieces suggested to me from Shoptiques (see shirt at the top of this piece); another piece I liked was sold out. Buying from Shoptiques was a standard shopping experience. Then again, there isn’t much you can do for online shopping experiences until that user is a regular customer – it’s kinda a commodity experience.

The shirt I bought was a little big and it looked like I’d need to have it altered – quite a bit. So when I saw that they got my size back in stock, I eagerly wanted an exchange. I was past the return date, so I decided to contact support to see what my options were.

It’s often said that you know what a company is like to work with when you have a problem. This was the test for Shoptiques (well, this and a second one from my own blunder).

They quickly took care of how the exchange would work, even though I was a few days over the return date. Easy peasy!

I also needed to contact support about a purchase I made later – I messed up typing my home address. (How I managed to have a typo in my home address that I type a gazillion times, I have no idea!). I entered the wrong apaprtment number.

But they fixed it! They contacted UPS and got them to change the address. The apartment number wasn’t changed for the first package – it went to my neighbors (They were sweet about the mix-up, thankfully!). The rest was delivered to me.

(Sure, there was some drama with UPS, but Shoptiques addressed it. In the past, I have had to talk with UPS directly about inaccurate address nonsense, which sometimes I don’t understand. Don’t other people in the world mess up address forms and get things sent to the wrong place? I’m sure I’m not the only person.)

During the entire experience, the staff at Shoptiques were right there with me – they called me, emailed me, kept me in the loop of what was going on. They would ask about how I was doing – and meant it! They were amazing!

After this experience with them, I feel like I know the people at Shoptiques personally (Amanda and Jes – I mean you!). Shopping through them was a better experience for me than what I have experienced in the past at any boutique.

I can’t wait to keep buying from them. They have a great selection of pieces and I know they have my back when it comes to getting what I purchased – and getting the right thing. They cared when I got the shirts and cared that I lwas happy with my purchases. They care when things don’t go according to plan – and they will talk to you personally about it.

I trust Shoptiques more than any store I have purchased from in the past. They are true to their word and want me to be a happy customer. 

This experience has inspired me to write up how Shoptiques exhibits the 9 characteristsics of great customers experiences (I wrote about this a while back). That would make this all a longer piece – and require more thought – so that will be in Part 2. More to come!

The UX of VPN. Yes, this exists.

I think many of us have given up on the user experience of IT – either some have lost hope that this will ever happen or simply never thought it was possible.

It has traditionally been difficult to troubleshoot a PC, networks, and connections unless you did this every day for work. You had to think like a computer to be successful. I think this led many of us to believe that someone smarter than us created computers and computing. 

The reality is that this isn't true. Computing experiences were originally designed around how the computer worked – what did it need for input to complete a function and programmers determined the easiest way to gather that information (it usually involved the user supplying the data through a keyboard). Now that the basics are in place, we can design better ways for humans to interact with computers, operating it with actions that makes sense for us rather than only providing a computer what it needs through methods that are easier for the programmer to implement.

We sometimes mistake difficult user experiences as intuitive because we are used to doing them. Thy are familiar. But just because it is familiar doesn't mean it's right. It's what we were trained by the computing industry to do. 

Mobile and the BYOD (bring your own device) movement have forever changed the UX of IT. We have come to expect more from devices and the computing industry. Also, computing is now so ubiquitous that we each have one in the palm of our hand and expect them to work with the tap of a finger.

Blackberry has simplified VPN for us; they explain how in this nifty interview paper. 

I found it most interesting in this paper that Scott Ashdown discusses the cost of forgotten PINs. PINs are the same as a password – they aren't easy to remember and we are always encouraged by IT to use unique PINs for each organization we interact with for security. We are human so we forget what we pick – it's normal. It makes one wonder – and it definitely made Blackberry wonder – why isn't there a better way?

"While a lot of organizations have portals that allow for automated reset of a PIN, inevitably, users forget they exist or refuse to use them. These resets surprisingly cost a fair amount of money when you take into account a cost per call of approximately $20. PIN resets alone mean that legacy solutions can end up with annual operational costs that are the same order of magnitude as the original solution purchase price, which is crazy. "

–Scott Ashdown, Putting the UX into VPN 

He also addresses the insecurity of SMS (I was so happy to read about that! I often wonder about these systems that leverage cell phones).

Blackberry's solution is spot on! Basically, they made your phone the old VPN "fob," but rather than using the paradigm of entering a number from the phone, you only need to approve usage from it.

I feel hopeful seeing things like this – the days of remembering passwords and typing codes should be forgotten. It is a gaping hole in security – you can't rely on humans to remember passwords, PINs and keys. There is just too much room for error.

Further, there has to be a better way to validate identity in a world that doesn't have a good model for identity to begin with. I'm glad to see Blackberry thinking about that.