Per some recent suggestions, I've decided to elaborate a little more about some of the things I learned at the SXSWi panels.  First up: the keynote by Kathy Sierra of the Creating Passionate Users blog.  Of course I can't recreate Kathy's talk or her immense knowledge on the subject, but I can give the you gist of what she talked about.  If you'd like to listen to Kathy's speech, SXSW has a podcast or her talk available for download.  There is a edited video of her talk available as well.  And, Kathy writes a little bit of her experiences on her own blog.

Phew!  And now, on to the talk.

Kathy started out asking, what's that "one thing" about human interaction that makes it so meaningful?  And how do we convey that emotional meaning in our software?  Some people think it's simply the smell of other humans that makes it meaningful - but we can't put that in our software.  Really, nobody knows for sure.  But no matter what, a more human experience makes for better software and more passionate users.

When you are frustrated or confused, you make a face - usually furrowing your eyebrows and tilting your head.  People around you see that, and they respond.  They ask you questions, they help you out.  Problem is, software can't do that.  The software has no idea what the user looks like or is feeling.  It can't tell if the user is confused, working well, or even if they're totally lost.

Thus, our software needs a way to have the user tell us they're confused.  Sounds simple enough.  And when the users is at this confused stage, it's a very critical time.  If we don't pick up on the users confusion early on, we're going to loose them and their passion.  Nobody is passionate when they suck at your software.

When someone is interacting with your software, there are some perceived milestones people achieve.  First, there is the "suck threshold."  People here say to themselves, "Wow, I suck.  I'm not good I'm not bad...I just suck."  Secondly, there is the passion threshold.  Here, the user is actually getting really good at the software and is really enjoying it.  Quick tip: all things being equal, he who gets their users past the suck threshold the fastest wins.  The faster we can get people past that threshold, the more passionate they'll be about our software.

So what do we do?  How do we get them to stop sucking and move past the passion threshold?  Let them tell us.  They need a "WTF?" button.  It lets the user tell us, clear as day, when they're confused.  So back when the user is making that face, but now at the computer, they have a way tell us.  Click the "WTF?" button.

But, your usual knowledge base or FAQ system isn't going to cut it.  You might ask, "Isn't that what they're doing when they click FAQ?  Aren't they saying "WTF?"  Not really.  As Kathy says, FAQs are written for a user who is mildly in love with the application and likes the product.  The people who actually need and use the FAQs are usually new to the software and totally lost.  Help documents and FAQs are meant more for the higher level users, those who are closer to the passion threshold.

So what should happen in our software when someone presses the "WTF?" button?  Well, Kathy suggests to "start thinking like a human."  In the real world, when you're talking with someone and they look confused, you simply ask them, "what's wrong?"  You need to emulate that in your software.  Ask if the user is even in the right place?  Maybe they went too far in the process and actually need to be moved to a different location?  In your help documents, Kathy suggests using top level phrases like, "I'm lost,"  or, "I'm confused" after someone clicks the "WTF?" button.  They're real user questions real people might say, and help the software identify what's wrong. 

Being human is very important - especially with the writing style of your help text.  Make sure you talk like a person.  Kathy notes several studies which show tiny changes in help language - making it more conversation like, personalizing it, using the word "you" - can have huge benefits.  But why?  Well one of the theories is when your brain reads conversational text, it doesn't know the difference between reading conversation and having conversation.  And so your brain turns on and says, "Crap, this is a conversation, I need to pay attention!"

Kathy then gave a bunch of examples of software, and some that got it right and some that got it wrong.  She pointed at Excel, and it's painfully un-human help system.  All these examples helped to solidify the main point of the talk: rather than creating passionate users through marketing, where you can usually out spend the other guys to win, you should instead focus on out teaching your users better than the next guy.  That's the true key to success, and creating passionate users.