The Thomas Edison of text messaging

Lloyd Cotler is a first-mover and leader in SMS campaigning. About 10 years ago he went all-in on messaging, eschewing the email bedrock that powers the progressive space because he saw an opportunity to elevate what supporter communication and engagement could be.

As SMS Campaigns Manager at Hillary for America, Senior Strategist at Mobile Commons / Upland Mobile Messenger and most recently, Director of Political and Nonprofit Solutions at Hustle, he’s learned a thing or two about what works, what doesn’t and why.

Lloyd and his partner Kate Myers have recently launched their own firm, Banter. They’re laser-focused on delivering results for political campaigns, causes, and companies who are doing good. And, in the process, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with messaging (SMS and beyond).

Considering Lloyd’s extensive background in the messaging world, we’re excited to get his thoughts on a few questions.

What motivated you to double down on messaging (SMS, chat, etc…) instead of email?

I got started in progressive politics and digital organizing working for comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act, and SMS was absolutely the best medium for that message. Even though we didn’t win those fights back in 2009 and 2010, we proved that you can mobilize and activate supporters who traditionally didn’t respond to email. That showed me the power of messaging and SMS in particular—to build connections with folks who wanted to take action, who had been ignored and supercharge their work.

Even in 2010 you could start seeing email open and click rates declining, messages that all looked the same, and innovation being what color the donate button was. At the time, we were competing with several other high-profile issues for legislative action and once I saw the way we were able to penetrate with SMS I knew I was all in for this tactic.

You’ve mentioned that SMS subscribers are much more likely to engage, donate and act vs email subscribers. When compounded with the 3–5X engagement rates that SMS enjoys, this feels like a perfect storm. Care to share a few stats you’ve observed and your thoughts on why SMS-subscribed members are more engaged?

Sure — there are some crazy examples out there. At HFA, being an SMS subscriber was the single biggest predictor of taking offline action, more so than having attended a previous offline action. 50% of SMS subscribers gave to the campaign at least once and donated 20% more than email-only subscribers. I ran a test with the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence that found SMS was over 25x more effective than email or social media at driving phone calls to targeted lawmakers. The Humane Society found that mobile subscribers were 77% more likely to donate than email-only subscribers.

SMS subscribers also see all your messages, so it’s more likely something will resonate with them. The messages are seen (for the most part) when they’re meant to, so you’re able to better capitalize on big moments and not wait for a supporter or customer to check their email. You’re also reducing friction for those big asks—call a legislator? You’re already on your phone. Take a selfie in support of your organization? You take plenty of pictures on your phone already. It’s just easier and more fun to be involved than reading long emails and signing petitions.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing peer to peer messaging over the next 2–3 years?

I think campaigns in particular face some different challenges than advocacy groups or companies regarding peer to peer messaging, but the two I see are saturation and verification. On the verification front particularly, I think that’s where campaigns need to innovate. Volunteers come in and out, best practices get thrown out the window the closer you get to elections and fundraising deadlines, and it’s hard to keep those conversations with supporters in one place. We’ve already seen campaigns been impersonated via text, or messages not being compliant and identifying themselves. If people want this channel to remain viable, there’s going to need to be an effort at better verification.

The other issue I think is saturation—that is, getting bombarded by messages from groups and campaigns that don’t coordinate. The challenge is going to be identifying who is best at motivating particular supporters and changing incentives away from sending the most messages, to sending the most effective messages.

What tips would you give to a group that’s just getting their SMS program up and running?

First is to just get started. Start collecting phone numbers and opt-ins (if appropriate) right away. Too many people wait for a big moment to launch, but that means you don’t have anyone to reach when you do finally kick-off. Second is to actually engage! Respond to people when they text you back with questions or comments, reply to tweets your supporters write about your texts and build feedback loops with social media to show your constituents you’re actually paying attention to them. The last is don’t think of your SMS tool as just one tool that lives in one department or with one team. You can find a lot of areas in your existing outreach where messaging can support or plug gaps so experiment with pairing SMS + direct mail or telemarketing, canvassing, advertising, etc. The possibilities are pretty limitless.

Follow @lloydcotler and visit Banter to see how his team can help your company or cause win with messaging.

Civic Shout is a new progressive-advocacy platform that’s helping causes grow and driving tons of congressional advocacy in the process! See how we can help you.

Meet Lloyd Cotler: The Thomas Edison of text messaging was originally published in Civic Shout on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

YouTube’s new app provides a “More Killer, Less Filler” approach to experiencing their massive music collection. Theres a free version and a paid one via YouTube Red. Both tiers present a few custom stations based upon your interests, and much like Pandora, create ad hoc stations from songs you explicitly play. YouTube Red enables you to listen to songs when the app’s in the background and to stream audio-only versions which makes this feel like a real music service.

Using the app is a pleasure, its feature set is more constrained than full blown YouTube, which flattens the learning curve and keeps the mental model small. Although much lighter than YouTube proper, I think there’s still a lil’ fat that could be trimmed.

Most Loved:

1. Mega-easy signup with Google account integration.
2. Getting feedback that liking or disliking songs will help train my custom stations is reassuring and clues me in to how things work.
3. The different layouts under each main tab helps build out the mental model of where things are and how they’re different.
4. Tinting the UI based upon the current song’s poster is pleasing.
5. The removal of “commenting noise” is appreciated

Least Loved:

1. It took too long to understand that explicitly playing a song is creating a station based on it (which seems to be a primary feature of the app). Suggestion: Perhaps moving the station title above the song info would help and calling it something like “Sia — Chandelier station” would better communicate what’s going on.
2. The explore tab makes me think too much because it basically does the same thing as the “Playing Now” upcoming songs list. Suggestion: Remove “Explore” and just focus on the station being amazing.
3. “Playing Now” and “Explore” tabs maintain state from prior station and it breaks my mental model of what I should see when I pull up a new station. Suggestion: “Playing Now” tab should always be selected by default when going to a station.
4. The “Station variety slider” feels unresponsive since it only has three steps. Suggestion: Just use a segmented control.
5. Liked songs take too long to show up in my liked list and lessens my confidence that it’s working. Suggestion: In the case there’s a slow job queue involved on the backend, optimistically update the UI immediately.

Onboarding: B

How easy was it to learn and start using the app’s primary features?

Task Completion: B

How easy was it to complete primary tasks?

Visual Design: A

Does the app “look the part” and feel credible?

Value Delivery: A

Did the app deliver the expected value?

Please enjoy a short list of what I think are the best-looking “robotic” icons in Slack’s App Directory. I do use a couple of the bots listed here, however this is a purely visual roundup of cheeky well-designed icons. There’s some other good ones in Slack’s directory for sure, but the charm of these robot renderings pushed them to the top. To that end, I present my completely biased selection of the best “robotic” icons in the Slackbot ecosystem. Enjoy.

• Bugbot: Finally, your GitHub Issues in Slack!
• Lita: A chatbot scriptable with Ruby.
• Awesome: Stay in sync, cut through the noise, and uncover insights.
• Appbot: App reviews from all countries.
• Hubot: Github’s scriptable chatbot.
• Felix bot: Everyday just tell Felix your daily goals.
• Beep Boop: A ridiculously simple hosting platform for Slackbots.
• Geekbot: Asynchronous standup meetings in Slack.

Lark’s conversational experience is designed to help users monitor their diet and activity via daily prompts and short questions. Instead of detailed nutritional analysis, Lark tracks high level dietary and activity patterns and coaches users on how to eat better and stay active.

The app has a friendly feel and low learning curve due in part to the CUI “Conversational UI” it employs. This paradigm is interesting from a UX perspective as the bulk of the interaction is realized via back and forth text banter. It’s more about analyzing the messages, tone and calls to action than user flows or command placement etc… I’m eager to critique more apps in this trending category.

Most loved:

1. The conversational nature of the app is engaging and enables it to fluidly share lifestyle and nutrition tips between CTAs and response cues.
2. Organic learn-as-you-go onboarding.
3. Automatic sleep tracking is a no brainer.
4. Minimal learning curve due to the conversational paradigm.
5. HealthKit integration made the Data section valuable from the start.

Least loved:

1. After a chat session reaches its end, I’m left hangin’ when tabbing away and then back to the chat screen because there’s no new message or prompt. Suggestion: Always message or prompt an action when tabbing into a blank message screen.
2. I’m not prompted to log missing meals from the prior day. Suggestion: Enable me to log them via chat fields when I visit the chat screen.
3. Tapping through an “Add meal info” notification makes me go through almost an entire chat session before I can add info. Suggestion: Immediately prompt me to enter info in the chat screen.
4. I expected the meal details screen to have a uniform “Tap to add meal” CTA for all empty breakfast, lunch and dinner fields. Suggestion: Add that CTA bar for blank meal fields.
5. Absence of a “Weight” tab in the Data toolbar was confusing. Suggestion: Just add the tab to the toolbar.

Onboarding: A

How easy was it to learn and start using the app’s primary features?

Task Completion: A

How easy was it to complete primary tasks?

Visual Design: B

Does the app “look the part” and feel credible?

Value Delivery: B

Did the app deliver the expected value?

I’m glad I finally took the time to read this seminal work on cognitive science and design by the influential author and professor Don Norman. This quote-list covers the book’s second version which was released in 2013. The original came out in 1988 and apparently it’s not extremely different due to the timeless human-centered design principals it addresses.

Of the many topics covered in the book, Don’s explanation of signifier usage, the importance of creating mental models and organic mapping really stood out. The book is filled with actionable approaches to design-centric problem solving based on the workings of the mind.

1. Good designers never start by trying to solve the problem given to them: they start by trying to understand what the real issues are.
2. Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding.
3. Emotion is highly underrated.
4. A lack of feedback creates a feeling of lack of control, which can be unsettling.
5. Take people’s difficulties as signifiers of where the product can be improved.
6. But it is easy to find fault: the key is to be able to do things better.
7. Consistency in design is virtuous.
8. Sometimes, bad products succeed and good products fail. The world is complex.

Designing for Touch by Josh Clark outlines how ergonomics, evolving interaction paradigms and legacy desktop experiences affect design decisions for multi-touch devices.

The book didn’t cover a lot that was new to me, but it was still helpful to steep in the domain for a day. Of note, was the research data presented around how people hold various devices and the reality that the thumbs are the prevailing digits at play on both phones and tablets (optimizing layout around thumb placement and device size are crucial to delivering a comfortable experience). Josh also did a nice job of reviewing some nuts ‘n bolts design differences between iOS/Android/Mobile web that should be considered when designing an optimal experience for each platform. The book wraps with a couple chapters dedicated to gesture usage guidelines and tips for lowering cognitive load during onboarding.

1. “As designers … Our job is to give users confidence.”
2. “The best interfaces seem to translate intent into action instantly.”
3. “Thumbs drive 75% of all phone interactions.”
4. “Good design optimizes recurring tasks to make them as ergonomically efficient as possible.”
5. “For phablet apps, place navigation and frequent controls at screen bottom.”
6. “Size gestures to the hand, not the screen.”
7. “The best learning takes place while doing, which is why help screens and FAQs let us down.”

Having worked with startups for the past six years I’ve learned the value of making informed product decisions sooner than later. I’ve developed my research methodology through reading, doing and learning from others. I’m always looking for pragmatic ways to gain useful insights that’ll help me solve product or business problems. Although I’ve got a lot from being in the trenches, I know there’s still a lot to learn regarding research techniques. The digestible promise presented by Erika Hall’s book Just Enough Research spoke to this desire. Below are some quotes from the book that resonated with me.

1. “Conducting a good interview is actually about shutting up.”
2. “In design, you’re solving for user needs and business goals. In research, you’re solving for a lack of information.”
3. “Your target customers have to love you more than they hate change.”
4. “The aim of usability testing is to identify specific significant problems in order to fix them.”
5. “A persona is a tool for maintaining an empathetic mind-set rather than designing something a certain way just because someone on the team likes it.”
6. “Goals and behavior patterns are the core of a persona.”
7. “Split testing can help you optimize your current design until you reach a local maximum, but it can’t tell you how much you can accomplish with a different approach.”
8. “In design, “intuitive” is a synonym for “matches the user’s mental model.”

I’ve been designing and building web apps for years now, but I’ve never taken the time to document how I approach greenfield projects. To help me consider my own process and provide others with insight into how I work, I’m going to walk through the way I approach app design.

The problem

Many offices and public spaces are absurdly over air conditioned in the U.S.. This a huge pet peeve of mine! The amount of energy and money wasted to make a space miserable is beyond me. This is a problem (The NY Times agrees), and I wanted to take a stab at it.

A proposed solution

From working in various cold offices over the years, I’ve found that getting a few co-workers to back you up when complaining to the boss about “The AC” can go a long way. To that end, I came up with the idea of allowing people to flag any U.S. location as “Over air conditioned”. It’s a simple web app called Frrrozen (akin to Foursquare) with a succinct primary action. After you flag a place, you’re prompted to tell co-workers about your office’s Frrrozen Page so they can flag it as well. After that, just send the office manager a link to the page so they’re aware of the discomfort consensus amongst the ranks. For public locations, users are prompted to leave an “It’s too cold here” comment on Foursquare or Google Places pages after they flag it on Frrrozen.

I think this idea is pretty solid. That said, I do know from experience that building is often easier than getting traction or influencing usage patterns. Provided the product could get decent distribution, the main problem I foresee is intra-office adoption. Since I’m only taking this idea to the prototype/feedback stage (for now) I can focus solely on the joys of design.

Process

When embarking on the design of a new product or significant feature, one should research the problem domain, market, existing solutions and also take steps to understand the product’s target users. In this case, let’s just say that’s already locked down.

Now that I know there’s less chance of wasting time and money… I can confidently move into the think-write-sketch phase. This is where I use pencil ‘n paper to visualize what the main workflows should look and sound like. I say sound, because copy is one of the most important parts of experience design. Apps are in conversation with their users — when used well, it aids in conversion and can remove the need for some screens entirely.

When sketching out workflows (onboarding, posting etc…), I draw out rectangles for the screens I think I’ll need, then I add candidate copy, controls and content blocks to each one until I feel I have something to refine. This is the “cheap” stage, so I try lot’s of approaches. All the while I’m considering potential service integration requirements (in this case Foursquare and Google Places APIs) and scenarios the app will be used in.

Once I feel good about the sketches, it’s time to put some wires together. But first, a “real world” note on wireframes. When I’ve worked on projects that already had a significant amount of hi-fi elements in Sketch or Pshop, I would use them instead of generic wireframe chrome. Making both lo-fi wires and hi-fi mocks in this case is usually redundant, exceptions being huge new features. But your mileage may vary.

Since the project is greenfield, I chose to build a lo-fi wire/prototype with Sketch and InVision. The sooner I can get a clickable experience in people’s hands the quicker I can uncover the big holes. Also, It’s not uncommon for the wires to come out a bit different than the sketches. That’s fine, it’s a normal part of the design process. Beyond general oversights, It often has to do with what I call the design-copy tug ‘o war. Often copy will seem fine in a pencil sketch but it won’t hold water when actually laid out.

After I feel like I’ve learned enough from the wires, I begin designing the hi-fi prototype and visual theme. Since the problem at hand is about being cold, I opted for a chilly palette and used an image that added some editorial pop to the landing page. I also ended up changing the app’s name.

You may have noticed that the app doesn’t require a logged in user… I went with this approach to lower the usage barrier (also why it’s a web app and non native). Pseudo user features like “how many flags have been dropped In a day” will be tracked via cookies. Sure, this limit can be “overcome” pretty easily, but the risk/reward still tipped the scales in the favor of usability. If the app took off I know of some future features that would require real accounts though. But hey, we’re doing the Lean thing right?

If you want people to have a better chance of remembering you, there’s one simple thing your card must have… A photo of you. That’s it really. Beyond that, make sure you stick with the conventional 3.5″ x 2″ format. Oversized, undersized, square or goofy-ass die cut cards are easy to loose or may not even fit in a wallet. Finally, just put vital info on the card. No need to turn it into a spread sheet. Once they’re on your site or social profile they can go from there.