A CHI-WEB post pointed at the Customer Experience workshop notes, written up by Kevin Doohan. Lots of great stuff, includign this story
“Phillips electronics gathered a group of teens in a room and asked them “What color boom box would you prefer? Black or yellow?”. Teens to a person said that yellow was it. Black was conservative and old. Not hip at all. Yellow is definitely the color for them. Later in the afternoon, the teens were informed that they could each take a boom box home with them. Boom boxes were stacked at the exit in two piles, a pile of black and a pile of yellow. All teens selected black. What customers do is more important than what they say. We can watch and influence what they do online like never before.”
and this anecdote on simplicty
“A Webvan holiday package was a great idea but had a very low uptake by customers. The promotion had 150 items to choose whether to include in the package or not. Kozmo.com holiday promotion had 5 items to choose from. It was a tremendous success and had greater than expected uptake. The assumption is that a package that is easier to navigate leads to more conversions.”
Nothing like storytelling to illustrate an idea.