People can painlessly switch between User Driven Service providers.

High switching costs create a barrier to choice and freedom; we should be able to move our services seamlessly from one provider to another without unnecessary interruptions, hassle, or frustration. Transitions between service providers should occur without significant downtime or loss of capability.

While service providers compete by distinguishing themselves with unique features, standard features should be well documented and provisioned in such a way as to be easily moved. Services which allow third party access via APIs should be tested for interoperability so that client software continues to work smoothly with new service providers. When possible, services should use open standards to assure the greatest flexibility when users choose new service providers.

Examples

Mobile phone number portability allows users to take their phone number with them when changing phone companies. Websites and email can be hosted at a new provider, as long as one owns their own domain name. Service discovery allows identity providers to direct incoming service requests to appropriate service endpoints in realtime, even when those endpoints change. The United States Postal Service provides mail forward services for patrons who relocate.

Questions

• Can users transition from one service provider to another without significant loss of service or hassle?
• Can new services be provisioned and established in a timely fashion?
• Can existing users of a service endpoint automatically reach the correct endpoint without human notification and intervention?

This article is part of a series. It is the fifth of ten characteristics of User Driven Services:

1. Impulse from the User
2. Control
3. Transparency
4. Data Portability
5. Service Endpoint Portability
6. Self Hosting
7. User Generativity
8. Improvability
9. Self-managed Identity
10. Duty of Care

More soon…

User Driven Services let people take their data wherever they go.

To exercise choice, we need to be able to move our stuff when we leave, taking it from one provider to another. Users must have the ability to easily move data into and out of the system, on their own terms. Data should be accessible using standard data formats and standard interface protocols. All of the data related to users should be available for download and the ownership rights of all user-specific data must reside with the user or be transferable to the user upon export.

Examples

Plaxo allows seamless integration with Outlook for constant maintenance of contact information. Wesabe and Mint automatically extract financial information from financial services as authorized by users. Third party Twitter clients such as Twhirl and Tweetdeck access Twitter under user authority in order to download activities and upload updates and messages. OpenSocial and Facebook Connect allow third party services access to your social data.

Questions

• Can users import and export their data in usable formats?
• Can users export or import on demand, at any time?
• Can users provision (and de-provision) third parties to access their data under explicit user selected terms?
• Can users get all of the data and related meta-data out of the system in sufficient detail to work with it elsewhere?

This article is part of a series. It is the fourth of ten characteristics of User Driven Services

:

1. Impulse from the User
2. Control
3. Transparency
4. Data Portability
5. Service Endpoint Portability
6. Self Hosting
7. User Generativity
8. Improvability
9. Self-managed Identity
10. Duty of Care

More soon…