The Brilliance of Thomas Edison

When I re-visit a website, I don’t want it to be like turning on a TV. I want it to be like turning on a lightbulb.

When I turn on a TV, I see what was on last time. When I turn on a lightbulb, I know what I’m going to see.

When I turn on a TV, conversation stops. When I turn on a lightbulb, conversation starts.

When I turn on a TV, I need to make sense of my surroundings. When I turn on a lightbulb, my surroundings make sense.

When I turn on a TV, I can do what the TV wants me to do. When I turn on a lightbulb, I can do anything I want to.

When I visit a website, I want to be entertained, informed, or anything else the website may intend to do. When I re-visit a website, I want to build on that past experience – on my own terms – and not simply repeat it.

What would happen if the lights went out?

On a lighter note

That last post was pretty negative so I'm going to bring up a site that I think is really well-designed. The radio station I work for has a site called the217.com. I think this site does a solid job presenting featured information without covering up the standard info that people generally come for (what's currently playing/radio schedule and local restaurant info)

I'm not going to go on and on about this one, so you can check it out and come to your own conclusions. Mostly because I do actually have some other work to do.

It hurts

When I find a website that won't relinquish its stranglehold on important information, I get this really angry jittery feeling and I start to curse profusely. So when my workplace announced that we were changing our scheduling system to an online service called HotSchedules, I was mildly skeptical.

This lasted until I actually had to use the system. Then my skepticism gave way to frustration and, subsequently, furious anger. I could rant about how bad every aspect of this system is until my fingers went numb, but I'm just going to highlight a few of the more blatant transgressions.

Consider this example. This is a seriously tiny fragment of the total interface and yet, there's already so much wrong here. For starters - there is absolutely no need for 3 exclamation points when informing me how many unread messages I have. There's nothing all that exciting about my "1 unread messages" nor is there anything exciting about any of my 51 other total messages, which brings me to my next point. What ridiculous situation would I have to find myself in to make this notice useful. When I first saw it, I thought "maybe that's for when I have 0 messages and still want to go see my messages... and can't click on the messages button in the toolbar..." But then I checked all my messages...

If I have to tell you what's wrong with this, please don't ever design interfaces, as a favor to me and the world at large. When I saw this on a released and established piece of software, I almost lost it. And this was only the beginning with HotSchedules. However, in the interest of brevity, I think I'm going to limit it to one or two other things that really bother me.

So when you click on the messages to take you to the messaging system this window pops up.
I originally pressed continue without typing yes. Right now, you're probably saying "typing yes?" because you didn't read the whole thing either. But yes, this shows up every time you use the messaging system... every time. One thing designers should really be cognizant of when designing a page for usability is the use of the keyboard/mouse. The two should not be interspersed willy nilly. Use of the keyboard in a mouse-heavy site should be pretty much eliminated unless absolutely necessary. I'm pretty sure the above case does not fall into that category.

So I shouldn't have to coin this, but maybe some designers should take note: "Why have 4 buttons when you can have 1?" This requests section is on the homepage. Basically, the homepage is just littered with tiny little modules like this - clearly lacking any thought-out design. This requests module should be eliminated along with the messaging module - they both have tabs at the top of the page.

I've previously admitted that I haven't studied marketing much, this is true... but I have studied HCI/UI and this site makes me wish I hadn't. Maybe if I didn't know how blatantly this site flew in the face of every basic design principal, I could just be mildly frustrated with its clear lack of usability.

Here's the left side of the homepage for reference. Notice how many buttons there are for requests. Two at the top and 4 in the request module. For those of you playing the home game, that's 6 buttons on the homepage that bring you to what is essentially the same place - or at least, if the program was designed well, all these functions could be accomplished in one screen.

All in all, using this program is a completely horrific experience, if you can avoid it in any way, do.

Dr. Usability (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Web)

I'm a big fan of usability.

There are a LOT of people out there, designers included (especially flash designers, as much as I love their work) who don't understand the concept of usability. If a website isn't functional, then it's useless.

Usability covers more than just load times and depth. It looks at everything from the way the colours integrate and draw the eye, to the layout of the page, to the font, embedded information, notice that a new page will open or popup, navigation issues, compatibility for ages 3 to 103, usage statistics of the target market...it goes on. It gets very involved in Human-Computer Interaction, and is better known as User Centered Design.

I'm by no means an expert. One of my closest friends is though, and we occasionally (re: once a week) get our drink on and wax lyrical about websites with poor usability. Government websites, at any level, are PAINFULLY atrocious examples of bad usability. The example I just gave sends shivers down my spine. It's by no means the worst I've seen (I wish I'd taken a screenshot of the old Harvey Norman website...), but it just...eew.

The problem with usability is defining it. Something may strike us as completely wrong about a website, but we just can't put our finger on it. The experts can, but then again, that's why they're experts. We're just normal people.

Sometimes, though, we find a website that we love. And we'd go back again and again, just to marvel at it's prettiness. If you want to see a few sexy websites, check out your local boutique ad agencies. Sometimes they're shit, but they're updated about once every six months, so chances are they'll be close to 'cutting edge' stylistically. It's a touchpoint for potential clients, so the agencies will try to sell themselves.

Me? The one website I can't live without is my local online newspaper (and online trade mags). Sure, sometimes the articles suck, and the design isn't great, but it keeps me informed faster than reading the paper.

Ultimately, I want information from my websites, not gratuitous creativity. I don't mind what they look like, so long as they do the job. I won't be hanging around on the site long enough to care anyway! I'm Gen Y, I've got people to do, things to see, attention span of a goldfish...that doesn't mean, though, that I don't appreciate good usability for others when I see it.

Clutter on Zappos

So I've heard a lot of word of mouth (and blog) praise for zappos.com. I've heard that they have great prices, compelling customer service and good business ethics. And I love shoes...

But I HATE their website. As soon as it opens, I am hit with a barrage of clutter. All colors, sizes, and all wanting me to click on them. I feel overwhelmed, like I need a to-do list just to navigate their website.

Ok, just an example: the very first screenshot of the page, I can see two search bars, which search the exact same information. Even if these search bars had distinctly different purposes, please do not put them on the same page, it's confusing. If they don't, then it begs the question, why do I need two? In fact, why do I need any of this?

It reminds me of a recent trip to Mexico when I was walking through an open market, and all the stall owners where shoving their wares under my nose, trying to entice me into the shop.

Hi, Zappos? I'm already here, in your shop. You don't have to lure me in, you want to keep me now, and I'm currently scared and about to dart out (my mouse is aching for that back button). I really don't need to see all of your awards at this very moment, I don't want your popular searches and you can take back your three links to the return policy, remove your ding-boozelers and to-tinkers...sorry, switched to seuss-isms...

I can shop by specialty sites, shoe size, price range, category, gender, lifestyle, department all, on the first page. Yes, I want options as a consumer, but at some point, too much is too much.

Sorry Zappos, you lost me...shame too, because I was all set to love you...

Round Two

So here's your prompt for day two:

What makes a website re-visitable or not? What do you love in a website or what do you hate? Examples are great.

The goal for this one is to have a series of short, quick posts that don't take too long to throw together, each post about one site and/or attribute. Feel free to make as many posts as you want though.

Happy Examing!

Oh, and if you're new or just didn't get chance to post an reply to round one and want to, feel free to just throw it in there, just be sure to use the correct labels.

Saturation

Right now, think back on your day so far -- how many advertisements have you seen? You have no idea do you? Gen Y is composed of people who can't remember a time when there weren't advertisements on the sides of buses and park benches. As a result, we are marginally desensitized to the standard forms of advertising. We are constantly inundated with advertising - more than we can possibly absorb. We're completely saturated.

Nowadays, simply placing a Pepsi can on a table in a major motion picture doesn't really cut it anymore, especially if you're any company smaller than Pepsi... which is all but 189 companies. We expect there to be a Pepsi can on the table, label towards us of course. It's so commonplace that all it does is subconsciously remind us that Pepsi does, in fact, still exist.

In my opinion, which I will warn you is not based on any formal marketing training, is that any marketing campaign has to accomplish two goals: it has to inform, and it has to engage. Just putting your product in front of people doesn't work anymore, unless you have a seriously exceptional product - in which case, expect competition soon, because the average barrier to entry for any given market is the lowest in history.

That an advertisement has to inform is sort of a no-brainer. That's what ads have done for years and will continue to do. There are a few exceptions of strange viral campaigns, but those bother me personally and are generally of lackluster success (see: "the algorithm... vs. Randall Munroe")

More importantly, increasingly so, is that any marketing campaign needs to engage the recipient. There are so many terrible implementations of this that I wouldn't know where to start, but I'm going to say this one thing:

Leaving information out of your advertisement and requiring
people to go find it on their own, is NOT engaging the viewer.

In much the same way that playing a laugh track after something doesn't make it funny. I'm assuming that on the big list of things you're supposed to do with ads that they give to everybody in business school there is something about engaging the viewer and everyone went and completely misconstrued it. The best way to engage somebody is to give them something that they want to actively talk about. People are social creatures, we're dying to talk to each other, but generally can't think of things to talk about - that's why we talk about the weather so much.

If you create something that makes me want to pass it on, then you have succeeded. One of the most wildly popular examples of this is Burger King's "King" campaign. When I hear the phrase "Have you seen the new Burger King commercial?" it's a really good sign for Burger King.

Marketing is now, more than ever, a way of telling the people who don't buy your product what to think about the people who do. This is very important. Think about the last 3 advertisements you saw that you can remember. They stand out, because they make a strong statement. A statement about what you should think about the people who own a certain product.

A few such commercials come to my mind immediately - for starters, all Apple commercials. Apple is quite possibly one of the greatest companies in history at branding. They have a rock-solid definition of who owns their products and it's something most people want to be. They pretty much rub this in your face with their Mac vs PC campaign, but it really drives home my point. This also carries over into their iconic iPod commercials, not to mention the iNaming Scheme.

Another notable ad is this Audi ad - it accomplishes it's goal succinctly and poignantly. The message challenges the competition by directly refuting their supposed advantages and appealing directly to their target in a defiant, and memorable way.

Long story short, marketing is now a part of our culture, and as such, it can only be effective if the people creating the campaigns understand that and work with it. Imagine a commercial that you don't want to TiVo past... wouldn't that stick?