Is Desire a Priority in Your Site?
September 4th, 2007 (6:00am) Dian Schaffhauser 7 Comments
I’ve worked for a multitude of Web sites, but they’ve always emphasized function over form, useful and usable over truly engaging. There was never enough time or money or even talent to do more. And maybe that’s why, with one exception, none of them has ever been or will ever be the kind of destination where people arrive and say, “I gotta tell my brother/friend/mom about this…”
What did they lack above all else? Desirability comes to mind — that sense of play or uniqueness that lures visitors in and immerses them in experiences that transport them.
So how do we inject desirability into the sites we work on?
In a recent Forrester report, Kerry Bodine offers three tactics.
1. Provide engaging content and functionality. Think beyond what the executives of your company consider important for the site — product descriptions, management team bios and press releases. Go further than visitors’ basic needs and add that element of surprise, appeal to personal interests, allow for customization and — the one that gets so much attention right now — help people share and connect with each other. For example, the “I have a stain” tool on Tide.com lays out how to get that ballpoint ink out of your favorite white cotton shirt. (And, no, Tide isn’t the only answer.) Sheraton.com is featuring vacation stories on its home page shared by guests. Cornball maybe, but it shows what real dreams are made of.
2. Focus on aesthetics. Yes, that could mean working with graphic designers. Web developers, writers and usability mavens all have opinions about the look of the site, but it’s the designers who can deliver the goods (and good looks) — Google-ugly-chic aside. Aesthetics also means tapping rich media. Somehow it’s important that the watches on Rolex’s site reflect the real time showing on your own computer or that Nikewomen shows videos of name athletes sharing their training techniques.
3. Incorporate elements of game design. If your visitor is playing, chances are, she’s staying. That may mean creating a system of challenge and reward or developing a narrative structure to motivate visitors to interact with the site. What do dancing hands have to do with beer? Beats me. But it’s worked for Guinness. Another example: LinkedIn’s “Profile Completeness” bar that encourages members to continue developing their profiles (”Adding a recommendation will bring you to 90%”).
Bodine’s point is this: Those of us working on the inside of a Web site need to bone up on our interactive skills; we need to do everything we can to understand the hopes and dreams of our visitors; and we need to take a lesson from other industries that have already learned how to link products to emotions.
Do you think your site already does that? Share the link!
7 Comments Post your own comment
Jonarhan Rochelle says: September 4th, 2007 6:29am
Insightful post… I was recently in a discussion about the value of Usability Design with someone from my prior life in Financial applications, and i noted that the first time that usability or graphic design was even a mention on a project was in 2000, when Sapient participated as a contractor on a large-scale debt origination app I was managing. They convinced us that usability testing and design was critical to creating a usable application - and we went along with it because they were more knowledgeable than we were in web apps… ignoring the fact that the point would have been right even for traditional, desktop apps…
Also: People often ask me about the value of real-time collaboration (and other features) in our Google Docs & Spreadsheets app, and it became clear to us early on that besides the true functional value of working on the same. single doc, and the re-inforcing power that real-time change visualization has on that equation, the “fun factor” should not be under-estimated! It is more fun to be able to interact with the people with whom you collaborate as you work…to see where they are in a spreadsheet, to follow them around, to chat with them… we get that feedback often. It’s also the reason we do things like the GoogleLookup() function… Yes, it’s functional, but it’s also fun.
Jonathan Rochelle says: September 4th, 2007 6:31am
…and next time, I’ll learn how to spell my own name ;)
(feel free to fix that for me and remove this comment)
Skellie says: September 4th, 2007 7:08am
Point no. 3 I find particularly interesting. There is definitely much more scope for exploring this area of web design… though I guess a common barrier is technical know-how. It’s a little different from pure aesthetics.
Serge Lescouarnec says: September 4th, 2007 7:37am
Good piece
For any site, it takes time to find your rhythm and style.
There can be a tendency to see what stories get the most reads and write more of the same.
I accept the fact that some topics will not get a large audience.
I try to keep writing about things that matter to me, staying authentic.
As for design, I plan on shaking things up through Coworking
I also started a conversation on online activities and those around 50 via my Just Over 50 and Not Dead Yet Panel Idea for South By Southwest Interactive
In other words, being passionate (opinionated?) and curious can keep things fresh
Serge
‘The French Guy from New Jersey’
Justin Davey says: September 4th, 2007 2:03pm
Learn to utilize words and images in such a way that your passion is evident on the screen.
Leap Overs | OBannons Leap says: September 5th, 2007 4:37pm
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