Forum Moderators: open
I have much work to do.
I think I have gone on enough about something most already know. In the interests of usability I will stop now.
You can also find me by searching for poudork, powdorck, powdorc, or Jacob;)
Use some flowery expressions to state the obvious
In my experience, it's almost always in the obvious things where websites fail.
I bought the J.N. ecommerce usability study, and I didn't learn anything radically new from it. But I did get reminded of a whole host of things that weren't right with a current project I was consulting on. I already knew all that obvious stuff, but still, I wasn't actively doing it, and I was lost in a host of other details.
The study was worth MUCH more than it's price. The anecdotal comments from the testers alone were worth the price.
So in this new article, for instance, I appreciated very much his emphasis on navigational cues. You see, I've become a bit lax in that area, especially location cues, which I used to make sure were richly redundant. But recently, I've been subconsciously resenting the fact that stupid visitors need such a heavy handed approach -- it messes with my elegant page layout, you know?
Yes, his website is ugly (unfortunately) and he repeats what I already know (thankfully.)
This is a very nicely written analogy.
A more juicy simple summary than the more nutricious Bloodhound and Foraging papers on which most is based.
However I do not agree completely:
This dual strategy is the reason I recommend that you showcase sample content on the homepage (appear nutritious)
While I do not disagree on that, he fails to mention that it is also because of Google that more and more visitors enter on internal pages instead of the homepage (at least on well set-up sites).
I also wonder on the absoluteness of his assumption:
In the last few years, Google has reversed this equation by emphasizing quality in its sorting of search results. It is now extremely easy for users to find other good sites.
You could also argue the reverse - because of the known quality of Google results - surfers/users will take for granted that the top results in Google Serps really are the best - and their lazyself will forage no further.
A development also seen by Teoma:
Related subject: What makes a good search engine? [stlcu.com] from Computeruser.com
The article mentions the "rate of abandonment" of Teoma and states that it went from 40 percent in December of 2002 to 19 percent in January 2003.
That is only 19% of the people clicking on one of the Search engine results actually came back to the search engine to check others.
A laziness or ruthlessness amonst foxy searchers also seen with Alltheweb [webmasterworld.com].
Is that really without question true?
If a person knows what they are looking for are they more likely to go through an entire site looking for the information they need or return to the index as soon as they find that the page they were looking at was not relevant?
I know, for example that when I am looking for something I'll key in the exact text or phrase into Google and then look through the first 10 results to find the site most relevant to my search. If the homepage of the first listing does not hook me (either via Jakob's guidelines for presenting a good snapshot of the entire site content on the homepage) then I'll go on to the next one. So I do follow the title of the document.
Compare that to a situation where you have a search engine which displays one relevant result. That is your reference file, one relevant result. The person would be more inclined to look thoroughly on that page because it's that reference point and only that one that exists and has any relevant information.
Of course in the real world I'd just go to another search engine.
Glyn.
this applies equally to users coming through google ads.
So we advertisers are getting worse returns. Sword cuts three ways!
But there is another way to look at it:
users are not finding what they want and are thus leaving faster. This points to the qulaity of Google's results.
>>The big difference between websites and rabbits is that websites want to be caught. So how can you design a site to make your content attractive to ravenous beasts?
>>The two main strategies are to make your content look like a nutritious meal and signal that it's an easy catch.
I feel he did a great work to make it interesting, simple and informative .The analogy perfectly fits into present day times when you look at the overall stats.
A wonderfull article well written with analogies.
Aravind
So, there's no solid foundation for what JN is proposing.
Second, why should it be bad that visits to a given page were short rather than long? I have observed a lot of stats in my time:
For sites with forums, chat, games or other similar activities, visits tend to be longer than for news sites, and for sites of the directory type, or for "pure" search engines, visits tend to be shorter still. This is neither "bad" nor "good", it's simply "different".
It does not make sense from an usability perspective, that all sites should seek to maximise duration of visit. Using Google as an example, the time spent on site is actually being minimized actively by seeking to put relevant pages on top of the serps.
The duration is simply a sideeffect of what purpose users tend to go to the site for, and for what reasons they stay.
JN admits this in his comment about the "stickyness" measure becoming outdated, but he fails to explain why. The simple explanation is that (guess what) sites are not just sites, they're different as well.
The one and only truly relevant measure is: Are your visitors coming back, once they have been on your site one time and left? The term is loyalty.
/claus
I agree with you, however one should look at comparision of visit's with another news site as vis-a-vis news site, or forum versus forum.The Analogy is based on this assumption as far I understand.
How does one make thier news site more visited than another , by having more number of loyal people to your site, this comes from the analogy of Nutrious "healthy" Meal being served and it's easily catchable(navigatable.)
>>Using Google as an example, the time spent on site is actually being minimized actively by seeking to put relevant pages on top of the serps.
Google reduced time people spend on the site,True by any measure, , but where are they going, they are going to GOOGLE DISPLAYED searches.Hence the google connection gets maintained for user.
Here the principle "I came to know this becoz of GOOGLE" applies.
Thus encouraging them to be more loyal.
Are they staying longer, yes becoz all the while they have had a connection to google, that's where the visitor is staying longer with google.That's why google fits into again the analogy of nutrious meal and easy catch comes into effect.
A polite stand for the article :-)
Aravind
It is marketing but it's nothing new in marketing. It's like using bold text or capital letters in a sales ad combined with a catchy phrase or a picture of a sexy women. In a magazine, you have 1 - 2 seconds to force a reader to pause and read your ad before they turn the page. They will quickly (even unconsiously) scan the ad, see if it is relevant and turn the page. They aren't going to spend the time trying to figure out if you are saying anything they care about. If they don't see it, they move on. Even if you manage to grab their attention, you don't want to waste their time providing them with all the info you have. You give them a little bit, just enought to intrest them, a phrase or image to stick in their memory and then let them go to the next page. If you provided the right trigger on info they want more of, they will return later for the rest of the "meal". (Which, btw, would be why every frigging ad on the face of the planet now has a web address, even if it's for something like tide detergent)
Google is just now providing the same kind of enviroment on the web.
So have you got the right bait?
Are you on the right dock?
Is your line deep enough?
Jakob has managed to point out the obvious once again, something copywriters have known for ages.
Obvious to whom?
If I am led on a long search through results which lead me to a site that has a myriad of techniques to string me along... well the close window button is only a quick click away, and I'm 99% likely to bolt at that point. If Google serves me up a site with just what I am seeking, and that site has the product on the homepage, short description to confirm it's what I want, and a buy now button... I've got my product without a bunch of wasted time, and the vendor has made a sale with a minimum of system resources being used.
This is the ideal situation, this is what users want, and it's what vendors should want. All this grazing herd baloney is for, well... the birds.
If you focus on your "pages viewed" stat, see how many viewed only one page. This is probably a pretty big number, but you CAN bring it down with easy navigation and links that people WANT to click.
In fact, paging through several books on copywriting for the web, I found them all to state a very basic premise:
Give surfers pertinent info and give it to them as quickly as possible, or they'll leave.
I didn't have to page through any copywriting books to find that message though, it's been chanted here often enough that it should be common knowledge. In fact, the discussions on the subject that took place here provided much better insight without using a touchstone title to garner attention.
The days of supermarket web design have long past. By supermarket design I'm referring to the tactic that supermarkets use to ensure people see their "content". They place the milk and the bread in the back of the store so that people have to make two trips through the aisles to get two of the most needed items in the store. The reasoning of course is the hope that the consumer will pick up a few extras along the way.
The supermarket design tactic was discussed and discarded as least as far back as 1997 which leads me to believe that even way back when, a few people knew the most effective sites smacked people in the face with relevant information.
The only thing I find revealing in Jakob's article is that that he seems to feel he's found something new.
If you are selling something, then, yes, leaving the site is a bad thing, but that would have to be your own fault for not having a strong hook or call to action, not Google's. On the flip side, having users wander around your site for an hour does you little good either. They have to submit a contact or make a purchase for the visit to have any value.
As far as a purely informational site, outside of pure personal novelty reasons, what difference do the who, what and how long's matter?
The days of supermarket web design have long past.
- brilliant term! I have compared websites to retail outlets dozens of times before, but you just coined the term for the bad way to do it - i will use your term from now on, sticky me with the way i should credit you if you care about such things :)
TheRealTerry:
As far as a purely informational site, outside of pure personal novelty reasons, what difference do the who, what and how long's matter?
If the site is built for personal reasons only, i'd say that the "who" and the "what" were far more interesting than the "how long".
The "who" can point you towards shared interests, and ultimately build knowledge as well as network.
The "what" can give you a sense of direction as to which topics are the most popular reads. Not necessarily the ones you find most interesting yourself, but perhaps issues where you perform better than others. Also the oposite - where would you have to make an effort if you want increased readership of what you personally think is important.
Combined, the study of who and what can make your personal site better, and by using that knowledge it is possible to get a higher level of personal satisfaction with what you publish.
The "how long" is an interesting measure, but it is not the most relevant in all cases. Eg. if your visitors are on your site for a long time, it could be because they read a lot and really liked it, but on the other hand it could also be because they desperately tried to find something that they just couldn't find.
/claus
Basically he was asking if, and how he could set up widgets for sale that work with more than one gizmo in his first e-com site development sale, wanting basically to have the widget, then listing all the gizmos it fit...
Of course the error here on his part was that he was looking at it from his own "briar patch", and not the point of veiw of the consumer. Br'er Shopper knows what gizmo he has, and an idea of what widget he wants to pretty up his gizmo. Making him sort through the bottom of the widget page to see if it fits his gizmo will make him run back to the road faster than a bunch a thorny bushes...
He wants to know what you have for him, not try and figure out on his own what you have for him.. structure so that he can see his very own 4wheel death gizmos in the category or top level nav, and duplicate the multi-gizmo widgets, under the sensible sub categories, for each gizmo it fits.. if the side mounted brush beater widgets fit several, put it in a sub for each one it fits... Even the one size fits all widgets like the "bolt on cargo widget" should be duplicated in the trail he wants to follow rather than in separate patches separated by fences, underbrush and other content realestate....
It's simple when you look at it from the consumer's eyeball... but when you're the shopkeep it's easy to focus on organizing units/widgets to be pretty, instead of making it easy for the hunter to find his trophy...
I thought what he had to say was obvious to anyone that has invested any thought toward content development and copywriting.
Do you think, then, that there might be people who have only just started to invest thought in content developing and copyrighting? And that for those people there might be something new in the article? Do you think that there might also be a value in us being reminded of things we know already?
What this article fails to realize is that how long a user spends on your site is not your goal, or at least it shouldn't be.
Why not? I run an information site as well as a commercial site. I'm delighted when I see visitors come more than a hundred times, or look at thirty of forty pages at a time. It's also fine by me when people come for one little bit of information, get it, and leave, but I love having people who stay for a long time.
I'm not suggesting that goodwill portions of a site or detailed content pages aren't useful in the least, it's always nice to give someone a reason to come back and those pages are great for gaining rankings. But, you also have to ask yourself if someone coming to read about the history of widgets is going to buy any widgets, or if the person looking for that history would even be interested in buying a widget.
Getting back to the topic, though, if you aren't attracting your target market and getting conversions, that's the fault of your marketing efforts and site design, not Google's.
But, I imagine that is not your goal.
Yes, believe it or not one of my goals is to make information available to people that may be helpful to them. A lot of other people on the web do the same thing, and most web-use is noncommercial. I started my site as a noncommercial operation, and although I make part of my living from it the noncommercial part is still very important to me.
So I disagree completely with your assertion that one shouldn't have the goal of getting a user to spend a long time at one's site, and with your statement that
Everything on your site needs to focus on that goal [i.e making money] or else its wasted effort.
I find it somewhat annoying when I see people making sweeping assumptions about what our motivations "should" be in running our websites. If the only reason you're on the web is to make money, that's fine. I hope you realize your aims. But please don't assume that it's the only reason for having a website.
Your site does not need to be #1 in the SERP ... but it must be tasty.
well below 30 and above SERP i think is an exception ... depends from the searcher.
It is possible he (there I go again) was merely assuming that commerce is the only reason for optimization....
Perhaps their model needs a bit more development: I mean we all aren't Informavores... some are Commercavores, some are Omninfovores and some probably fit somewhere inbetween, like those Informavores that cheat because they only eat specific commercial content..
;^p
Ok, I poked some fun, however the article (if you can get past the theme) is a good reminder of content design (not web design) and worth the read.
Upon further reflection I uncovered a few more "rats" that should be beefed up, big rabbits that should be staked down for easier kills, and still a bit of burnt out dried up property that could be subdivided, and ponds that need some stocking... yeah, their premise could use a lot more meat itself.. guess their "infotarians"..
Anyway, my personal opinion is not far from the reply i posted before: the "who" and the "what" is still more important than the "how long".
One exception though: Search Engines and directory type sites. The success factor for these sites is how good they are at pointing visitors toward other sites. Thus, if their visitors spend too much time on site, they are not as successfull as when they can send people off in the right direction using two clicks and no time.
But, I imagine that is not your goal. Return visits and longevity (...) doesn't put food on your table. Your goal is conversion
Well, that's right, or at least the "food" part is, but then again... it's not all websites that are run by companies whose only revenue stream is the web site. For some "Real-world-big-and-very-commercial" firms, the web isn't used as a way to get extra income, rather as a way to save costs (in logistics, customer service, internal communication, etc.).
Plus, there are products (services) that cannot be sold through a web shop, eg. consulting, accounting, dental and medical care and so on. For these firms an informational site could serve as another form of advertising.
Last (for now that is) there are firms that really make good money in the real world, but use the web only as some sort of online business card, stating not much more than contact info. Plumbers, carpenters and the like could be examples.
Anyway, i guess you can say that for these three types of companies, conversion happens IRL.
When discussing a subject like this, i find it interesting to observe that web-based business are often referred to in the debate as if they were the majority of the websites currently around. That is of course due to the fact that the people building and operating such websites often participate in the threads - and for all kinds of good legitimate reasons, one being improving themselves and sharing knowledge :)
Imho the reality is, that "100% pure web based business" may have a loud voice, but their actual footprint in terms of online property, is fairly small. Amazon is just one shop, and so is ebay, and dell (they're really not all that web-based either, although they use the web for communications). And although clickfarms go by the thousands, they are still no more than a very little fraction of online content.
Nevertheless, the measures "who" and "how" keeps being more interesting than the "how long".
/claus
