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Doing consulting work in the newspaper industry has keyed me into one of the major problems for newspapers as they transition online. They don’t use web designs that are user-friendly.
If you were to look at the recent redesign by our local Charlottesville daily, The Daily Progress, you might, from a consulting standpoint, believe the site is a well-designed site.
It has all the bells and whistles, flash intro pages, monetization spots, widget partnerships, tags, featured readers, etc. The problem, and most of my peers agree, is that a site like this is horribly difficult to navigate. I do appreciate what the Roanoke Times (a close by award winner) has done with their site design, but still as a casual reader, the amount of content and the complexity of the layout scares me and most anyone else away.
Site design should be about minimalism and simplicity. Why? Users have the worst ADD on the planet right now and it’s going to get worse as they are bombarded with more and more online content. I do have evidence to support this.
Take a recently published study titled “Not quite the average: An empirical study of Web use.” I highly suggest you read this PDF if you are involved in web design. The authors studied detailed browsing patterns of 17 to 30 year olds. My favorite finding is:
More than 17% of all new pages were still visited for less than 4 seconds, nearly 50% were shown for less than 12 seconds and 11.6% were displayed for more than 2 minutes (median: 12.4s). However, a fifth of the 11.6% were visits of over 30 minutes to up to 5 days—most of these events are most likely created by unattended browser windows that were left open in the background of the desktop.
50% of page views are for less than 12 seconds!? That hardly gives your site enough time to read the article, let alone hundreds of menu and widget items. It sheds some light as to why twitter has gotten so popular recently: simplicity wins when there is too much information.
How do you balance simplicity and user design elements for your site?
The Media Age/DeParis Redinger team will be attending the following conferences:
Future of Business Media Conference: we will be in New York City for a couple of days the week of October 30th.
We will be in Las Vegas from November 6th-10th. Please let us know if you will be attending!
One of the points I make in a Newspaper Association of America article I just wrote is that print media doesn’t grasp culture of openness on the internet. Watch the video below for more:
What do you think? I think it brings up a lot of underlying issues between the old guard and the new folks.
Robert Steele is the craziest keynote speaker I have ever seen. I can describe him as a combination of the following
• Steve Ballmer (jumping up and down on-stage)
• Jack Bauer: he is apparently an ex-CIA spy
• Chloe O’Brian: ok, another “24″ reference, but he did start the first Hacker conference in NYC in 1994
• Oh there are so many more references…but this guy is speaking at a mile a minute
Open Source is the New Black
Robert takes the traditional “open source” notion to a new level. At first glance you must think this is regarding software: Microsoft Vs. Linux. Instead we have an inside-out view of the world…
Robert is calling for transparency in worldwide governments via technology empowered denizens. This is a pretty provocative story. He is basically telling us what we have already been doing, most in part supported by blogging technology….The citizens of the world are now able to be the Anderson Coopers and of course, Stephen Colberts of the world. It seems we have not been taking enough advantage of our newfound power to enact change.
Blogging itself wont allow the spread of information…we need supercharged broadcasting platforms. Amir Hirsh’s Collactive is one such company. Having figured out how to crack the Digg/del.ico.us/etc news ranking model, the average online user can now make his/her voice heard without having to be the Om Malik’s and Michael Arrington’s of the world.
You can view this exciting presentation here.
Chris and Ponzi Pirillo and the rest of the Gnomedex team have prepared quite a conference for all of us here in Seattle. I am sitting right now in the main conference room in a comfy leather chair, nice wooden desk, power points for my Thinkpad, and free WIFI (albeit a little slow…). Kudos to the entire team for giving us the required creature comforts necessary to have a great day.
The Media Age/DeParis Redinger squad is here today to look for the next up and coming content creators and technologists. I was very pleased to see some aggressive self-promotional behavior last night at the pre-conference mixer (thanks for the sponsorship HP).
While in line to get a drink at the bar we met a really great guy, Todd Martini who runs Alex’s Coupons. He started his site to help raise money to help his daughter, Alex, battle Leukemia. I am very happy to report that she is doing just fine now. The website was such a hit that it has turned into a full-time business for Alex.
The next person we met was Bryan Starbuck, CEO of Talent Spring. With the rise of social networking and all of its rich promise, some entrepreneurs have been trying to create the next CareerBuilder/Monster.com. Talent Spring will allow users to rank each other’s resumes while submitting their own to create the first peer-reviewed superstar list of exceptional job candidates for any given industry. Will this work? It all depends on the seriousness of the community. The unique thing about Talent Spring is that they are already up and running. Keep an eye on them, and in the future when they launch their beta site, PeopleAhead.
In short, Chris threw a great party and an even better beginning to a crazy conference. Enjoy the rest of the show.
An interesting article fell on top of my desk today. The WSJ reports:
Many [copyright] warnings “materially misrepresent U.S. copyright law, particularly the fundamental built-in First Amendment accommodations which serve to safeguard the public interest,” the complaint alleges. CCIA President Ed Black said the warnings create a “chilling effect,” dissuading consumers from using portions of the content in ways that are lawful.
The conflict illustrates the shifting concept of fair use in the digital age. “Fair use” of intellectual property revolves around the question of how much, if any, of movies, books, music and other creations can be used without permission of the owners. As Internet platforms have made it easier to redistribute chunks of content without asking for approval, copyright owners have become more protective about enforcing their rights.
So, Google, Microsoft and others are banding together to help consumers realize that they can reproduce a certain portion of copyrighted work. I think it’s pretty interesting that CCIA cares so much about warning labels. Warning labels mean very little in a world of easy access to copyrighted content. Are consumers really intimidated by something like this? I highly doubt it.
Update: And illegal music downloading is at an all time high… yes those labels really help.
Hello Readers. I’ve been rather busy recently as you can probably judge by my lack of blog posts. I will be trying to get back on the ball and continue with the in-depth analysis.
Keep coming back, I’ve got some more good content on the way.
A local Circuit City employee introduced me to TV-Links.co.uk . I don’t understand how this site is legal, but I did notice a significant decline in the number of watchable videos over the last several weeks.
The most interesting thing about TV-Links was that it linked to Stage6.com which is a website devoted to showcasing the DIVX In-Browser player. It is very impressive. While Joost and Veoh want to remove bandwidth issues associated with video, their technology isn’t nearly as usable or user-friendly as the DIVX player.
DIVX In-Browser Player delivers a more enjoyable user experience with easier installation, quicker downloads and fullscreen HD quality
Need you ask for more? You could ask for legal content. But it isn’t too long before another company (I’d put my bet on an existing media company) decides to build a web-based platform with DIVX running the user experience. I’d put my money in that direction.
Good read: 33 Ways to Watch Free TV Online – Although they must have missed the DIVX HD fullscreen content when they said “…not if you have one of those 47” plasma ones, but…you know what we mean.”
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