Navigation, emotion and giraffes

Web content guru Gerry McGovern is one of my favorite bloggers -- mostly because some of his posts at Giraffe Forum give me a nervous twitch. Don't get me wrong, I read McGovern pretty closely, but every once in a while he strikes a nerve.

In a recent post in which he argues that every website is NOT different, he writes, "Please don’t think about your website from the point of view of emotional branding. Don’t fall into the trap of designing for exceptions." He concludes with, "There are now solid rules for managing websites. The first one is: Design for what is common, not for what is exceptional."

In many ways, I agree, but I don't think it's that black and white. I think you need to focus on what's common and anticipate the exceptional. I think Jeff Bezos was the first to talk about accelerated serendipity as a design model on the web. Think about how Amazon is built. You go there knowing that you want McGovern's book Killer Web Content but learn about Avinash Kaushik's book on web analytics, Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think, and Jakob Nielsen's book on eye tracking. Not a bad set of books that you might not have known that you should read and only found because they anticipated.

I think this extends to interactive content as well. In the university context, there are certainly times when prospective students are on a navigation mission. They want to know the majors, location, price, financial aid, weather, etc. and that's it. So, here McGovern's principles are dead on. But, we also know that they use the web heavily to get a sense of place. They want to see photos, videos, read some short stories, etc. Good .edu web design, in my opinion, allows for both. The site is quickly and easily navigated but also has plenty of opportunities to highlight the "experience."

This is where the accelerated serendipity happens. A student might be looking to see if there is a film studies program -- but once they're on the page, it's a missed opportunity not to show some student-produced films or stories about film on campus that they didn't necessarily know they'd find. This allows them to connect with the people -- the faculty, the current students, and others on campus -- who they will study with once they enroll. Here's where I really depart with McGovern's argument. A college website isn't strictly transactional -- the emotional draw is just as important as access to key content, but perhaps not at the same time in the college search process.

Comments

[Michael Stoner]

Charlie, I couldn't agree more. I'd suggest that the place to make an impact is on those "lower-level" pages that are more specific rather than on "higher-level" pages that should be designed to serve a much broader audience, some of whom (perhaps many of whom) don't want to load a huge Flash piece or figure out navigation while they look for what they really came to find. Of course, each page is a potential "home page" in the sense that it's where someone could enter your site, but people search for "film studies" at Colgate and land on that page are looking for something specific, as opposed to people who come to Colgate.edu and then look for your majors, or search for "film studies" there.

[Michael Stoner]

My fingers are often much faster than my brain! I hit the wrong key--but meant to say:

"but people who search for "film studies + Colgate" at Google and land on that page of your site are looking for something very specific. People who come to Colgate.edu and then look for your majors, then click on "film studies" may be exploring a number of different options and often want fast access. Navigation and internal search are really important. And how about the iPhone effect? Safari on the iPhone doesn't read Flash, so if your site is all Flash you get nothing. Try RISD's site for just one example...."

[Charlie]

GREAT point about Flash. I've been hunting for research on prospective students/families and whether they're using web-enabled phones and devices to view college sites. Haven't found anything yet, but I bet they are.

Andy Careaga put up a post about Rice's new site. I'm impressed with Rice's focus on optimization for 508, W3C AND mobile devices, smart phones, etc.