The Catalog of Unfindable Web Widgets
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Footers …Are You Wasting Desirable Web Page Real Estate?
Yes, put important points first. But the bottom of the page is important. The findable but neglected footer is where your desirable users end up. At times it seems web design is skewed toward the casual user, or browsers who are unlikely to become prospective customers. Rarely can you find a web widget which develops user desire or rewards best customers.
Shop By Color
Shopping site Etsy knows your current purchase is often influenced by what you already own. You may want a purchase to fit your interior or complete an outfit. And while most sites support the purchase transaction, Etsy shows some understanding of what a shopping interface looks like.
Unfindable Employees
Findable: Stock photography of clean–cut models staring vacantly off into the ether. Unfindable: Snapshots of real employees, posed or not, who look and behave like regular people.
Web Widgets Indicating Progress
Progress indication is far too rare on the web. For example, an ice cream cake configurator can show how the cake looks at each stage of the order process. The user can see how much has been done and compare against how much lies ahead.
Web Widgets For Content Management
Time and again web site copy refuses to translate industry specific jargon into terms the customer can appreciate. The buzzword checker called Fight The Bull flags correctly spelled but meaningless buzzwords. A web validator based on checking faddish buzzwords would increase desirablity as it aids communication.
What Does it Do?
Content, including catalog copywriting and visual merchandising, is the web’s chief weakness. Practical demonstrations, or something as simply dramatic as Before and After visuals can work desirability wonders, but are rarely found. If you sell shirts, explain how the material you’ve chosen holds color better after washing, justifying a higher price. Of course if the product produces no detectable difference in the life of the user, by all means stick to the buzzwords and vapid filler content.
Will It Fit Me?
Vanity sizing might be a myth, but is also a study of both the positives and negatives of desirability design. Providing a usability counterpoint is Fitme.com which translates your size to various clothing retailers. One piece of smart advice from these reports is “shop for your silhouette.” That is, if you can build a silhouette based shopping interface.
Web Widget Desirability
The game SimCity 4 introduces users to desirability factors: Proximity to healthcare, parks, schools (desirable positive); and crime, pollution, and long commutes (desirable negative). Another change is the shift from building things to environments which can either attract or repel a SimCity’s people. Pity you can’t find the similar idea applied to web widgets on real estate sites, mapping sites, or chamber of commerce sites. Vancouver modeled the great basin area using this idea. In the process they may have discovered a tool for communicating across ideology barriers. Others use simulations to tackle real decision making problems like urban sprawl, traffic jams and pollution.
In The Mood For A Good Book?
The standard way to organize books is by author, subject, or title. The premise is as long as users know what they want, and are explicit enough and logical enough, the web widget is said to be “intuitive.” You may want a book which is an easy read, but unpredictable, with a sense of optimism perfectly suited for a breezy summer read. The interface of Whichbook.net offers desire centered sliders, by mood. You get meaning and serendipity, not controls tailored to the functional requirements of database structure. Whichbook balances simplicity, sophisticated user insight, and one–to–one customer experience design. (Quick test: Describe the widget to a technologist without explaining it already exists. Useful for getting an idea of their “impossibility quotient.”) Impossible widgets are the best barrier to competition.
Persuasive Alternatives For Lorum Ipsum Filler: Locum Tenens
Website templates aren’t unfindable; templates which guide content creation are. The result is content, even on sites built from scratch, can be freely switched with any of the so–called competition. Innovative website templates could offer a persuasive alternative to filler text. There’s nothing like a template filled with best practices, meaningful guarantees or policies to get clients to set speed records getting bland noncommittal writing typing to you.
Not Finding The Differentiation
You have the choice of being the 5000th used car dealer offering “the best value” on the Internet. Or one of the very few proving the claim with a 75 point inspection every car must pass before you sell it (Which would be a great visual for a web site). There is one new car dealer who gets customer contact, and referrals, by offering a free car wash day — just you try to find it. I’ve seen car wash sites which differentiate better than business sites of any category. The image of the Internet may be content is king and this changes everything. But me too and because we can are far easier to find in terms of user perceived desirability.
What Is Holding Your Customers Back
All–Too–Infrequently–Asked–Questions. These are the questions customers should ask, but rarely do. FAQs are great as far as they go. Desirability requires you to manage customer expectations, which also means asking customers to consider a different kind of question. For instance: Why should I buy jewelry from a company in Boise that doesn’t have automated ordering? Or when form construction questions for a survey should be about the real question of how to design survey questions that won’t generate misleading or worthless data. Call it frequently asked if you want. More likely this is a hidden objection that doesn’t get asked — surfers just leave.
We Fix The Broken Promises of Competitors
1-4 of the top ten mistakes
cost cutters make
A roofing contractor can show a diagram of the parts of the roofing system they sell. The user looks it over, assumes all roofers do roughly the same thing, and moves on to another site to get a lower price. Although such diagram widgets claim to be information, a better argument can be made they are irrelevant trivia. The infographic version would be titled “The Most Expensive Roof Starts Cheap” Promises and guarantees are findable; supporting web widgets explaining those promises have meaning are not.
Splash Screen Desirability
Splash screens are not great web usability; unless your company name happens to be "loading." And while desirability is not usability, it is not rampant creativity either. Balancing between all the different desires of viability, feasibility and creativity we can look to another carryover from the software app: the easter egg. Hunting for easter eggs is more in line with designer concerns (rewarding exploration, repeat visits) — and you’ll be in good company.
Computer Adequacy: 2.0; Computer Desirability: 0.0
Decades ago consumer goods and technical know-how were scarce. In an era of unprecedented access to technical data and product availability the rules change. Attention and desire are the scarcities and know-what the variable.
When structure and content are mere components of a site design, each developed in isolation, web widgets don’t drive communication, they just decorate it. Often, when desirability is mentioned, it gets mistaken for rampant creativity. If you want to show visitors to your site what desirability and technology can accomplish — when allowed to — contact Design Crux.