The Peoplecentric Web
March 22, 2004 | 
16 Comments
I like to say that the Web is about people. It’s been one of my many mantras over the years and it’s becoming more and more apparent to me that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
As a Web developer and designer (etc.) it is my job to provide solutions to problems. I use tools and techniques to apply technology and design to help people do things on the Web.
One of the most important aspects of my job is understanding people. It’s not something that I feel I’m good enough at yet. I imagine many of my peers feel the same way. I’m going to do my best to help change that. Both for myself and for everyone who reads Asterisk*.
Again — It’s About People
I feel that to build truly useful Web experiences it’s a must to understand how people use the Web. Both on a general level and on a more specific project level. If you’ve built a Web site with no concept of how, and maybe more importantly, why, people use it you run the great risk of failure.
Obviously there is more to it than that. I keep going back to my “Golden Triangle” of goals. Business Goals, User Goals and Organizational Goals all coming together in harmony. It’s been something that has seemed to work fairly well.
Down at SXSW I found that others had similar thoughts. As I sat there in Jeff Veen’s amazing presentation, The Frontiers of User Experience (PDF), I saw many ideas I’d had come clear before my eyes. He even used an illustration similar to my own triangle. Here was someone explaining things I’ve thought for a long time, and many folks around the room nodding along in agreement.
We’ve just scratched the surface of what we can do with the Web and to move forward we really need to look beyond the technology to see how (again, and why) people are going to the Web.
I would guess this is going to become a hot topic on the Web (update - already has) in the next year or so. Web designers are starting to clue in and I think discussion will began to move away from tools and techniques (which I still feel are very important) and more on to the problems that people face with interacting with the Web.
A Story About “Real” People on the Web
I want to share a story with you. It something that changed the way I feel about how Web sites are built and how we as Web builders often perceive our audiences.
It’s something I knew before, but something that was really hammered home for me a few days ago. It happened at SXSW and it wasn’t during the interactive portion. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest lesson learned from SXSW came after all the geeky stuff was over. Such is life.
ANYway.
On Friday night a group of us saw — and had the chance to meet — a few great bands at a non-showcase event. It’s a pretty common occurance at SXSW. The next day my brother, Steve, and my friend, Heather, wanted to get on the Web and get some more information about these bands. They wanted to know if they were going to be in a showcase, on tour, or if they had CDs out. Sounds like a pretty common use case for this kind of site, don’t you think?
It didn’t go well. At all. Heather’s frustration was immediate. She pulled up a site and could not, for the life of her, figure out how to get in, let alone get any useful information. There was no mention of the visual design, the intro movie or the “killer image” the band was (maybe?) trying to convey — only annoyance that she couldn’t find out if they were going to play a showcase that day and a bit of anger that the site made her feel stupid.
Instead of stepping in (I later found out I could figure it out either) I sat and I watched, having recognized an opportunity to observe users in their environment. (Sounds like The Crocodile Hunter a bit, doesn’t it. Well it’s kind of like that in a way. Crikey!) Steve, being the more savvy users, did step in to help out. They got nowhere. The interface (all Flash) was very obscure and for some reason everything they clicked on kept taking them back to the slow loading intro.
I sat there for about 20 minutes watching them search for and pull up various sites of bands they’d heard and wanted to gather information about. About 10 sites in all. Not one of them would have been considered a success on any practical level at all.
When they were done the complaints and questions started coming my way. I guess I was the resident expert. “Why do they have a scrolling frame like that?” “Why is this text so hard to read?” “Why not just call it ‘tour dates’?” And on and on.
My guess is whomever built them had no real idea of how people would actually like to interact with their site or why they would go to their site in the first place. What was also interesting to observe is how personally Heather and Steve were taking this frustration.
Steve was downright pissed-off at one point. I’m not sure if he would decide he didn’t like the band because of this, but why even risk it? It was obvious he wasn’t happy he couldn’t “figure out how it worked.” This had to reflect on the band in someway and for a band trying to “make it” that couldn’t possibly be a good thing.
That night and the following day I asked around. I wanted to know how these bands themselves viewed the Web. Turns out the few I was able to talk to mentioned similar frustrations and many put their trust in someone else to do their site for them.
For their own sites, the main reason given to have a Web site was “to connect with our fans!”
Sounds like a great, and very reasonable goal.
I checked some of their Web sites later on. They were all very similar to the sites we’d viewed earlier. Even those that were “professionally” designed. I think we can assume that this connection that seemed important to both groups was seldom made. That honestly made me very sad.
Here are two like-minded groups, artists and fans, who are trying to leverage the Web to connect with each other. They both have a vested interest in doing just that. Yet, because of a lack of understanding on the facilitator of that connection, the person who built the Web site, they weren’t getting anywhere and frankly they could be potentially widening that gap.
I started to think about this in a broader sense. Here was a narrow segment of the Web population who had the huge benefit of knowing exactly who their audience was and they still had a problem making that connection.
Granted, many of these bands don’t have the resources (money, time or know-how) to get this done. It could be argued that in many of their situations, something is better than nothing.
It could also be argued that the opposite is true. A bad user experience on a Web site can be very damaging to that connection (or brand, or whatever). Nobody wants that.
A Motivational Speech
If you’re reading this, and have made it this far, you may very well be one of the facilitators I’m talking about. By helping to bridge that gap and bring your clients and users closer together you can provide a real service. One that, I hope, will not go unnoticed. We’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose here. Time and effort invested in getting to know your users will make you a better Web professional.
I know it can, and will, be difficult for many of us. We’re just not in a position where we can make much of a difference. Your resources may be minimal, or you may not have enough decision-making power or the backing of your management. I feel that pain but I also feel there are some things that can be done in spite of all that.
The Web is about people. I’ll keep saying it. People build it. People use it. People manage it. With out people, what’s the point?
At the least I think us “Web people” need to get out there and begin to understand how “other people” interact with our creations. Here are just few ideas to get you started:
- If you’ve built a Web site and not seen someone use it — do so! And do it again, and again.
- Visit your site with a screen reader.
- Solicit user feedback via e-mail.
- Educate your clients, your management and your stakeholders about the importance of making a connection with their users.
- Educate yourself as much as you are able on broader topics. Shift the focus a bit from learning tools and technologies to learning about accessibility and things of that nature.
We’ve got an opportunity to really effect a positive change on the Web (the world as well? Might be a stretch, but think about it). I for one want the Web to work for people, not the other way around. It’s time to re-humanize the Web — on many levels — and it can start right here, right now.
With us — with the “Web people.”
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. Kyle Fox said:
Once again, great post Keith.
Posted on March 22, 2004 06:57 PM | #
2. Ste Grainer said:
This exact sentiment has been weighing on me heavily lately, too. As I’m working on a major overhaul of the current site at work, I’m finding more and more that the only way to really make it usable is to see how the visitors expect to use it. To that end, I’ve been running surveys, watching some of my coworkers, and documenting as much as is possible user paths and most visited links. Unfortunately, most of our users are scattered across the state, so it’s hard to watch some of them use the site. Got any suggestions for learning more about users from a distance?
Posted on March 22, 2004 07:00 PM | #
3. Keith said:
Thanks Kyle.
Ste – I’ve got a similar problem at the hospital. To be honest, I don’t think anything could replace hands-on work with users, but sometimes that’s just not an option. We are lucky that we do have some local users who are somewhat representative of our wider user base. You might try and make do with the few folks you have close by.
Otherwise you can try some online ways to connect. We’ve done some pretty extensive surveying of our doctors online. It’s not the most “personal” way to gather user data, but it works ok.
Posted on March 22, 2004 07:13 PM | #
4. Sean Madden said:
Keith,
As with many, this has been a frustration of mine for quite some time. For me, the number one culprit has to be Flash-based sites. The problem with Flash is that it operates under no standards, no guidelines.
Example: The nav system is under complete control of the artist. If the artist wants the menu to zip around the screen for 10 seconds before it becomes usable, that is choice that can be made. The blink tag lives on in flash.
Each flash site provides a different user experience, frustrating or otherwise. By striving for innovation, some flash developers destroy usability and practicality.
This is not to say that flash cannot be done well, as I have seen some amazing flash designers (Todd Dominey comes to mind). I just seem to find that flash-based sites are consistently the least usable sites I come across.
Posted on March 22, 2004 08:17 PM | #
5. Alec Kinnear said:
interesting post. should be obligatory reading for all musicians commissioning a website. i had a similar experience yesterday with the theatre of tragedy website - it took me four browsers and fifteen minutes to get the tour dates to load.
the problem with music sites began with the major record labels - they wanted “high end” websites with uncopyable content (a technical impossibility but one can be obstructive to copying with flash).
the indie bands wanted sites like the major record label bands. and thus four generations of truly terrible music sites were spawned.
in fact, the major motion picture studios are still doing the same thing with movie sites. totally static poster like design with everything that can’t be nailed down coded in flash.
but there is hope now for better music websites as slowly the designers are coming on board in favour of css based design and will discourage the musicians in their clamor for flash atrocities.
and in turn, that will mean the web will start to work for independent musicians and those who want access to new music.
Posted on March 22, 2004 08:39 PM | #
6. Alec Kinnear said:
now that the tools work and there are some successful standard interfaces for the web (the blog, amazon style megasites, product brochure with forum), it makes the web developers life easier. but there is an inherent problem with the web as made right now.
there is often no separation from the designer and the developer. a developer is like a builder and he/she builds the house as best he/she can. but if there is no architect focused on drawing up new plans, gradually the world will be populated with log cabins or in the best of cases, subdivisions.
no matter. the web as an art form is inherently uninteresting. at least at this point. ultimately, all i care about are the information it will give me access to, the pictures it will allow me to see, the music i can find, the film clips and movie trailers i can view.
a web designer/developer has done a good job if he/she has presented the content in a vice free (no browser crashes, failed loads, broken tables) way which does no harm to the aesthetic or informational experience i sought when i first landed on the site.
to expect anything more from web developers is like demanding that your childhood piano teacher write great symphonies.
designer and developer are different job descriptions. confound the two words as we may in our web work, the making of a website is fundamentally a technical chore. a dash of creativity helps, but that’s all.
innovative is most often obstructive. thus the success of the web log (you’re a natural writer, keith). expectations are met.
Posted on March 22, 2004 08:49 PM | #
7. Mike P said:
Another great post Keith, worth the wait ;-]
While I agree with what you are saying, in my experience, and this I suppose is personal both in how I apprroach a client, who my clients are and the location of my market (different cultures different ideas apporaches etc.), the hardest part is getting clients to understand, no to listen and understand what your golden triangle is, for example.
I suppose what it boils down to, and I posted it on my blog, is that some clients want to listen and learn and some just want a website.
Posted on March 22, 2004 10:39 PM | #
8. Chris Vincent said:
I think another problem is that ours is a field with many bad members. I’m not talking about potentially good, but sadly uneducated Web people. I’m talking about those who are just plain bad, but chose the job because “it’s so easy”.
I know a few myself. If the sites in question were that terribly bad, it’s my guess that the designer did enough that the band didn’t see anything wrong, took the money, and left.
There’s a bad egg in every industry. For web designers, it’s these types. For software, it’s Microsoft (to a grand extent). For music, it’s the Big Five (to a similarly grand extent).
Of course, it’s more than people who are just bad. Often times, truly passionate designers simply don’t have the right idea of what their goals are, or don’t know how to achieve them. They learn web design from some bad class, or from using ImageReady. We need to get them good reading material, such as Digital Web, Webgraphics, and all these design blogs. Take the Mozilla word-of-mouth campaign (which has been quite successful in my area) to web designers.
I hope everything made sense. It’s 3:30 AM here.
Posted on March 23, 2004 01:31 AM | #
9. DaveSW said:
Part of the problem with web designers is we give too much power to the customer - we let the customer have almost exactly what they want, and this makes life harder for other people, because they don’t want what the band (or customer) want..
Been there, done that.
Posted on March 23, 2004 05:09 AM | #
10. Zelnox said:
I like the way you describe your Heather’s and Steve’s experience. Maybe you can trick them into using other sites and you can analyze again. ^_^ Hmmm, even a monthly column on this?
If Heather and Steve do not mind, maybe you can create their persona, so we can connect with them further. ^_^
In any case, you can always find real volunteers. Better to look for people who do not use web site’s that often. Hehe, I’m thinking about Dunstan’s parents….
Posted on March 23, 2004 10:38 AM | #
11. jim said:
V often though, the problem lies with the website owner and his/her limited knowledge of the internet - a stubborness of vision that leads the designer into doing things he really would rather not. I recently had a client request that I disable the standard function of visited links appearing purple because ‘it is confusing’, as if he had never even noticed this before and I had implemented it myself. I find it frustrating when the site owner assumes to know best when he doesn’t even know internet fundamentals. So what I’m saying is, with these band websites, the designers probably gave them exactly what they asked for, perhaps they could not convince them otherwise. ‘Uusability’, web standards’, ‘accessability’, ‘css’, ‘non-deprecated html’ - these things most companies are not inclined to know, or care about. What can we do about it?
Posted on March 23, 2004 12:31 PM | #
12. LazyJim said:
I’m new here, hello everyone!
I’m Jim but you already have one so call me LJ - LazyJim was actually my nickname at University as I never did any work. But since then I claim “Lazy Jim” is my representation of the average web user, like a universal persona. Any web site that makes LazyJim think or requires any more effort than he would like, gets a big thumbs down! (Ironically, in reality I will put lots of effort into using other people’s web sites just to see how hard it is!)
I think I’m going to like it here I feel that you have similar views, which is nice compared to going ‘out there’ where people ask me to take a look at their latest 50MB Flash web site intro. (yes this really happened, some one made a 50MB one and tried to send it to me over MSN Messenger, I have a 24K internet connection so I blocked them. I couldn’t even be bothered to tell them why! Which makes me a little ashamed as they actually targeted me as an ‘expert’ from reading a few of my forum posts :oD ).
anyway…
Jim - What can we do about it indeed?!
I’ve recently been preparing myself for contacting my first potential clients, using my Mother as a consultant and pretend client. I’ve sent letters to some potential clients and wanted to be ready to explain the features of my professional service.
My Mother pointed out something I had read before but forgotten, it’s a point usually made by sales experts there are some things they got right, and this is very much related to this article: Think of your user!
I’ve been preaching this so very much in all contexts of design, but forgot it on my own project.
If you think about it, your user is not interested in your product features, he is only interested in the benefits it will give him.
Just like web sites, you shouldn’t be showing off your bleeding edge techno-wizardry, you should be giving the user what they came for!
It’s the difference between indulging your ego, (by showing off), and meeting your users’ needs and desires.
So in answer to your question, tell the client what benefits they will expect to see as a result of your ‘Usability’, ‘web standards’, ‘accessibility’, ‘css’, ‘non-deprecated html’ and the other things they don’t yet care about.
Yeah I know, easier said than done!
But use the tools you use for web design, e.g. personas…
Create a few persona clients and put yourself in their shoes. Now ask “Why would I want that?”, “How would that help my business?”
I’ve been through all of the points in my letters to potential clients and assumed they are going to ask “Why” and “How” for each of my statements. Then I made notes on the possible answers, being very careful to give reasons they will care about.
This article - was very good and well written too.
And a further point about sales:
It’s the salesmen type of ‘web designer’ agents that are the main ‘bad guys’. As you say, they do it because it’s easy, - they already know about people, that’s why they make so much money. But they have a different golden triangle, it’s actually a golden line connecting the client to the ‘designer’ (and it has an arrow head the ‘designer’ end showing the cash-flow)!
There we have it - greed - why design for the user when you can make a fortune giving the client what they say they want! Let the client dictate what you produce, and save time by going straight into production! (self-centered b*****ds!)
These are the people we have to compete with, we need to learn from their salesmanship, and combine it with our user-focused design expertise. And remember that we are they only party that cares about the end user, most clients only care about the bottom line, so we need to show how good user-focused design principles, (and the other ‘good’ things), translate to real business benefits.
We know it makes sense, now communicate this to the client, try to point out to them that it makes good business sense.
Stop giving in to your clients!
If you have one of those not-interested types, then make him interested (as outlined above).
By educating the clients, and proving we are right (I hope!), the agencies producing not-designed or amateur sites will find there is no longer any place for them in the professional market, they will have to start owning up to their real abilities and adjust their prices accordingly. They will give up the market to the pro’s, and the pro’s will increase the proliferation of pro’ web sites!
Well that’s my dream anyway, good luck to us!
Posted on March 23, 2004 06:05 PM | #
13. Ian Stewart said:
Keith,
Your example of the band web sites sounds depressingly typical. It reminds me (yet again) why the web isn’t much help with normal day to day tasks.
For example, a few weeks back, our son got to choose what we had for dinner (it was his 5th birthday, and the party was being saved for the weekend). He chose McDonald’s (surprise!) The kids wanted Happy Meals, the rest of us aren’t regular connoisseurs of McDonald’s, so I thought it’d be a good idea to print a menu off from their web site, to make it easier to figure out the order (which I was going to go out and collect).
Well, I found www.mcdonalds.co.nz easily enough. It was all downhill from there …
To quote from the blurb found under the “acknowledgements” page of the site:
Yeah, whatever. Not to mention annoying sound–effects and random slogans emanating from the speakers …
There was even a stylised image of a menu board above the virtual counter — but no actual menu — that is, with a legible list of options and prices. What a waste of time!
There’s a lot of work to be done (and I guess by implication, a lot of opportunity) …
Posted on March 23, 2004 07:10 PM | #
14. Sean King said:
People are reason of why we design.
Really great design doesn’t just solve the problem (simply an intellectual exercise), great design figures out how to help people and in some small part, improve the human condition.
I came to this conclusion after struggling for the past year to find some personal value in the work I’ve been doing as a web designer.
I, like many designers have thrived in solving the problem in new and creative fashions. But I started questioning why? What was the true purpose for designing it with the latest markup, or newest style?
I think we all pay lip service to “user-centered” design and thinking, but few of us truly empathize with the people that have to use what we build. Actually feel their pain, anxiety, and excitement when trying to figure out our sites. With this we have our most powerful asset, the foresight to anticipate, shape, and mold our sites to make a better “user experience” for our friends, family, acquaintances, and the population at large.
Aside from my rant, I really just want to thank you for continuing to write fresh thoughts and ideas in your website. It takes work to not simple regurgitate everyone else’s weblogs and write original entries. Keep it coming, the discussions are great.
Posted on March 23, 2004 09:07 PM | #
15. Joshua Porter said:
Great post, Keith.
Your first bullet point, I believe, is the key to all the others. By watching users struggle with your creations, you become humble in an instant. You start to appreciate the struggles of people who simply don’t think like you do. Over time, you start to advocate for them in both your personal and professional lives. You’ll want their feedback more and more.
However, I’ve found that after a while it’s very easy to stop observing people on a regular basis because of the assumption that you already know what it would be like. It’s almost as if you think you’ve learned about users (as a population), and because of your past observations you can design for them without taking quite as much time for user testing as you used to.
This leads to a false confidence.
Regarding your comment: “The web is about people. I’ll keep saying it”. Please do!
Posted on March 24, 2004 07:29 AM | #
16. Uli Kusterer said:
Good article, good catchphrase. I’m basically the same school of thought, being a GUI and usability nut myself. A while ago I even compiled a list of hints for web site designers in the hope of helping folks avoid the most common mistakes. Maybe some of you find it useful for informing others. I’d love feedback on this article, anything else on my web site, or even the site itself (I know about some flaws, but I’m sure you can come up with more interesting ones…).
PS - Somebody here mentioned that they had no testers to watch locally. If you want to improve at least a little over ‘no testing’, you could at least use VNC to watch what they are doing while they are doing it remotely. You still won’t hear their screams and see their faces, but you may at least catch your worst mistakes.
Cheers,
– Uli
Posted on August 12, 2004 10:05 PM | #
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