Web Users Are Beggars
February 24, 2005 | 
27 Comments
Summary: Something happened to me last week that got me to thinking about the sad state of findability and usability on the Web.
Last week, on my way to work, I noticed something a bit funky with my car. It seemed to be making a bit of a funny noise and I had a sneaking suspicion that my right front tire might be getting low. I made it to work, parked and took a look.
It turned out that my tire was damn near flat.
“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just drive up to the service station, put some air in and take it to a near by shop to get fixed.”
I asked a few of my coworkers if they knew of a place near by that could fix a flat, and did a quick Web search. Turns out there was a place that I thought could fix it just down the street.
During lunch I drove the gimpy car up to the service station to fill the tire with air. It wasn’t completely flat, but I wanted to be safe. When I went to fill it, I realized it was just flat enough that I couldn’t access the nozzle. Oh well, the place that I thought could fix it was just down the street, so I started driving.
I got there and it turns out they couldn’t help me, but they knew of a place a bit further on that they thought could. Well, you can guess how that went. At this point I was far enough away from work that I figured I’d keep driving and get it somewhere that could do the work. After all, I was close to downtown Seattle, there just had to be a place nearby.
Well, there wasn’t and my tire got worse and worse. Finally after a few places that should have been able to help me I saw a rather seedy looking joint that had a crappy sign that read “Flats fixed, tires replaced, etc.” There was no way I was going to make it back to work, and if I drove any further I’d have real problems so I pulled in. A few hours and 89 bucks later I had a new tire and my car was all good again.
Sure it wouldn’t have been my first choice, but as my mom always told me “beggars can’t be choosers.” When you’ve got little, or no choice, you’ll take anything and like it.
In the end I was happy and you know what? I’d go back to that shady, run down little shop again, gladly.
How this relates to the Web
Now, this was a bit of a unique case—for real life. But it happens all the time on the Web.
Normally I think it would have been much easier to find a place to fix my flat. Usually, when looking for something in the real world, I’ve been able to choose from several, usually known, options. Not so on the Web. Not yet anyway. On the Web I feel like beggar, hoping to find someone to help me out.
It’s true, your average Web user is much more a beggar than a chooser. When they’re out looking for information, a product or a service, they often take what they can find, and are happy with it. Sure, they’ve got more choices (too many usually) but they’re not the right choices and if anything, they make it much harder to find the right one.
A needle in a field of haystacks, that’s your Web site.
I thought of this experience as I was searching for a solution to a CSS problem I was having.
(Which reminds me, if anyone has experience changing CSS properties via Javascript and knows a bit about Safari’s quirks, let me know!)
I spent literally hours looking for something, anything, that would help me get this solved. I didn’t care who it came from, how or where — I just wanted that solution. I never did find it, and I waded through pages and pages so irrelevant search results, site after site after site, all for naught. This is more common than I’d like to admit, considering my chosen profession.
When it comes down to it the #1 reason I use the Web is to find something. I imagine this is pretty typical user behavior.
Why in the hell are things still so damn hard to find on the Web?
Bricks to Clicks?
If you think of your Web site as a store, you’d want it stocked so you can sell your products to folks. You’d want it in directories and properly categorized so people can find it. You’d want your signage to be clear and enticing. You’d probably want a well thought-out business plan before you even got started, and after it’s all said and done you’ve got no business without customers.
Here is what happens on the Web with many businesses:
Your customers are looking for you, they need a tire fixed. After walking into countless other stores with signs that read “we can fix your tires” only to find out what they really do is sell candy canes, they find your store. They sit through the 2 minute song and dance from the crazy mimes who guard the entrance and then, finally, they walk in and…it’s empty.
They check the sign, which states the name of your business and implies you are open. They look around, in every nook and every cranny but there are no employees and the shelves are empty or filled with useless junk. They figure they’ll take down your number, so they can come back later, on the off chance they’ll find what they need then, but they can’t seem to find that either. Disappointed, they leave, beginning their search all over again.
Think about that. Does it make sense to have a store with no products, no employees that no one can find? Of course it doesn’t, but it seems like that is what much of the Web is like. A bunch of empty stores, dead ends and people surfing around looking for something, or someone, to point them in the right direction.
There is a reason there are so few standout Web businesses, and a reason why mediocre is sometimes good enough. If you think about it, there is huge opportunity and potential for Web entrepreneurs and savvy decision-makers that really understand what it takes to succeed on the Web.
(An aside—this may seem harsh, but it’s true. I’ve been reviewing sites for the Webbys as well as for business development reasons and frankly I’ve been shocked at how useless most of them are.)
A moral? Sort of.
When it’s boiled down, everything we do should support getting the right people to the right content and enabling to do the right thing with that content. What I’m getting at is as much as I value branding, visual design and all the rest, there still is nothing more important on the Web than simply helping people get where they need to go and enabling them to do what they need to do when they get there.
A good customer experience on the Web is valuable, it is desirable. But if you can’t find, you can’t value. If you can’t use, you won’t desire.
I love Peter Morville’s Honeycomb, but on the Web in 2005 what will really set most sites apart is good, relevant content, ease of use and a Web site that’s designed and built in such a way as to enable a user to find it as easily as possible. The rest is just gravy.
Findability, accessibility, usability and relevant content should be the four cornerstones upon which you design on the Web.
Design for that as the foundation, the rest will be better for it, I promise.
Update: Here is a similar story from Seth Godin from a slightly different perspective.
Filed under: IA and Usability
Comments
1. Jon Hicks said:
Nice one Keith - great analogy. Everytime I do a google search I will hear the sound of hissing tyres.
Posted on February 24, 2005 01:28 PM | #
2. Justin Perkins said:
Very interesting read. I have been thinking the same thing for quite some time, it *is* quite difficult to find something when you’re really looking for it. Such as life.
This fact is probably the biggest factor in why my bookmarks are filled with these precious links that I searched high and low for an amazingly long time. Once I actually find the resource I am looking for, I immediately bookmark it, as if I will need it again someday. More often than not I will never need it again.
Posted on February 24, 2005 01:44 PM | #
3. Mike D. said:
Okay, a few things:
1. Regarding the CSS/JS issue, the quickest way around that is to click on over to http://www.shauninman.com, and click the “Contact” link. Send off your question and the robot on the other end should have it answered within the hour.
2. If number 1 doesn’t work, you can always try me. We change CSS styles with JS all the time. Your Safari issue may be due to the fact that Safari needs a “innerHTML=”” kick sometimes in order to redraw.
3. There are two schools of thought about how people should search for goods and services on the web: One says that a place like Amazon will get its system down so well and will offer so many products and services that you’ll never even NEED to go anywhere else. The other says that meta search engines like shopper.com are always going to get you the cheapest price on the product you need the quickest. As for me, I subscribe to both theories. I use Amazon to research products and gather baseline pricing, and then I use sites like shopper.com to squeeze out the best price. There’s room for both, and if Amazon’s price is competitive, I’ll go through them to reward their stewardship.
Posted on February 24, 2005 01:46 PM | #
4. Shaun Inman said:
Thanks Mike. I’d advise against that everyone. Really. Unless you want to pay for that hour. :)
Posted on February 24, 2005 01:58 PM | #
5. Nick Finck said:
Hey Keith,
I read your article on flat tires and I wanted to know what is your advice on repairing a flat tire.. is that easy spray really good enough to patch a hole? Oh wait, I am posting this on the right site, arn’t I? ;)
In all seriousness, great article Keith. I love the analogy of Mimes dancing around. But like Jeff Veen just said, “I’d click ‘skip mimes.’”
Anyway, I am reviewing sites for the Webby’s as well and I actually had a debate with DMD about the level of “suck” with a lot of the entries. I think the discussion was about where the “par” line is… I set my “par” really high.
Posted on February 24, 2005 04:08 PM | #
6. Dave P said:
Keith:
Dare I ask, did you not have a spare to put on before you drove all around town? Probably a stupid question I know… but somebody has to be the goat.
:-)
Posted on February 24, 2005 04:40 PM | #
7. Keith said:
Dave P – It was a funny flat. I did have a spare, but at first I just thought it was low and that I’d be ok for a few blocks. By the time I got to realize it was flat flat, it was too late.
Posted on February 24, 2005 04:51 PM | #
8. Joshua Porter said:
Keith, just the other day I was in a similar situation to your Javascript debacle. I was hunting around a web site for information about how a particular service worked and I just couldn’t find the answer. I looked in the help section, the FAQ, everywhere. After 30 minutes of complaining my wife, getting a little tired of my whining, finally says to me, “why don’t you just call them?”. And to my dismay their 800 number was on every page of that stinking site!
Posted on February 24, 2005 06:54 PM | #
9. Keith said:
Joshua – That’s rare, and a good thing. I don’t know how many times I’ve decided to just call (I don’t look for long on one site, I tend to get frustrated real quick and want to call) and not been able to find the phone number.
Almost like they’re purposefully hiding it. Gee, I wonder….
:)
Posted on February 24, 2005 06:56 PM | #
10. Mike said:
I can’t even count how many times I’ve been in the same situation, trying to find that ever so elusive answer to that crucial problem that will finish off that big project. Of course, I’m sure the problems you’re looking at answers for are quite a bit more complex and ingenius than what I’m looking for ;-)
To go completely off topic for a minute, I’m curious about the graphic you have above the comments section. Are those glyphs created by you or are they a typeface/font? In the case of being the latter what typeface are they? I’m always on the lookout for good symbol/ornament type.
Posted on February 24, 2005 10:20 PM | #
11. Philipp Keller said:
Keith, this article hits the mark.
I think everyone searches for things on Google and co. What I hear often is “when you don’t find it in 2 minutes, you’ll probably will find it in just about 2 hours”.
Yes, then you add it to your bookmarks but the next user has to search for it anogher two hours. This is what I value about blogs, there you can post your CSS hack hoping to do the world a favour.
What I am thinking about for quite some time is that this google-centric web isn’t that good.
I go for del.icio.us for about some time and am amazed how to find great resource I would never have found with Google.
But in the end I think, the Web desperately needs some new things like Semantic Web or so.. every solution I can think of that rest in the now common Web(-service) environment to the question you rise are dead end solutions..
Posted on February 24, 2005 10:50 PM | #
12. Kev said:
One of the big problems with search these days is how overtly commercialised it has become. This is bad for lots of reasons.
Firstly, search isn’t really that great anyway. No matter how convoluted the algo used to parse data its never going to match the ability of the human mind to search and categorise information.
Secondly, we have the issue of black-hat SEO/M where spammers falsely inflate their own or their clients position by preying on the weaknesses of each engines algo.
Sadly, nowadays we also have the problem of the big players in search (Yahoo and Google) throwing things into the mix that will only add to confusion and problems. A friend of mine who’s well connected within the search profession outlined his issues with Googles recent behaviour on my blog but to sum up, adding in their own content into our content will only serve to muddy the waters even further. As will redirecting people away from the current page.
Search is in a sorry state at the moment.
Posted on February 25, 2005 01:18 AM | #
13. Robert said:
Let me just say that you should have left out that whole business about the flat tire. That so completely bothered me that I didn’t even care what came afterwards, but let’s run with it.
I don’t necessarily know a lot about cars, but if my tire’s low and I can’t put air in it, I’m changing it ASAP. You do know that driving on flat tires can ruin them, don’t you? And if it’s low enough, you can bend the rim too.
The moral? Here’s something else you should know about beggars: they’re lazy. And losers. Lazy losers.
And I’m not talking about Keith, or anyone else reading this, because if you’re here, you apparently know what time it is.
I’m talking about a bigger picture, about how design can always influence content and how accessible it is, but can never depend on the user or the method by which it is found. Pulling on one end of the rope only drags the other end through the mud, so part of making a more usable, “smarter” web is establishing a certain standard of competence and knowledge for users in general. There has to be a balance between well-designed, usable sites and better-informed, intuitive users.
How do we make beggars into choosers?
Posted on February 25, 2005 05:48 AM | #
14. Keith said:
Robert – Let me just say that you should have left out the whole lesson on how to take care of flat tires…shit, sorry to “bother you”…lol.
And yeah, I know driving on a flat can ruin the tire. It was beyond fixing yet not to the rim-damage phase yet, so I decided to keep going. Worked out fine. But thanks for the “tip.”
Now as to your point. It seems like you’re blaming the user here? Calling them lazy losers?
No, in my experience, which is fairly extensive, Web users are usually highly motivated, engaged and willing to go to great length to get to what they want or need.
I don’t think the average Web user is lazy at all. I chose the word beggar to illustrate a point, that site owners, designers, developers, content creators, etc. force users into the beggar role by not providing the content their customers want. By not organizing, designing and building their site for findability and ease of use and by putting misguided and uninformed business goals before the needs of their customers.
Now, how do we deal with it?
We make beggars into choosers by providing content people want, helping people find what they’re looking for and making it easy use it once they’ve found it. There doesn’t have to be a balance at all, the lion’s share of the responsibility here should lie on the shoulders of the providers and enablers, not the information seekers and customers.
If, for no other reason, we are the ones with the power to change things.
Posted on February 25, 2005 08:45 AM | #
15. Robert said:
Pardon me, I was in a sleep-deprived state, but here’s what I gathered from your example:
You couldn’t put air in your tire, right? You said it was unnecessarily difficult to find a place to fix a flat, right?
But you couldn’t do it yourself? I know you could have, but why didn’t you? Instead, you decided on trying to track down a place that could do the work, which itself became frustrating.
How can that be entirely the fault of the gas station or the tire shop or the other tire shop?
My point was/is that people will always have to make an effort to find information. I’m not saying all users are lazy, I’m saying they CAN’T be lazy. I think there’s a certain responsibility we have as users to know how the web works and the best way to use it.
Posted on February 25, 2005 09:59 AM | #
16. Keith said:
Robert – come on, are you serious? Say I put the spare on, I still have to get the tire fixed. No, I’m not going to fix a flat myself. Guess I am lazy….?? I don’t know how to do that. I know how to change a tire, but my spare was just that, a spare…good for 50 miles or so. Plus, like I said, by the time I realized it was an actual flat, the tire was shot.
Argh, your missing the entire point anyway.
The first two places I went had signs and such that said they could fix a flat, I was actually directed to them as well. Neither could help me. See where I’m going with this…think, Robert, think.
People know how the Web works. I’ve been a Web professional for 10 years, I know how to search for things, and usually what I get is a bunch of irrelevant results. They may appear to be relevant when I see them in Google, but when I go to the site I can’t get what I need.
This isn’t my fault, it’s not Google’s fault (usually)…it’s the fault of people who think they can slap any old content up on the Web, call it good and walk away.
I was looking for for information on storage units the other day. I did a Google search, found a few sites for storage companies in my area and gave each of them a look. All I wanted was some quick information and maybe a phone number or email contact form.
Most of what I found was a broken pages, incomplete information, Flash-based storage estimation widgets that didn’t work in my browser. Hell, on the first two sites, representing rather large companies, it took me awhile just to find a number I could call for info.
All of these sites should have had the basic information I wanted in a very easy to find spot so I could compare them and choose which one would suit my needs. Beacuse the Web sites were crap, I’m going with the first one who I could get any info out of.
Based on your example, I’d just not even bother and store this stuff myself?? Sorry, man, I just don’t understand your point, and I think you’ve missed mine.
Posted on February 25, 2005 10:28 AM | #
17. Brian Groce said:
Amen.
I prefer usability over glitz and glamour every time. I mean come on, why does a tire company need a Flash intro? Tell me where you’re located and what you have to offer. If I want to be entertained there are places that specialize in that.
Posted on February 25, 2005 12:22 PM | #
18. Dave P said:
Good grief, and I thought I was going to be the goat for my comment about Keith not changing his tire…
Robert, I don’t think you’re fully understanding the analogy and where Kieth is coming from here.
Let’s keep in mind that in most cases, your clueless, lazy users are *customers*. It is in your best interests that you understand how they work, and not the other way around.
If the customer already knew the ins and outs of your client and their operations as well as you seem to think they should, they wouldn’t need you (as a web designer) in the picture at all, would they?
The analogy is exactly that. If it doesn’t work for you, don’t dwell on it because you’ll miss the real point.
Posted on February 25, 2005 01:49 PM | #
19. Mike D. said:
Here is the ideal fix to Keith’s situation, which is already available in a way, but should become more popular in the next few years:
1. Keith is downtown and has a flat tire.
2. Keith picks up his Treo 650 and types in “I need to fix a flat tire”.
3. Treo triangulates Keith’s position and returns a list of the closest shops which will perform the service, complete with phone numbers, and directions.
Problem solved.
Posted on February 25, 2005 02:07 PM | #
20. Keith said:
Mike – You know? I thought of that, but figured (rather stupidly) that the guys at the first few stops could get me to where I needed to go. If only Web searching were that easy, the solution you mention is how it should work or close to anyway.
Unfortunatley it’s nothing like that at all most of the time.
Posted on February 25, 2005 02:21 PM | #
21. Stefan Visser said:
When I read that article, one word popped into my mind:
Portals.
Well, that and cheese but that’s beside the point. Instead of robot amassed content (searchengines), human generated content has that nice side effect of far better filtering. Though I don’t see a few thousand multi-languaged chinese rummaging through the internet just yet.
It all comes down to the type of information system used. Hypertext content is easily changed and added, but there is no central accespoint; no one knows how much information there is and most importantly, where to find it.
A library is also a great source of information, with it’s indexing system it far outweighs the internet when it comes to finding what you need. But it is a lumbering beast compaired to the web and all content needs to be checked and indexed first to be available.
For fast and new information, use the internet. For accuracy and completeness, go to the library. And there are other informationsystems, with all their advantages aswell.
What I’m saying is, the web will never be the one-stop-shop people want it to be. For all the greatness internet has to offer, the web isn’t perfect.
Posted on February 25, 2005 03:05 PM | #
22. Philipp Keller said:
Stefan: Exactly. It doesn’t work nowadays. Because the web is just hypertext. You cannot say: «This is what I offer». And if one could say that, the customer has no clue if this is true or not (that is, if he can trust your information).
Libraries are indeed better. You can say: «I search a book that deals with flat tires» :)
And the web should be like Mike said! This is what semantic web is all about. Standards are already here. They just need to be put into practice.
I don’t think the web is stuck in this place where it is now. This is just the beginning, we will see much much more and better things coming on, I believe.
Posted on February 26, 2005 03:19 AM | #
23. kadavy said:
This is a good post, with good information, but isn’t it ironic that the very analogies that you use to make it easier for us to relate the information, make it harder for one to find this post? Think about it: “Web Users Are Beggars” is the title of this HTML page, and thus holds a great deal of semantic weight. But noone is going to search for “web beggars” when they are looking for “information accessiblity” or “attracting customers”.
It’s tough to imagine any algorithm sophisticated enough to sort out all of these subtleties, so it is true that something like del.icio.us has strong virtues, but it puzzles me that they shoo away search engine robots in their HTML. They should team up with Google for something really spectacular.
Posted on February 26, 2005 04:01 PM | #
24. Keith said:
kadavy – Oh don’t I know it. Go look back through my posts, I’m usually very good with my titles, and actually thought a lot about this one before I posted it. I don’t think “information accessibility” or “attracting customers” would have been much better to be honest, simply beacuse of the way this post is written, but I get your point. This one was a hard one to title and to be honest, I kind of gave up.
On thing I’ve said countless times is that when publishing information you need to have a good title, to get relevant hit via Google it’s a must.
As bad as the title of this post is it’s better than average unfortunatley.
Posted on February 26, 2005 04:51 PM | #
25. Pat said:
Don’t limit the problem to the searcher. In the current world of search it can be quite difficult for the tire fixer too. Users have all manner of search strategies. In library school they taught us something called the reference interview. When a patron walks up to the reference desk it usually takes at least 5 questions to tease out the patron is really asking for. And that is a human-human, face-face interaction. If you know exactly what you want and can type a decent search and I know exactly what I am selling and can buy or optimize for your search, we can find eachother. The farther either of us gets from a known item search, the harder it is going to be to match up. A huge portion of Adwords keyword buying is built on a theory that drives the physical world retail environment “I might not have exactly what your looking for but if I can get you in the door you might buy something close enough.”
Posted on February 27, 2005 12:54 PM | #
26. Meitar said:
“Findability, accessibility, usability and relevant content should be the four cornerstones upon which you design on the Web.â€
Woah, that’s FAUR out, man. :) Sorry, I had this urge to say that. (And it would have been even better if I could’ve used the tags.)
Posted on March 7, 2005 09:33 AM | #
27. lyndon said:
Check out some web users that are real beggars at http://www.lazybeggers.com/
Posted on May 10, 2005 06:26 AM | #
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