Monday, May 26, 2008
Impatience rules the day online
Web users are becoming increasingly impatient, according to the web usability expert Jakob Nielsen. Apparently, we spend much less time waiting for pages to load and to find out what they are about. If it's not an "instant" message, we move on.
Well, apart from the fact that Jakob Nielsen's own web site is, how do I put this politely, unusable and completely non "instant" in terms of what it is about, he does have a point. More than ever before, people want to know "what is this web page about?". They need to see that in a fraction of a second. You don't see that with Nielsen's own site, for instance, in spite of his research which shows that users expect instant gratification.
Few business web sites achieve this. They often provide a general summary and navigation which is difficult to penetrate. There is often some kind of company history on the front page and few obvious ways in which the visitor's issue is solved.
Nowadays, people are looking for instant solutions to specific problems. That means, for instance, that you can no longer have a web site that covers your topic of, say, marketing. Instead, you are going to need specific pages or sites that cover things like, "how to get more interest in postcard marketing in London". In other words, your web site offerings are going to have to be very, very specific.
Gone are the days of looking for millions of visitors to your web site. You now have to think of having millions of pages that target individual users. It is a complete reverse of where most businesses currently sit in terms of thinking. Most business web sites are being put together with the principles learned on the web in the late 1990s and the early years of this Century. Web users, though, have moved on. It's time for businesses to catch up.
Labels: internet, internet psychology
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Readers' Comments:
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May 26, 2008 12:32 PM 
Jeremy Jacobs said…
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May 28, 2008 12:42 PM Dan said…
Jakob Nielsen is a usability Guru.
But yes I agree, his website doesn't reflect what he talks about.
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May 29, 2008 11:54 PM Jeremy Jacobs said…
"Usability Guru" whatever next?
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June 03, 2008 3:35 PM 
Abhishek said…
"Usability Expert" needs to make his site a little bit more "usable".
Never seen such a site where it is difficult to get to the article.
Perhaps, he needs to put his words into action, by doing up his site first!
Who is going to believe him with a site structure like that!
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June 03, 2008 3:45 PM Graham Jones said…
Thanks abhishek, I agree. But people clearly do believe him. He is on the lecture circuit and charges $20,000 per talk. Plus his daily fee for consultancy and training is $9,000. He is making a living from this. I just wonder how much more he could make if his web site actually lived up to his expertise, which he clearly has in bucketloads.
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June 04, 2008 12:54 PM said…
Reminds me of a very talented builder I know whose own house is in a mess because he's in too much demand to ever get time to work on it!
Maybe he's got more lecturing work than he can handle and doesn't want to attract more. Get him on to your infoselling product Graham and show him how he could make even more money from his knowledge while he sleeps!
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June 04, 2008 1:29 PM Graham Jones said…
Good point Rob...and just in case he reads this blog here's the link to the infoselling product....!
http://www.infoselling.com
"web usability expert"
Graham, What IS this guy actually expert in?
What an awful website he's got