It's one thing to grow a language, adding foreign words in common usage. It can also happen by modifying existing ones like Chris Borgan's recent use of shareability - perfectly logic and understandable. Funny by the way, Chris was challenged about the existence of the word, but he didn't inventshareability, I just saw a reference to it from a 1986 article and hundreds more recent.

Inventing a whole new language of web nomenclature and navigation is something we're occasionally asked to do by customers. Simply stated, here's why this is not a good idea. The way you visit web sites is a kind of language. Everyone expects to find information like contact, visit, menus, wine lists, technical product data, company background, opening hours, etc. They expect this to be in a language they know, the one they've seen on a million other sites.

 

The temptation to be too creative is strong, and I have erred more than once in that direction. One day I thought it would be cool, instead of calling the search "Search" we'd call it "Find". It works on a level where you read it in a text like this, but not on the level of the scan you do when you first reach a site. Most ergonics folks will tell you the first 20 seconds are when the critical decision to invest in actually reading a web site takes place.

A commercial web site can, in effect, be a visual answering machine. Realizing what the visitor is most anxious to find there is your number one priority.  Here's a funny thing that happened to me in California, when I wanted to reserve a table in a restaurant. I went to the web site, which was one page. It had all of the information I wanted right then: address, directions to get there, phone number, open hours, and descriptive stuff I skipped, since I already knew all about it and wanted to book a table there. Now here's where it gets funny: I called the "Reservations" number, which was shared by the same owner's other restaurant. Here's what I heard:

Thank you for calling *****. We are open from **** to *** Monday thru Friday and from *** to *** Saturday. Sunday hours are *** to ***.

We are located at ********, across the street from **** and just around the corner from ****. We are proud to announce the opening of our new restaurant ***** this summer. (Long description follows....)

"For Restaurant A, press one. For restaurant B, press 2"

How long would it take you to figure out that the last line of this message should have been the first?

The web is changing, often for the better, sometimes, not so much. I'm weary of the use of "because I can" technology. Not just Flash, but Ajax and the increased bandwidth we enjoy today are changing the web experience and too frequently getting in the way of it.

A few years ago, I had the priviledge of working with Paul Pontalier and the team at Château Margaux. Everyone I met at Margaux was charming, generous and intelligent and I was delighted to spend time there talking to them about their site, which was based on Flash and .NET technologies at that time. At the time we made a few small adjustments and they eventually moved to a less edgy design.  I am recalling this now because of one particular discussion I had there with Paul and Corinne and I think my point is still valid today.

The Guided Tour

When you go visit Margaux or most other properties, you are on a guided tour. The vast majority of visitors to a web site do not go there for a guided tour. In fact, isn't the whole point of today's web to personalize the experience? It's great to have a large gallery of high-definition photos and videos. Do you want to wait while they load, or would you like to find what you came for without a musical spectacle? I like to have a door that I can go in if I want to look at those. But what if I've already been there and I just want to know how the 1999 is doing? Or maybe someone from the press is writing an article and wants to know who the second winemaker is or some detail such as how to spell a name? Every sexy design feature I have ever found on any web site could just as easily have had an entry and an exit. By the way, since bookmarks don't work, they should be built in to the navigation so that you can save them on the site.

There is such a thing as too sexy

I think we're losing this battle to the overly cosmetic designs. I don't really want to see sites that bat their eyes at me, which is the equivalent of those idiotic menus that move when you try to click something. Sure, elegance and a sense of mystery is needed for the luxury wines, but is this any reason to have the practical information is less obvious places? That's like pretending elegant ladies don't ever go to the bathroom. These menus are also problematic because while they work fine on the designer's screen, many of them do not track the mouse properly resulting in having to keep racing around to keep the text or icon from hiding behind some cute facade. Designers also always have large screens and some sites when viewed on some screens lost the bottom lin of navigation! "No matter, we're not aiming at people who don't have a big screen."

At least once a year, someone in the wine business trots out: "Look at Petrus. They don't even have a site!" I don't see that as something to brag about, but then I'm certainly not the target audience of such a wine. When I read these lines I think to myself, "I must be an old curmudgeon!" until I remember that every survey of opinion I have seen on forums about web sites, not just wine but any sites has the majority of votes "better without Flash" and "prefer not to see opening autostart music and animation". I can only add that it shouldn't be so hard to make a user-friendly Flash or Ajax site but I think few people, whether designers or their customers, have followed the best advice ever given: "Put yourself in the shoes of a visitor, the kind of visitor you are building the site for."  Over the past 15 years, I've never changed my philosophy: the site you (think you) want is not necessarily the site you need.