Fuzzy Content

Yes! You really did it this time! This one’s it, baby! The phantasmagorical vision of your sleep-deprived brain. The striking photos and cross-fading galleries with hand-kerned text in professional typefaces, smothered in Flash and gradients, with one blatant intention to make the clicker-by go “Wooooo-wee!”. Ok, I get it. You want to make a splash. Perhaps screenshot the sucker and save it for yo ‘folio. Or maybe something less gratifying, like hoping to impress a maniacally micromanaging VP or some steering committee, where “steering” is likelier to refer to raisng of oxen than any form of actual guidance.

Well, good for you, my mouse-wielding warrior. But have you factored in the “third impression”? No, not the 80’s Australian band. Third impression is how the site visitors view the site after they’ve used it for a while. In other words, it’s not the first glance, and even not the second — it’s the perception established through a good bit of everyday use of the site.

How does your site look through the prism of third impression? First, take away all decoration. Then peel off the content that doesn’t change. Finally, prune navigation that’s rarely used. When you’re done, you might be staring at a mostly a blank page. Yup. This third impression thing sure is going to be a pain in the butt. Hang casual bookmarking on the other end of the scales, which diminishes the need for navigation, and you’ve got yourself a certifiable “mission impossible” — effective communication with a chock-full of blank pages.

Can it really be that bad? Umm.. Yeah, if your site is just colorful pictures and pretty text. But look at CNN’s site. Check out how heavily stories favor decoration and well, everything else. Not the prettiest site, no. But its definitely not blank on third impression. Hey, did I just tell you to design ugly sites with lots of catchy, newsy stuff on them?

This is where the wisdom of balance rides in on a white horse and saves the day. If you only design for third impression, you come up with stuff that’s appalling to look at. If you only design for first, it’s a great-big bang and then downhill from there. So, you have to balance the two, naturally opposing forces. Not the first time, eh?

Not surprisingly, third impression is kind of hard to establish when your site is still being architected. It’s even harder to convey to the stakeholders. It’s near-impossible to explain to the client who wants a shiny new toy. But if you care about success of the site (which you may not, and woe to you my friend, if that’s the case), you’ve gotta fight for it.

So, what matters for third impression?

• Always on, always ready, lightning-fast. Aside from the usual suspects — server performance and reliability, all those graphics and extra requests to fetch them, generated by the browser, are going to try your user’s patience, and create perception of slow and sloppy dinosaur. And unless you’re into Barney, nobody likes dinosaurs.
• Well-prioritized content. Yes, I heard you are committed to excellence, but do you have to yell it at me every time I come to your home page?
• Space has purpose. Use negative space to aid in readability of content, period, and not to impress your Dada buddies.
• Consistent, intuitive labeling and navigation, kept to a minimum. Users are humans (most of us, anyway), and as such, they learn new things everyday. Please, don’t add discovering new navigation scheme or deciphering your intentions to their list of chores.

What should you remember when designing for third impression?

• Balance the needs. Depending on how much you expect the visitor to come back and use a page, emphasize design for third impression accordingly. Hint: you want people to come back to your home page.
• Pictures have little value unless they tell a relevant, time-sensitive story. No, happy faces of beautiful people don’t make your page more useful.
• Don’t sweat the pixels. I swear, I am going to start a Pixel-Pushers Anonymous Society. Think about it like this: in a year, you won’t remember (and won’t be able to tell) if it’s 9 pixels or 10 pixels. You won’t care whether it’s Verdana or Abadi MT. But the user will still suffer from you being a snob and choosing to make text a graphic. Don’t be a snob. I am begging you.
• Cut or prioritize way down everything that slows the frequent user down.

Was this helpful? Did I sing to the choir? Did I change your mind, even if a little bit? Are you offended, because you’re on one of those steering committees? Tell me. Better yet, post a URL to your home page, and I’ll run you a simple third impression analysis.

I did a presentation this week regarding Social Media in Higher Ed i thought I might as well post it. I think it is a pretty good primer to give to beginner to intermediate level people about social media in higher ed. I gave the presentation to a group of communications and marketing people on campus and they were very receptive and had lots of questions. People are still following up with me regarding it, so maybe we will get more going here on campus.

-Matt Herzberger 

We had some down time and some issues over the last few days, I also received a message that our comment were down but it is all sorted out now.

In helping colleges understand how a Web site should be managed day-in and day-out, I am sometimes surprised at how closely Web content is held by a select few. It is also surprising how many departments want nothing to do with keeping their site up to snuff for visitors.

I just read a short book, QBQ, that talks about personal responsibility and providing a positive atmosphere…two concepts built for the Web. Without going into a full book report, I decided to apply these concepts to you and your site.

• It’s Not My Job. The Web is everyone’s job, since it affects every department. If you are in the Biology department, and that site is out of date, you need to either change the content or alert the proper channels. You may not be an official “content author”, but if you find a mistake, get it fixed.
• I Don’t Understand the Web. In this day and age, the Web has become a major (if not the) communication and marketing tool for key audiences (parents, prospective students, alumni, campus community). Don’t shy away from the opportunity to tell your story.
• Why is Our Site So Bad. The saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child…” It also takes a community to maintain a Web site. If content is out of date, put in some elbow grease. If the navigation is chaotic, get the right people together. If the message is missing the mark for your story or your audiences (or both), you’d better get to work.

People say that if you don’t vote, don’t complain about politics. And unfortunately, this feeling has made its way into Web site maintenance. Many colleges and universities work very hard to get the right people and publishing processes in place. With this effort, those not given responsibility automatically just leave it up to designated users. Stop it! A smooth running Web site benefits all.

Now get in there!!