Making your websites more interactive could be very well a meaningless strategy. How about making your website useful instead.
Try picturing this scene. You are sitting in a meeting with some very cool people. These cool people think that, when it comes to the Web, they totally get it. They’re very smart people and they’re so important that they have to leave their mobile phones on during meetings.
They like to talk about things like color and mood and corporate identity. They want customers to have an enhanced brand experience. These people have moved way beyond Web 2.0. On their skateboard attention spans they have arrived at Web 5.0 and are moving beyond that too. One of their favorite phrases is: “I think the website needs to become more interactive.”
What does the word “interactive” really mean in the mammoth context of the Web. The Web is constantly active in that its corner stone is the link, which is “a call to action”. We go to the Web to act and inter-act. We go there to do things. Just saying that a website needs to be more interactive is like saying a baseball game needs more baseballs.
Using “interactive” all the time is a meaningless word in this vast Web context. In fact, the objective of making a website ‘more’ interactive is often absolutely not what the customer wants.
Customers wants results. They want to do what they came to your website to do as quickly as possible. They interact with your website process to do what they came for, but you want this interaction to be as fast and painless as possible.
Do you think that search engines designers sit around drinking lattes and mouthing meaningless statements about more interactivity?
“Nothing is more valuable than people’s time“, it goes on to state. Pages load quickly, thanks to slim code and carefully selected image files. The most essential features and text are placed in the easiest-to-find locations. Unnecessary clicks, typing, steps, and other actions are eliminated. Products ask for information only once and include smart defaults. Tasks are streamlined.
Here is one of Google’s key design principles: “Every millisecond counts.” “Speed is a advantage to users. It is also a competitive advantage that Google doesn’t sacrifice without good reason.” A core objective of Google is to get you off its website as quickly as possible. It has a relentless focus on making the first result the right result so that you will leave its website in the shortest time possible. Google makes most of its money from advertising.
Many media websites now are still measuring success based on how long they can keep people on their websites. They are definitely employing a lot of “cool” people trying to make their websites more interactive.
The bottom line is: “Save people their precious time”. This should be written in 10 foot letters across the walls of every web design team’s office. Focus all your energy on saving your customers time by being useful, functional and brief.