Can You Relate To A Web Site
When I go online, forget about it. I refuse to wait more than 2 seconds for a Web site. And if I don’t see exactly what I’m looking for on the Home page, or if something doesn't catch my eye right away, I don’t have time to drill down.
Instant gratification, that rush to which our culture has become addicted, is woven into the World Wide Web, and I know I’m not the only one with no patience online. In an informal survey, I asked subscribers to my online newsletter about their level of patience, and responses echoed the following:
"When I go looking for something on the Web, it is with a purpose. I’m not just browsing around like I sometimes do in stores."
"I feel that when I'm online, even if it's work-related, I am somehow wasting time. Therefore, I am in a hurry to get the info I need and get back to billable jobs."
But it’s not just impatience; I also don’t absorb as much online as I do offline. What I see and read on the Web doesn’t seem to penetrate me. In fact, sometimes I can’t remember whether I simply browsed a Web site or actually ordered something, whether I asked a question and should expect a response or I only thought about doing so.
A recent report released by Ohio State University proposed the theory that readers develop strategies about how to remember and comprehend printed texts, but are unable to transfer those strategies to computerized text. Most respondents to my survey also said they have trouble absorbing information online. "Ever go to Vegas?" one subscriber asked. "You enter a swirl of competing images vying for attention. None win, all lose. The same with many Web sites: banners, Javascripts, animations and rollovers compete for space and crowd each other out."
Patience and penetration probably depend on a user’s age or experience and comfort level with computers (which is often a function of age). Well-designed sites take their demographic audience into consideration, using graphics and layout targeted to specific age groups, since what appeals to a 45-year-old would not necessarily inspire a 16-year-old.
And although it goes without saying that Web sites should be designed to be easily read and navigated by their target market, sometimes designers don’t get it. One Web marketer said, "My older (40+) clients, bank presidents and marketing directors, have a hard time reading the screen, so they want the typeface to be bright, bold and easy to read. But my Web designer kept wanting to go subtle, which is great in art but not so great for quick navigating."
A recent article in the New York Times reported that the biggest complaint on message boards about Web design is information overload. Users say that companies have concentrated too much on design and content and not enough on how information is structured.
Most people go online looking for sites that deliver the information they want clearly and quickly. But a lack of a good information hierarchy makes many sites seem like swamps, and flashy graphics, when used only for the sake of design, can get users quickly lost, no matter how old they are.
One subscriber sums it up when she says, "My time is valuable, the Internet is a research tool and I want content, not a pretty facade. If I can't get the information I logged on for easily, I know I can get it elsewhere with a little research."
That’s the attitude with which most of us relate to Web sites and which is responsible for many abandoned online shopping carts. But instant gratification did not start with the Internet; in fact, it may not be the Web with which people are impatient; it could be their modem, their ISP, or their computer. And while broadband promises to eliminate slow downloading time, at the end of 2000, most of us are still logging on at 56k bps.
Underneath our impatience with the medium, however, may lie some deeper questions, such as what do we imagine we’re missing while we wait for pages to download, and what exactly is it we’d rather be doing?
Ilise Benun is the director of Creative Marketing & Management, a Hoboken, New Jersey-based consulting firm. She is the editor and publisher of the newsletter The Art of Self Promotion, and the author of two marketing handbooks, 133 Tips to Promote Yourself and Your Business and Making Marketing Manageable
