I thought of writing few insights on websites and what makes a website more engaging with users? For this purpose I have chosen a website idlebrain.com and the first thing comes to our mind, does this website works? Does it serve the purpose, which it is intended for?
Background: The site primarily targeted to movie buffs of telugu speaking people (telugu is one of the regional language in India). It provides content related to latest news, hot gossips, interviews, latest movie reviews from telugu movie industry.
Web stats:
- Has more number of visitors visiting then blizzard.com
- Has a higher Alexia ranking the Indiana University.
I know these comparison are baseless, I have provided them only to prove why one should do a critical analysis of this website. What does it take to work on these websites? How such are sites designed? Do they have a secrete recipe (heuristics) to engage interactions with the users? How can these products sustain for a decade with the constant evolving web world? Although, there are clean and usable websites, which fall in the same category as idlebrain.com, for some reasons even today it stands out leaving unanswered question, why do people visit these websites? Don’t they get annoyed to see these websites after engaging with a highly usable (user experience) websites like Twitter, Facebook etc.?
Most of the users religiously visit and follow this website for the information it provides. This is definitely perfect example where usability takes back seat and functionality/usage takes the front one. For the users, change is unacceptable and unanticipated and the website administrators never experimented to change or revamp the site. User accept the website to be part of their external system (cognition), they just know where to find things like review, latest updates, interviews and photo galleries in this website. If someone tries to change the layout or hierarchy, it leads to chaos in the user interactions. As designers, how can we address and cater the future needs of the users, who doesn’t anticipate changes? How to build mental model of user experiences while revamping such websites?
Few things I have learned from this websites, users don’t look for usable artifacts and they appreciate the fact being different. Clearly usability heuristics fails in this scenarios, unique users are visiting the site regularly and able to sustain engaging interactions with the website for longer periods, years in this case.
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February 3, 2013 at 12:10 am
slouraine
This is a really interesting example that brings up some interesting questions.
I assume this site has been around quite some time. So I wonder, to what extent does familiarity play in a user’s experience? In other words, once someone is comfortable with something, does changing it in any way actually make the experience worse?
What an interesting idea–I am reminded of a conversation I had years ago with an office manager in SPEA. She mentioned that some faculty just refuse to switch to direct deposit even though it really is easier, and IU isn’t legally able to make them switch since they were working here long before the direct-deposit rule was instated. Do routine and comfort play a role in that? Would these faculty members feel more nervous if more parts of their money were handled electronically, and therefore their user experience would be worse?
As designers, I think one of our first instincts is to change things. But how much do we need to keep in mind that people are often creatures of routine and habit?
February 4, 2013 at 4:23 pm
Rayne Zhou
I believe the fear toward unknown and new stuff is one potential reason, but I think the more important reason here should be an emotional reason. The users who interact with this website for a long time have already established a “connection” with the website, which means that, they have given a part of them to the website. This may sound odd or scary, but it’s actually the same case when we have known our friends for such a long time and when they change, we just feel hurt.
February 3, 2013 at 10:02 am
vamsi
I totally agree with you, its interesting to see, how people react whenever there UI changes in facebook or gmail, which brings out the point who owns the system is it people or administrators?
February 5, 2013 at 8:50 am
Sarang
I will say it is more inclined on the fact, say for example, whether the service which this site provides is available or not. If it is available, it what form, is it better than what is existing. Also, it can also be considered what rewards the user get after visiting this particular site. If they are getting something which they are not getting anywhere else, then the site is actually serving a purpose. It is because of this reason, the owner of the site doesn’t feel like modifying it. If there was something similar existing, it would have triggered a competition and then happens a race to make things look better to survive. I am not sure if that is the case with this particular site, but if you consider the current smartphone market, the same thing is happening