As a longtime product designer, it’s sort of sad because i really hate that people put up with so many bad interfaces out there. But the truth is that the slickest interface -or- or the most usability does not a guaranteed success make. Many sites, many of the most popular sites on the internet are used heavily rather more in spite of their interface than because of it.
Maybe tags, APIs, and Ajax aren’t the silver bullets we’ve been led to believe they are. Fotolog, MySpace, Orkut, YouTube, and Digg have all proven that you can build compelling experiences and huge audiences without heavy reliance on so-called Web 2.0 technologies. Whatever Web 2.0 is, I don’t think its success hinges on Ajax, tags, or APIs.
–ponders Kottke on his blog today
“Yeah,” Jevon says “daniel burka waxes on that a lot too. And I agree.” Yep i think there’s nothing wrong with ajax, i like it a lot in the right context (yay for google maps!) but users use don’t use your service for the ajax, they use it to get something done, find information or connect with other people. And not surprisingly (unless the usability is so bad they can’t get it done), what drives attention of the masses is two factors, as old as time:
1) it’s the distribution silly. economies of scale scope and distribution matter – and (sometimes) first-mover advantage. Put a starbucks on every corner, net net, people will drink more starbucks. Put msn as the default start page of all windows default browsers, and surprise surprise millions will actually “use” that dog’s-regurgitated-breakfast of a media outlet.
2) Community. Users use for other users. It’s the strength and relevance of the community that matters. This is just another way of saying the network effect. Or why eBay creates billions in real value every year despite horrible user-atrocities like the “my ebay” page and many other terrible things they’ve done to poor old HTML over the years.
A valuable, well-designed product is a good start, but that is sadly only secondary to the factors above. It’s only useful if it gets in people’s hands (sometimes you have to go out and stick it in their hands) and in today’s “2.0” world, often “value” is entirely contingent on the quality and scale of the community you create around it.
Kotke breaks down a few more reasons specific to his analysis of Fotolog (huh?) overtaking Flickr*.
*Caveat, caveat, at least in the bizarro-world of alexa rankings.
Worst Usability Offenders (an off the top of my head list)
- Ebay
- Myspace (OMG)
- MSN.com
- Arguably, Craigslist
- Everything AOL has ever done
- what’s on your list?
Update: My friend Farhan of Microsoft sets me straight on msn, more in the comments…
