About sustaining attention

From Lorcan Dempsey, 1 Feb 2006

...
In a Media 2.0 environment, production and distribution have become cheaper and attention has become scarcer. So, for example media are now available in multiple ways - single TV programs and tracks are available as downloads; we have an extraordinary range of media outlets; there is an explosion in 'prosumer' content available through blogs and so on.

These economics create competence traps for media incumbents in a 2.0 world: since attention is now relatively scarce, economic advantage flows to whichever players can allocate attention - not production - most efficiently. That is, to try and make sure, wherever possible, each viewer, listener, or reader is consuming media where, when, and how they derive the most value from doing so. [Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab]

Think about libraries. The dynamic may be different in academic and public, but there are some similarites. Think of pictures of the traditional scholarly communications chain: it shows a small number of channels by which published research reaches readers. Think of how this has changed.

Where attention is scarcer one wants to provide engaging experiences that encourage people to return, one wants to place services where they are most needed in the reader's workflow (think of the commuter interest in audio, for example, or the learner's interest in seeing library resources in the course management system), one wants to have a clear well understood offering, one wants to project custom services into specific user environments (think of placing a metasearch of subject-specific databases in a course-page)....

work- and learn-flows

Although a focus of this particular piece is "institutional repositories," the idea of work flows should be one of the factors driving the design of a web site. --mp

From Lorcan Dempsey's Networkflows January 28, 2006

One way of characterising recent developments is to look at our locus of engagement with the network. We can see a trend from database, to website to workflow. And this is not really surprising. As more of our working, learning and playing lives moves onto the network we need better workflow support. One can state one of the major challenges facing libraries in these terms. Historically, users have built their workflow around the services the library provides. As we move forward, the reverse will increasingly be the case. On the network, the library needs to build its services around its users' work- and learn-flows (networkflows).

Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye

<<<<>>>>
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060109/full/060109-13.html

Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye
Potential readers can make snap decisions in just 50 milliseconds.

Michael Hopkin


Quickly now: like what you see?
Like the look of our website? Whatever the answer (and hopefully it was yes), the chances are you made your mind up within the first twentieth of a second. A study by researchers in Canada has shown that the snap decisions Internet users make about the quality of a web page have a lasting impact on their opinions.

We all know that first impressions count, but this study shows that the brain can make flash judgements almost as fast as the eye can take in the information. The discovery came as a surprise to some experts. "My colleagues believed it would be impossible to really see anything in less than 500 milliseconds," says Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa, who has published the research in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology(1). Instead they found that impressions were made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing.

Lindgaard and her team presented volunteers with the briefest glimpses of web pages previously rated as being either easy on the eye or particularly jarring, and asked them to rate the websites on a sliding scale of visual appeal. Even though the images flashed up for just 50 milliseconds, roughly the duration of a single frame of standard television footage, their verdicts tallied well with judgements made after a longer period of scrutiny.

In the crowded and competitive world of the web, companies hoping to make millions from e-commerce should take notice, the researchers say. "Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors," Lindgaard warns.

First impressions last

For a typical commercial website, 60% of traffic comes from search engines such as Google, says Marc Caudron of London web-design agency Pod1. This makes a user's first impression even more critical, he explains. "You'll get a list of sites, click the top one, and then either say 'I've engaged' and give it a few more seconds, or just go back to Google," he says.

The lasting effect of first impressions is known to psychologists as the 'halo effect': if you can snare people with an attractive design, they are more likely to overlook other minor faults with the site, and may rate its actual content (such as this article, for example) more favourably.

This is because of 'cognitive bias', Lindgaard explains. People enjoy being right, so continuing to use a website that gave a good first impression helps to 'prove' to themselves that they made a good initial decision. The phenomenon pervades our society; even doctors have been shown to follow their initial hunches, Lindgaard says, relying heavily on a patient's most immediately obvious symptom when making a diagnosis. "It's awfully scary stuff, but the tendency to jump to conclusions is far more widespread than we realize," she says.

Beauty and beholders

These days, enlightened web users want to see a "puritan" approach, Caudron adds. It's about getting information across in the quickest, simplest way possible. For this reason, many commercial websites now follow a fairly regular set of rules. For example, westerners tend to look at the top-left corner of a page first, so that's where the company logo should go. And most users also expect to see a search function in the top right.

Of course, says Caudron, the other golden rule is to make sure that your web pages load quickly, otherwise your customers might not stick around long enough to make that coveted first impression. "That can be the difference between big business and no business," he says.

References

1. Lindgaard G., Fernandes G. J., Dudek C. & Brown J. Behav. Inf. Technol., 25. 115 - 126 (2006).

Designing for the default user

Lorcan Dempsey blog comment:
"There is some evidence that electronic resources - databases say - near the top of lists are more heavily used. The 'default user' seems a relevant way of describing those library users that pick the database from near the top of the list. One way of characterizing the challenge of providing access to electronic resources is to try to get relevant resources to the 'default user'. "

Default user is defined in an article (The battle of the portals -- Oct 20th 2005 | SAN FRANCISCO --From The Economist print edition) :
"Default users are “the great unwashed”, says Mr Varian. They are the ones who, for instance, use MSN because it comes pre-installed in Internet Explorer, the web browser that itself comes pre-installed on new computers. By contrast, teenagers and geeks mix and match their web mail, IM, online maps, search, blogging and so on from whichever service on the internet they happen to like best. Default users are less demanding, older but nonetheless rich enough to target with small hyperlinked text advertisements. "

Web fonts

I've been following a thread on the Innopac Users list about use of web fonts. In general, the responses have all been similar -- Verdana, Arial, Helvetical, sans-serif. On thing pointed out to me which I needed reminding about is that Verdana distinguishes between O and zero, I and l, etc., which some sans serifs don't. One respondent also referred people to this url which is a good brief refresher:
http://www.accordmarketing.com/tid/archive/websafefonts.html