And I would agree. All search engine optimization should do is provide the optimum visibility to the dominant information finding technology. Anyone who says differently is a quack by my book.
The value add to optimizing your sites for search is that you take giant steps towards making it more accessible to customers with disabilities. Granted, not all customers care about accessible sites and not all site owners care that some customers have a severely suboptimal experience with their applications because they cannot experience them in the intended way. And that's the price of admission for the Web that we work in. There are a handful of SEO folks who have any experience of affiliation with user experience or interaction design. I'm on of the lucky ones and it makes me much more effective as a result. If I had any juice left in my magic wand, I'd wave it so that SEO and IXD and IA and UX were not mutually exclusive disciplines, that one does not have to survive or succeed at the expense of the other. I wish... marianne [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of mark schraad Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:58 PM To: Andy Edmonds Cc: IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] seo and usability I am not at odds with SEO. But I think the notion that what is good for SEO is also good for users is a stretch. While search engines seek to work the way people think, I believe they are still a ways off. Humans are more forgiving than search engines... and the lean towards search is a compromise for the user. About.com for instance, is way off the deep end optimized for search and is not the same user resource that is once was. I would hate to see other good sources of information and content go that direction. On May 14, 2008, at 10:31 PM, Andy Edmonds wrote: > The tough part is that so much of common SEO is superstition. The > feedback loop for an individual site owner on SEO is so slow that it's > much tougher to attribute causality than in say split-testing site > designs. > > At least SEO and usability agree on the futility of over-use of Flash! > Hat's off to SEO for killing the splash page :) > > The general guidance that Google tries to offer is if it's good for > the user, it's good for SEO. This certainly jives with a lot of > findings -- like those favoring long, descriptive hyperlink anchor > text. > > Where in particular do you find SEO at odds with good UX? > > -Andy > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
