Uh, I may be stupid here, but how is it that consumers (users) mentioned below do not contribute to the profitability of the site?
Their eyeballs quite literally ARE the profitability. Or is this a which came first, chicken or the egg question? Without eyeballs, do you have profitability? Let me amend that: Without Happy Eyeballs, do you have profitability? Chris On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 4:22 PM, mark schraad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > IMHO - different tasks require different perspectives and different goals > for the site. In my situation where we have consumers (users) that do not > contribute to the profitability of the site other than to attract the > eyeballs for advertising, the user experience group's mission is somewhat in > conflict with that of the ad sales group and to even some extent with the > SEO group. Our goal is to match up the site to consumer's research and > buying process, not to force them into what the industry or advertiser might > be driving. We believe that if the site is compelling, the users will find > their way to it, and the CPM's will happen over the long run. The ad folks > often want us to design pages to accommodate and attract the advertisers. > Meanwhile the SEO staff is wanting to make the page optimal for search > engines. While there are similarities, designing for SEO, designing for > advertisers, and designing for users will render different pages. Each of > these three groups needs to bring their expertise to the table... and let > executive management take on that 'god's eye' perspective and render > judgement that balances those separate agendas. > > One of the most disturbing trends that I see is designer's rolling over on > the user experience. I see designers that are all too empathetic with the > pure goals of profit and the business... trying to take a short cut to > immediate and short term profit that only destroys brand awareness, consumer > loyalty and inevitably, the longer term sustainability and profitability of > the site. This trend can be seen sites like about.com (and plenty of > others) that used to have great information and now focus on attracting > visitors from search engines and deliver very little value to users. > > Specific to your question, yes the design team should work to not only the > constraints of the business, but the goals within reason. > > In our case I am using some extensive background in consumer behavior > (research primarily from the psych field) and mapping our sites' > functionality to typical consumer behavior in our target market. It effects > both the interactions and information architecture. So far it has helped in > managing the business model in a way that works for both the consumer's > goals, and the monetization goals of the business (paper and conference talk > to come soon I hope). > > Mark > > > > > On Jul 6, 2008, at 3:57 PM, Robert Hoekman Jr wrote: > > Purely philosophical question: >> >> I've been studying social psychology a lot lately, and have become >> incredibly interested in the persuasiveness of sites and applications—how >> to >> make them more persuasive, what makes them so now, etc. But it makes me >> wonder: >> >> Should the persuasive elements of a site design be left to marketers? >> Assuming you work for a company who has a marketing department and a UX >> team >> that are separate from each other, how much should the UX team be involved >> in the design of persuasive elements? >> >> -r- >> ________________________________________________________________ >> 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
