Article Idea:
Give 'em what they ask for...and ONLY what they ask for?
suggested by Amanda Amanda on 2006/02/20
The Head of Computer Services (and website administrator) where I work considers himself a big proponent of Web 2.0. I thought I was, too. But now he’s using our pre-roll-out user studies to argue against including a news section on the homepage, because users didn’t specifically ask for a news section. This sounds like faulty logic (and bad marketing) to me. I mean, they probably didn’t ask for a company logo, either, but of course we have one. I agree with the principal of giving users what they ask for, but should there be no room at all for what we’d like them to know they can ask for (new products, services, staff expertise)?
Want to see this idea turned into a story?
0 people said yes. | 1 person said no.
Donna Spencer
159 Reputation points
Posted 2006/02/22 @ 02:11AM with
Web 2.0 is irrelevant here. This is just poor research and design. The idea of research is to learn interesting things that the designer then uses, in combination with other stuff (business goals being one) to determine functionality and design.
But what are you proposing – an article, answers, asking for ideas
Javier Velasco
247 Reputation points
Posted 2006/03/01 @ 09:34AM with
Donna’s right, this is not related to Web 2.0, It’s a strategy design problem.
We’re all big fans of listening to users, but you also have to balance their requests with what your organization needs. If placing the news headlines in the home suits your organization’s needs, you just have to do it in a way that works for the uses.
This is like raising kids, you can’t give them everything they ask for, or hide everything they haven’t asked for. The designer has to take the final decision based on the project’s context and his own experience.
Hope this helps, I don’t think this is related to article proposals.
Matt Queen
130 Reputation points
Posted 2006/03/05 @ 10:45AM with
Hi Amanda. One way you can coerce your concerns into a research question (fit to write and article about) would be to express it as the following question: “What do users need but seldom ask for—and why?”
Your answers might relate to how user interviews are structured, how data was collected, how stake holder interpretations developed, how much stake holders actually care about user data, etc. In short, this research question is fairly open and has many possible directions. The answers would be interesting to read about. If you could investigate answers to the research question and present the results of your investigation in a meaningful case study, this research will fly!
I’d be happy to be a good colleague and trade ideas about this subject with you in prep for your investigation—send me email.
mqn at u.washington.edu
Amanda Amanda
1 Reputation points
Posted 2006/03/22 @ 11:43AM with
Great feedback, thanks.
I would love to see Matt’s research proposal pursued – if it hasn’t already been done, I’ll keep it in mind for the future. I’d also like to read about how various organizations weight user studies compared to other considerations when making content decisions.
I did find an opinion piece (http://alistapart.com/articles/homepagegoals) stating the case for dynamic news sections on the home page.