Smart
This is bang-on [via Labnotes]:
Between the Pew Internet Survey that tells me that the largest portion of bloggers aren't in our tech echo chamber, fretting about the new Web 2.0 launch, but instead blogging about their lives (76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others) with technology being the subject of only 4% of the bloggers surveyed; and recently taking a hard look around at what is inside and outside of the bubble, I know that the biggest issue is the propensity for developers of this new technology to treat the 'user' like an idiot.
I really hate the phrase, "I want to design this for the housewife in Utah," because the housewife in Utah may or may not give a damn about how you can tag photos. She may or may not even have a digital camera because the film one isn't broken. And she isn't uninformed, she is totally right.
I'm no luddite, don't get me wrong. I love technology and what it allows us to do. We can connect further and learn faster and publish everywhere...all on the cheap. But it isn't time saving or more efficient or any of that. In fact, if I had never seen a computer, I would have much more time to do all sorts of things with people in my life. My business questions would be answered by the lawyer we hired anyway ('cause the information online was not helpful). I would find out that the best deal on tube socks is at Target because my neighbour, who I actually have time to socialize with was just down there...and I would have time to go (consequently, all of our socks have holes in them). Etc. etc.
This is a niche. It's a rockin' cool niche, but it's a niche. MySpace...that's a niche, too. It's a big frickin' niche, but it's a niche of young-ish (mostly) people who want to live their lives online. Awesome article over on Murketing (via Brian Oberkirch) about there alotta big niches, too. But one thing we can agree on is that there is no monolithic mass that is mindlessly consuming crap.
Yeah...some people consume crap, but that's a choice. And tagging isn't going to change that.
Designing for human use is highly under-rated. Chris talks about big picture changing the world type stuff all of the time. I'm really excited for that to happen. I am just a little hesitant to drink the koolaid when my Dad, who is a super computer savvy guy, thinks his only choice for email is through the telco who provides him connectivity, deals with spam just because that's the way it is and will never ever ever (in his opinion) post his photos online because they are private.
Juss sayin' ;)
Still, to this day, I am presented with the tired old argument that "users are stupid" -- that the hubris of developers and designers somehow trumps investment in usable products.Amen.
...
They're not stupid. They're not lazy. Don't treat them that way.
Between the Pew Internet Survey that tells me that the largest portion of bloggers aren't in our tech echo chamber, fretting about the new Web 2.0 launch, but instead blogging about their lives (76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others) with technology being the subject of only 4% of the bloggers surveyed; and recently taking a hard look around at what is inside and outside of the bubble, I know that the biggest issue is the propensity for developers of this new technology to treat the 'user' like an idiot.
I really hate the phrase, "I want to design this for the housewife in Utah," because the housewife in Utah may or may not give a damn about how you can tag photos. She may or may not even have a digital camera because the film one isn't broken. And she isn't uninformed, she is totally right.
I'm no luddite, don't get me wrong. I love technology and what it allows us to do. We can connect further and learn faster and publish everywhere...all on the cheap. But it isn't time saving or more efficient or any of that. In fact, if I had never seen a computer, I would have much more time to do all sorts of things with people in my life. My business questions would be answered by the lawyer we hired anyway ('cause the information online was not helpful). I would find out that the best deal on tube socks is at Target because my neighbour, who I actually have time to socialize with was just down there...and I would have time to go (consequently, all of our socks have holes in them). Etc. etc.
This is a niche. It's a rockin' cool niche, but it's a niche. MySpace...that's a niche, too. It's a big frickin' niche, but it's a niche of young-ish (mostly) people who want to live their lives online. Awesome article over on Murketing (via Brian Oberkirch) about there alotta big niches, too. But one thing we can agree on is that there is no monolithic mass that is mindlessly consuming crap.
Yeah...some people consume crap, but that's a choice. And tagging isn't going to change that.
Designing for human use is highly under-rated. Chris talks about big picture changing the world type stuff all of the time. I'm really excited for that to happen. I am just a little hesitant to drink the koolaid when my Dad, who is a super computer savvy guy, thinks his only choice for email is through the telco who provides him connectivity, deals with spam just because that's the way it is and will never ever ever (in his opinion) post his photos online because they are private.
Juss sayin' ;)
4 Comments:
A housewife in Utah eh? I know a few housewives in Utah! They're not any different from the housewives I've met in California. Do people really say that?
Tara
FYI, I Agree with the PEW results.. I always belived that blogoshpere IS NOT tech centric..and to find out what is happening there.. I silently take on NEW feeds every month. I began the excerise with 10 feeds and every month I unsub and find another NEW one to sub to..
As I move around, I have seen silent thoguhts from hybrid cars, cats, sex toy, weddings, flowers or simple things like the lawn and the lawn mowers headaches.. The niche is so wide and vast, yet nobody has a method to rationalize these communities and btw, they are communities if you just take time to review their links in corelation to the comments !!
Theres a big niche out there..but how the heck to create relationships with soo many ??
I'm with you 100% on almost everything but the phrase "I want to design this for the housewife in Utah" means something different to me, it means "I want to design something useful for the housewife in Utah" or in our case "I want to build something my technophobe Dad finds useful". If it is all web2.0ey/taggy/socialnetworkey then great but more than anything it must be useful.
My old man has no idea what RSS is but he knows that there are certain sites he likes who send him what he thinks are email updates to a different folder in Thunderbird. He is my ultimate beta-tester: Email=useful, travel-special-offers=useful, tagclouds=huh?
The "housewife in Utah" still uses the film camera because it is good enough".
This is the issue that marketers often overlook in many cases, and what I try to address (albeit infrequently) in my blog. People allocate their scarce financial resouces according to the "good enough" rule - to buy something it has to be something that does what they want/need at a price they're willing to pay for. Some people want a 50" HDTV, for example, while some people will just buy the 13" Emerson portable TV.
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