STC Usability SIG Home Back to the Newsletter This article was originally printed in the October 2002 issue (Vol 9, No. 2) STC Usability SIG Newsletter logo70x50.gif (1973 bytes) Usability Interface Conferences and Seminars: Helping Web Customers Sniff Out a Deal Jared Spool at the Washington DC UPA by Kathy Bine In Jared Spools presentation, "Scent of a Web Site," to the Washington DC Chapter of UPA (September 18, 2002), Spool used scent as an analogy to attract customers to the goods or services they desire online. A predator locates prey by following a scent trail. If the predator loses the scent trail, it returns to the location where the trail was strong, and tries again. Spool reports seeing a similar behavior with people looking for content on very large Web sites. Spool introduced two new vocabulary words that I plan to use. Gallery pages are used on very large Web sites to aggregate content pages. Store pages are used to aggregate gallery pages. The home page connects to stores; effective home pages also connect to galleries and content as well. These concepts arent necessary for Web sites of one to twenty or so pages. They are essential for very large Web sites, such as Amazon or Microsoft Network, with pages numbering in the millions. Because there is so much content, providing customers with a strong scent is the only effective way to connect people with the information they desire. To do this, Spool recommends the following: * Direct the customer to the product quickly. Particularly in e-commerce, more than twelve clicks can cost your company hundreds of dollars. * Show all the goods in a category. McMaster-Carr sells hardware. Go to their Web site and youll see the range of what they carry on one page! * Put the popular stuff up front. Lands End shows sample swimsuits on the swimsuit pagetheir best-selling swimsuits. Show the customer what most people want. * Tell people about the product or information. It seems obvious, but one or two words arent enough to guide people to what they want. Seven to twelve words are what a customer needs to decide whether a link is worth following, says Spool. The best Web sites, with the best organization and pictures, got input from the people who sell the product. A Web designer probably doesnt know that the fabric is key to selling sweaters, while the tread is key to selling hiking boots. People who have taken orders over the phone or worked at the store, though, know how people shop in real life and can help your team find ways to provide that information to your clients. Go to STC Society Web Site SIG Home | About the SIG | SIG Activities | Resources | Topics Newsletter | Conference | Bookshelf | Toolkit Comments or questions? Please send your email to © 1998-2004, Society for Technical Communication