No One Likes a One-Way Conversation

When Redish states that “every use of your web site or mobile app is a conversation started by your site visitor,” she essentially means that every inquiry is a conversation. As someone views your site, they have questions that they want answered: “How can I find the latest information on…” or “Where can I find a release date for …,” are a couple of examples of an initiated conversation. This inquiry can be answered by the information, or content, on the site that Redish calls “conversation.” A good conversation is when the questions can be answered. No one wants to ask someone a question and not have it answered and the same goes for a website: if they cannot obtain the answer in a timely manner, they are going to seek a conversation elsewhere.

Krug references distractions on a web page as “noise.” I found this interesting because it is a definite connection to Redish’s comparison of an inquiry as a potential conversation. Redish points out that users skim over information because they are focused on their own conversation (p. 4) and they are too busy to be bombarded with information that can lead to, what she calls, “information overload,” (p. 5). Krug makes a similar point that the effects of too much eye-grabbing information on one page will come across to the user as shouting and can be overwhelming (p. 38).

Giant Bomb’s website is a great example of a design that helps their target visitors, gamers. Not only did they find a layout that understands the conversation the user wants to start, but it also allows various personas to thrive and connect. Redish states that personas must represent your site visitors and not the site developer, which I believe the writers and contributors have their own personas that draw in visitors with similar interests (p. 29). Visitors are also allowed to create their own persona by creating an account, with a picture and various information, to carry through the site in the comments sections and the forums.

I have not ever tried changing the colors of sites. I feel that the black and white contrast that they have chosen would not be problematic for those who may have color-blindness. The colors also work well with the logo of the site. They maintain black and white with a little bit of red. According to Redish’s guidelines, they most definitely worked with their brand colors, used light on dark sparingly, kept the background clear, and kept the contrast high (p. 52). They also utilized space between various sections to indicate the highlights at the top, with the revolving news below. This along with legible text makes it a very clean site. They were bought out by CBS Interactive not too long ago, so they must be doing something right, right?