Of Pain and Gain

“Don't make me think”, beside being the name of Steves Krug’s wonderful book about web usability, is an often misunderstood and overused phrase by people who credit their users with lower intelligence than their own.

It is the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’ that Steve Krug is referring to – make things as simple as they can be, but don't over simplify – the action should be as complex and demanding as it needs to be, the tools of execution should be as simple as the action would allow.

One great example of a site that does a excellent job of handling elaborate tasks in a graceful manner is istockphoto, the member-generated stock photography site. To become an istockphoto submitter one must read, understand and undergo an online test regarding image quality and copyright guidelines. The user is lead through the process step-by-step with expectations well managed and the need and value of the requirement well communicated. When submitting each image, the user must undergo a relatively complex process of describing and tagging it. While the system is built in a way that requires the user to go through that process, what needs to be done is well communicated at every step of the way. Low quality or term violating images are rejected, with the reason of rejection well communicated to the submitter. I believe this conduct is what made istockphoto the leading online stock photography site with traffic that is the envy of some not-so-niche sites and over 55,000 contributing members.

An opposite example, although heavily trafficked as well is WikipediA. Becoming an editor on WikipediA requires more than just being an expert on the subject matter at hand – it requires understanding the mediawiki interface, understanding policies and being an expert of its quirky and complex editing syntax. since most users enter WikipediA via the landing page and search or through search engines directly to an entry, many of them miss the fact that they can actually contribute to it. Some think it is a free encyclopedia and nothing more (as the tagline suggests), others understand that it is edited by a community, but do not understand they already a part of it (I personally encountered these cases, some when doing user-testing for a wiki based feature). The ones that do understand the concept and can contribute their expertise, already a small group, are further sieved by the interface. I believe this leads to the small reader to contributor ratio WikipediA suffers from – and it is suffering, as understanding the interface does not guarantee being the top expert in a field and vice versa. This may also explain why there’s a significant skew towards popular culture on WikipediA.

To be fair – istockphoto contributors have a cash incentive – if their images are sold, they make money. However, consumption is not free as it is in WikipediA either.

Demanding certain standards and even a level expertise from the audience is understood and even welcome – as people understand the value it produces and it actually helps create credibility and even supports contributors in achieving a sense of accomplishment. While cracking and mastering a complex interface may be a welcome challenge to some – it is an obstacle to most, regardless of the value they can bring to or derive from a site.

The challenge, when developing a site that targets both contributors and consumers, is to present the contribution tools when and where needed, without interfering with the consumption. Communication of the fact that contributions are made by users are important to everybody, be it a potential contributor or even a consumers that will never contribute but assign some value to the fact that the contributions are made by their fellow community members. Making it too simple, with the hope that it will cause consumers to become contributors, will relinquish the sense of achievement and perception of quality the contributors have and will eventually compromise the experience for everybody, as the overall quality will suffer. Free meals are never that great.

For other examples sites that do a great job of balancing contributors and consumers:
Etsy
Ponoko

Communications Breakdown

There's always the question, if we encounter other intelligent life forms – will we be able to communicate?

A couple of my colleagues, an Israeli and an American, were having a hallway conversation about the political systems in their countries. Both are extremely intelligent and each thought his country has the more logical system.

Having been raised in Israel, the Israeli’s arguments made more sense to me at first. But overtime, when the American explained the American system, it dawned on me – I was judging the American system through my Israeli experience, but when the American explained it, I finally started seeing how it made sense.

In Israel, we are accustomed to immediacy – there’s a coalition, and a power struggle determines what happens now based on who’s in power and the powers that have leverage on them – there’s a showdown every day. In the US it is a process. The pressures and shaping of a president work like a stream resulting in an emerging pebble, the president, who is shaped by the journey. That president's term is now the stream, shaping the next pebble. I'm not sure which system is worse :) – however, I know judging one system based on what I knew about the other lead me to prejudice.

At work I see this everyday. Marketers fail to understand creative folks who in turn fail to empathize with programmers who don't get the product managers at all. Even product managers who are siloed from each other can lead different parts of the product into different directions. Realizing that has lead me to become an avid supporter of team work and involving everyone in the process in the earliest stage possible. Ownership, while important for the ego, or maybe because of it, forces people to listen and understand. Being part of an assembly line makes people care about the part they are assembling and resent anything that disrupts that process.

So before we encounter other intelligent life forms, lets try to communicate with the ones we already know.