by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs

• Join - It's Free!
• Log in

Website usability and design - Q & A

Brinn calls in from the Ozarks to ask Craig how to get a folksy and charming feel on his website, while keeping it clean and easy-to-navigate?

Jeff Sloan: First we're going to Brinn in the Ozarks out in Arkansas.  Welcome to the show, Brinn.

Brinn:  Thank you.  Thank you, Jeff.  Thank you, Rich.  Thank you.  Hello, Craig.

Craig Newmark:  Hey.

Brinn: I'm an interior designer, and I'm creating a new business presence on the Internet, and fortunately for me, I found the StartupNation during the holidays.  And listening to the champagne, hearing the champagne bubbles, I started listening to the Podcasts.

Rich Sloan:  Now, you're talking about our holiday party radio show.

Brinn:  Yes, yes.  It was lovely.

Rich Sloan:   Yes.

Brinn:  And I took some good notes.  And one of the notes I took was, find successful sites to see what works for them, which brings me to you, Craig.  Craig's List is, of course, very successful, and easy to navigate, but it's all text.  And my question, I noticed that the message is very simple, very concise, very clear.  But it has a real folksy feeling that I like, and it's very compelling, and I clicked everywhere.  I thought it was so funny.  But anyway, how can I achieve that comfortableness, that interest, and participation in my site?

Rich Sloan:  Craig, what do you think?

Brinn:  I am -- I just --

Rich Sloan:  We're gonna throw it to Craig, Brinn.

Brinn:  Thank you.

Rich Sloan:  What do you think, Craig?

Craig Newmark: Well, having gone through the process of getting design help very recently, this is a specialized case, which is real visual.  And in your case, I would just start putting up photos, organized photos of work that you've done, maybe even including in that, if you can find the right mechanisms, to include discussion of what you've done, and what people like about it.  And then follow through and engage people in that discussion.

Rich Sloan:  So in your case, Brinn, your work is a very visual product, and not only something that you may use or live in, but it's something that's visual, and I think in order to demonstrate that you absolutely have to have the photography.  You don't want to ask for people's imagination.  You want it to be very vivid, very clear, very direct.  But also, I think having the options in the text that you might see at a site like Craig's List is not a bad thing, either; having it be a comprehensive website.  Brinn?

Brinn:   I like the participation, having them comment about different pictures, why they think it works, why one of the design works or something.

Rich Sloan:  See, this is the aspect of interactivity.  That's really interesting.  Craig, you know, in today's sites, in order to make them more dynamic, and to engage your audience more, what do you think about having content, then having discussion and interactivity and so on between the site operator, owner, proprietor, and the audience?

Craig Newmark:  I like the idea a great deal.  People seem to react very positively to the notion that there's a real human there who will actually respond to what they're saying, and that works very well most of the time.  Now and then you'll -- you and then you'll attract someone who, oh, just wants to get attention of a negative manner.  You're going to have to be ready for that.  And sometimes you're going to have to get rid of stuff which is basically crap.

Frankly, I just got an e-mail moments ago from a guy I know who's a -- oh, who may be off his meds. 

Rich Sloan:  Okay.  But the thing I did hear that I really liked, Brinn, and you may want to think about this, it's really cool if you position yourself as a leader, right content under your name, provide content to the audience, and then provide a way for them to interact with you, with you as the expert, and then let them have discussion back and forth through your site.  That's a way to get noticed.  That's a way to drive traffic.  And it's a way to retain your audience.