Sunday, October 08, 2006

Things that make you say: hmmmm...

My husband received an email last week from a national organization of which he's been a member for 28 years. The email was proudly announcing that the organization now had a place online to which the members could go to register and pay dues. While that's all well and good, the thing my husband was laughing about the most was the fact that the organization provided him with a list of steps for accessing this site. What's wrong with that you ask? The list had 23 steps to follow! I asked him how he thought the organization was going to be successful in launching this service if it took 23 steps that had to be defined for the user.

It made me wonder about the intuitive nature of the technology. If a user enters this site and can't make their way around without a list of these 23 steps, then what good is the site going to be? I've been able to create a blog and several wikis in less time than it would take to even read these 23 steps.

We'll have to keep an eye on this site and just see what happens...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The rule of thumb when designing a website is the rule of 3 - three clicks to get to where they need to be. If it's more than that, most people just give up. I've watched students and know that if they can't find it in a few clicks, forget it. I would bet that very few members take advantage of the online service! Too funny.