Newsletter #119 Make "Lean Forward" Work For You

Created on 29/11/07

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Our last newsletter (30th October, 2007) was "The Web as a Database".
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Feature Article

The Web is a “lean-forward” experience where users actively participate in the experience; conversely television, radio and paper media are “lean-back”, or more passive activities. As part of this “lean-forward” attitude Website visitors are normally browsing your site in order to solve a problem, or find information, and want to complete it all as quickly as possible. If you accept this premise it can lead to a more efficient Website, less clutter and more business.

Some of the things you can do to optimise your site for the “lean-forward” experience are:

• Visitors scan Web pages for information that they need and will ignore introductory paragraphs unless they are brief and to the point - they shouldn’t be full of unnecessary fluff. A sample introductory paragraph that has no value and should be deleted is:
  
  “Welcome to our site. We hope you enjoy your visit and can be of service to you. Please contact us if you have any comments or feedback about our site.”
  
  For the same reason, Flash animation introductions or graphics that tell the visitor nothing are wasting a visitor’s time.
  
  
• As part of the scanning process your headings, sub headings and the first few words of every paragraph are extremely important as visitors use this information to determine whether the associated text is worth reading or not.
  
  
• Bullet points are great on the Web as most visitors will read them rather than chunky paragraphs so put your key information concisely into bullet points if you can.
  
  
• If you’re offering a service you should advertise a free quote facility or the ability to easily generate an estimate of how much a service will cost. More often than not product-based sites will provide pricing, but most service orientated ones fall down here. Often the information visitors are looking for is pricing-related so why not make it as easy as possible for them to request a quote?
  
  
• If the information being sought is “How To” then support areas that offer easy ways to find answers are the key. The information could be via text explanations in Frequently Asked Question (FAQs) or Knowledge Bases. Or it could be more visual via short videos, photos or diagrams – these are a great way of showing how a product works or a service is delivered.
  
  
• Don’t put important information into fancy headings or graphics that could be confused with advertising banners. Banner blindness occurs because banners get in the way of the “lean-forward” experience and visitors will ignore information if it is in a similar format.

You can’t convert content from other sources directly to the Web as normally those other media are “lean-back”. One of the worst examples of this is putting television advertisements in video format on a Website – why would a visitor want to watch a video made for another medium when they could find more information in the FAQ section in a tenth of the time?

When visitors land on your Website they are on a mission to find out information. If you make it easier for them than your competitors do, who do you think will get their business?

 

Hot Tips

Newbies

To add a frequently used program icon to your Start Menu in Windows XP (not sure about Vista). The Start Menu is the menu immediately above the Start button when you click on it. Go Start, All Programs, find the program you want. You may have to go down several levels to get to the program icon itself. Once you have found it, left click and hold and drag it to the Start button. The Start Menu will appear and you can slide the icon to where you want it. Release the mouse and the icon will be added.

Power Users

Vista allows you to send emails associated with an event. The Computer Management tool is still accessed by right-clicking “Computer” and selecting “Manage” from the menu. However you can now attach a task to any event. Navigate through System Tools/Event Viewer/Windows Logs/Application. Now, select an event - then look to the rightmost pane and click “Attach Task to This Event.” Name it, describe it, click through the next step, then in the Action step, you’ll see the “Send an e-mail” option.

Interesting Sites

Voki allows users to express themselves on the Web in their own voice using a talking character. Your Voki can look like you or take on other types of characteristics. Voki can be used within blogs, your social network profile and apparently will soon be integrated into various instant messaging platforms. I love the way the home page Voki follows your mouse movements! http://www.voki.com/

InsiteFul Quotes

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'" Issac Asimov

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

Internet Strategy | Website Design | Website Promotion | Web Text Messaging | Email Newsletters | Online Sports Games | Content Management