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Posts Tagged ‘Tsavo Media’

From Flames to Fame: Views vs. Credibility

June 1st, 2009 by AV Flox in blogging

My Twitter stream and inbox caught on fire this afternoon following a post by Dave McClure, a software developer and marketing nerd in Silicon Valley, regarding the importance of visual cues in calls to action (CTAs).

McClure, who begins the post with a disclaimer that he has no professional training in user interface (UI) design, but goes on to say he has 25 years of experience, illustrated his point about visual cues by employing the rear of a woman shown bent over. In his post, The Faces! The FACES! It’s ALL About the F**king FACES!, McClure writes:

If there’s one thing i’ve learned from all that geeking around, it’s that UI typically works best when it’s butt-simple. As a famous PayPal colleague of mine once stated succinctly: “Users are Stupid… give them something to click on.” Wise words. You’ll do well not to forget them, Young Jedi.

However it’s not always enough to simply give people underlined text links to click on… rather, it’s important to have strong associated visual cues that encourage users to take action. Sometimes that can be as simple as just creating a beveled, slightly rounded, 3D-looking button with a color offset and some text that identifies a Call-To-Action (CTA).

Many people have become trained thru years of working with operating systems to click on things that look like buttons. particularly BIG buttons. particularly BIG buttons with pictures or icons. they are almost irresistible. Go on. Click it! you know you want to!

But — and i do mean butt — even big buttons with big graphics aren’t always going to capture user attention. What has gradually happened over the past 10 years is that online consumer interfaces have started to zero in on basic human behaviors, recognition systems, and patterns. many of those offline interactions start with the simplest of human interactions — looking at someone’s face.

In fact, you could argue that much of the online experience these days is less about reading text, and a lot more about looking at faces, icons, and other visual representations of people.

The post makes good points, but the image employed, while it got him a lot of hits, took the attention away from the ideas McClure is trying to convey.

“I’m drawn to the button,” says Sean Percival, Director of Content at Tsavo Media. “I wouldn’t click it though–it looks too spammy to me. The colors and rounded edges are horrible–the pastel pink dates it extremely. It just doesn’t tell me enough about what I’m clicking.”

Visual cues are important. We click on hundreds of buttons on sites regularly, buttons that employ a single letter, or none at all. We know what symbol represents RSS, that Twitter is the blue t on the aqua background, that Facebook is the white f on the blue background–our minds have made those associations.

Just as they have made the association of scantily-clad human bodies with the likelihood of pop-ups, spam or porn.

McClure is making good points, but he’s undermining himself as an expert by presenting graphic elements that don’t resonate with the message–which is the importance of visual cues in UI design and the forward-looking applications embracing it.

I bring up the inconsistency with my good friend Atherton Bartelby, a graphic designer and associate at DMD Network, a firm specializing in integrated marketing.

“I think there’s a vast distinction between UI and this kind of shoddy attempt to get traffic,” he tells me. “This is not making a point with ‘design,’ this is visually pandering to the lowest common denominator of visitor that any site could possibly imagine. It’s offensive it was even brought into the context of design and UI! ‘Strong associated visual cues’ does not mean shoving an ass in someone’s face.”

Bartelby is not wrong to describe this as an attempt to get traffic. In the comments, a regular reader responds to an objector by saying: “This post is a very Dave tactic. Trying to shock to get attention for a (great) point he is making.”

We all want to be read–that’s how ideas spread–and an outrage gets views like nothing else. But how far can you go without destroying your credibility?

pass it on!

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