‘The Supermarket effect’, and how to minimise it…

November 18, 2008 By 6 Comments

I’ve coined the term ‘the supermarket effect’ in conversation and in passing, and never really publicly defined it. So for future reference:

The Supermarket Effect: The initial response to a new layout to a website, which echoes your first reaction to a supermarket changing it’s layout; ‘Oh, for crying out loud, where have they put the sodding milk’. Despite the fact that the change may actually be an improvement.

Chinese supermarket by gab on Flickr (CC Licence)

Chinese supermarket by gab on Flickr (CC Licence)

Even after a decade of making, changing, relaunching and tweaking websites, I’m as guilty of letting myself have the same reaction occasionally, before taking a deep breathe and evaluating what the changes actually mean.

And that effect can be devastating when you’re just launched a design you (or your team) worked on for days or weeks, and the first responses from users is to complain about every change. But if you understand that a percentage of shock is inevitable, you can start to seperate the valid and constructive comments from those of surprise – just remember that if they’re regular users of the site, it’s akin to walking into your local pub, or you living room, and finding someone has moved everything.

But there are ways you can minimise ‘the supermarket effect’.

  • Warn users that change is coming. Give them time to prepare themselves.
  • Explain in detail to key users what the changes will be, why they are being made, and give them an advanced preview. Get them onside, and they will evangelise the changes on a personal level which you wouldn’t reach as quickly.
  • Use A/B testing to reveal the changes to a small group and evaluate which changes are making the important differences.
  • Consider changing in phases, or offering a choice of old and new. Eventually you’ll have to force the late adopters across but it gives some of your audience a chance to get used to the new layout and help the latecomers.
  • Don’t dismiss the responses – even those which are purely critical of any change – politely explain the reasoning behind the changes, and the evaluation of them.

One famous example of reaction to change was Facebook’s unveiling of a new design. It led to vehement opposition, but over time, people do accept the changes, as long as there is value in making them for users. And if not – why are you making the change?

So are there other ways you can make a substantial change to your website, and minimise ‘the supermarket effect’?

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Worth repeating?

September 26, 2008 By 2 Comments

Writing about how the election coverage on Twitter and C-Span points to the future of media coverage, I came up with a little gem that I thought might be worth repeating for any of you who don’t crossover to my microblogging blog, 140char.com:

‘aggregation of sources of information provides a starting point for a media company to add its own expertise and reason to provide something of value.‘

That’s it really. A mainstream media source can’t just aggregate content. Anyone can do that and the winners are decided by those who obtain a reasonable community and audience. And there’s already plenty of people out there, from Yahoo Buzz to Digg, to Mixx, to Sphinn, to microblogging.com.

But by aggregating and adding interpretation, it not only creates dynamic changing content, but actually opens up and highlights the expertise that a good journalist can bring on top of raw information. One of the mistakes we’ve continued to make in mainstream media is to underplay how good many journalists are at going beyond raw data, and the myraid ways in which they add value to it.

I’ve long believed it, but not managed to sum it up quite so succinctly before. And it’s not a new idea for plenty of notable people, e.g. Scott Karp, Jay Rosen, Pat Thornton (still no relation!), Howard Owens, Jeff Jarvis, David Cushman. And there are many, many more people I could name, and I’m sure that’s just a small proportion of a collective wisdom which suggests numbers and expertise big enough to hopefully break out of the social media echo chamber. And we can see it with the adoption in growing ways by a small number of titles (I mentioned the LA Times and The Guardian, here). Now we’re adding C-Span to the list.

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The Snarkiness of social media

June 24, 2008 By 12 Comments

There’s a growing recognition that social media is still evolving from a fairly early stage of development, and there’s a way to go before it gains mainstream adoption and recognition – certainly something I agree with.

A great post by Will McInnes explores this idea with the Age of Control (the past), the Age of Dialogue (the future), and the current age, which he’s named the Age of Snark.

I think he’s correct from a business perspective, and from the perspective of people of a certain age. I think anyone of the infamous Generation Y is already well on their way to the Age of Dialogue without even thinking about it. They already gravitate to the conversation, without the hang-ups of the Age of Control. The limiting factor comes from the older generations, which still control larger businesses and strategies. But as the younger generation start to infiltrate the boardroom, they’re bringing the Dialogue with them, whether as a conscious revolution, or just something that makes sense. The only speed bump is how much of it survives the challenges of a structured, institutionalized business.

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Building and keeping a community

March 13, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Not a day goes by without the launch of a new social site, or the relaunch of a brand with social networking as the new focus.

This isn’t a bad thing, but there seems to be some pretty big problems in between what website creators think is needed, and what website users actually want.

Personally, I see it as the chance to set up everything for the website users to build their own village. You can make the land flat, put a river nearby, or even plumb in gas and electricity supplies. But you can’t force the community to come and live there, unless they want to. (Spot the echo of Second Life in that analogy)

Myspace is often derided for being clunky to use, but it was the first place that community settlers found and made their own. Once it become a sprawling city, the early adopters started moving to the Bebo, Faceparty and Facebook suburbs. The business crowd decided to start commuting to LinkedIn.

If you think about these people moving around the web, you can easily see ways to create better sites. Look at urban regeneration for driving people back to cities (redevelopment/realignment of websites). Look at how cosmetic changes such as trees and flowers can improve an area (Small design changes). Think about consistent navigation (Ever been lost in a big city…the London A-Z is a site map)

With the Web 3.0 hoopla including ideas of a virtual ‘Second Life‘-style web you can walk around, it’s easy to get caught up in the primitive geek fantasy of virtual reality. But people already behave in a way that echoes human traits in real life since man first evolved

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