Comments on: How Listening To Your Bubble Costs You Money

By: Alan Bleiweiss

Alan Bleiweiss — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:02:59 +0000

Sometimes making decisions from inside the bubble come from being naive. Other times, it’s pure arrogance. Whatever the reason, it’s the perfect opportunity for someone else to come along and grab market share. Since we’re not all Google, it’s probably a bit more important for the rest of us to remember that.

By: Heather Villa

Heather Villa — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:21:43 +0000

It’s so easy to forget about the ‘normal’ user and to fluff off their opinions, but, you’re right, that is who we are trying to reach, so if they can’t find you or there is a usability issue with your site, then the problem definitely needs to be addressed.

And remember, for the one person who brought an issue to your attention, there were 10 other who had the same problem, but just clicked away and didn’t bother telling you about it.

Being proactive in identifying these problems will always help. I like your suggestion of remote testing. Sometimes the user can’t remember what they clicked to get where they are or why they couldn’t find what they were looking for. With remote testing, you could see exactly where the problem originated.

By: Matt Soreco

Matt Soreco — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:21:13 +0000

meant suggested “contacts” not “contents”

By: Matt Soreco

Matt Soreco — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:20:00 +0000

This exact same thought was on my mind. It seems a lot of Google’s products (latitude, friend connect, etc) have this same kind of bias attached to it. This might seem small potatoes, but the way they kept changing gmail’s contact manager drove me nuts (the suggested contents disaster), and drove home this point. Instead of offering options, it seems some brainiac decided to change it–probably because it made complete sense to them. Looking at the complaints in their forums, you can see some people prefer it one way, others prefer it another way. They did it a complete other way.

By: James P.

James P. — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:55:14 +0000

On behalf of the stupid world, we humbly apologize for not living up to your expectations.

Rest assured that we hope one day to evolve from our current position so that we, too, can moralize pointlessly while utterly failing to grasp the point of the article.

By: Anne Brannon

Anne Brannon — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:45:24 +0000

Haha. I appreciate your slightly disturbing yet effective comparison there at the end…

By: Graywolf

Graywolf — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:18:47 +0000

Always pitch to your audience: Know where/what your average user knows, and pitch to that level. Don't pitch over their heads, and get frustrated when they aren't doing it right. What may be plainly obvious to a developer/programmer often isn't for the average user. Be Intuitive or Easy to Grasp: One of the reasons the iPod was so successful is it simplified the user interface. The controls for a TV or DVD player typically has so many buttons it starts to approach the complexity of an airplane cockpit, the iPod removed all of that. It wasn't intuitive that you had to go in a circle to go down a list (instead of pressing down) but it was easy to grasp once you learned. Make Things Easy to Understand: The paleontologist Jack Horner was trying to explain how the spacing of dinosaur footprints could only have been made if they ran. Instead of a complex formula, he walked his feet along the footprints and they where out of step. However when he ran with a slight jump the footprints lined up perfectly. Great teachers make complex subjects easy to understand for everyone. Simplicity is Not Dumbing Down: I could say I've got a papule with a locus on my gluteus maximus. And most people aren't going to have clue what I'm talking about, without a dictionary. Or I could just say I have a pimple on my butt, and everyone knows what I said.

By: Kim M.

Kim M. — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:11:00 +0000

I think that is actually the point … what is “common” to you in your bubble, may not be common to your customers outside of it.

By: Stephen Eugene Adams

Stephen Eugene Adams — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:07:41 +0000

Everyone has a least two online personna’s. However, their address books are usually intertwined as well as their Facebook/Twitter contacts and postings. Keeping the two separate is becoming harder and harder and knowing what button to push to keep them separate is totally confusing at times. My old high school girlfriends really don’t care about my current discussions on SEO or Email marketing, so how do we keep them separate? I hang around the social media arena more than most, but I am still one of the stupid customers when it comes to privacy issues.

By: Anne Brannon

Anne Brannon — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:06:53 +0000

I have to admit – the ReadWriteWeb incident sounds a bit ridiculous. If you search “facebook login” and the first result is titled “Login | Facebook,” then I’m not really sure why you’d look any farther down the page.

However, I’m in combined agreement with Alec and with you, Lisa, that Google Buzz has presented users with a bit of a Privacy and Control issue. And I think it can be partially/significantly attributed to not thinking outside of the mindset of your small work group. Sometimes at my agency, we’ll brainstorm an idea that seems perfect, but after pondering it some more, we’ll realize that perhaps our target audience isn’t as tech savvy as we are. And I wouldn’t think it’s safe to assume that the entire Gmail market is a tech savvy bunch. Sure, most of us techies are Gmail addicts, but that doesn’t mean that my aunt Susan is.

I just wish Buzz would’ve given me suggestions for who to follow as opposed to automatically following certain users. If they knew who I might be interested in following based on email communications, then just tell me, “Anne, we think you should follow these people.” Ya know, kind of like with Facebook friend suggestions. It’s nice to know you’re there and I can connect with you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to.