Web 2.0: Good Looking and a Great Personality
Can software make you laugh?
Yes! But for several different reasons.
Sometimes I laugh at software because of how ridiculous it makes it to perform even the most trivial of tasks. There’s an HR portal we have at work, and I always say that if I sat down for a week, with a library stocked full of every HCI and Usability book that was ever written, and I tried to design a portal which explicitly violated every rule of good design I ever learned in grad school, I still would not be able conjure a site as absurdly difficult to use as that.
But this post is not about usability (although, in some abstract sense, it actually is). This is about software that makes me laugh because it’s funny, clever, witty, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. One of the defining factors of Web 2.0, in addition to the complete absence of squared corners on divs, buttons, text entry fields and other user interface components, is that sites seem to have developed a ‘personality’ of sorts. Actually, personality may not be the appropriate word here, as these traits are not all-encompassing and consistent across a site, but occasional easter eggs here and there which make the overall experience with the service, in my opinion, a very enjoyable one.
There’s a lot to be said for layout and graphical treatments that can serve to make a service more familiar and approachable; I think that the rounded corners and large fonts are definitely a factor here. But when I talk about personality, I’m specifically referring to the text prompts: the words that an service uses when addressing its users. These prompts appear in the multiple touch points a service may have with its users, such as a web site or email reminders. A far cry from the early days of reporting back obscure error numbers to the user or communicating in the language of the machine, this new paradigm of prompts seem infinitely more human in nature, addressing the user in a less formal, more conversational manner.
The recent surge in the perceived value of interaction design design and usability is partly due to the fact that the technologies used to build software have become all but commoditized, at least when compared to previous generations of the tools and programming languages. Taking this trend a step further, it seems that an application or web site designed with usability in mind is no longer enough to draw consumers! Now it has to be both usable and fun to use (although one could argue that these two are actually quite intertwined).
Take Flickr as an example: by most standard metrics of usability, I think that Flickr can be considered rather difficult to use. The information architecture of the site isn’t particularly clear, it’s highly modal, and there are multiple ways to do the same thing. But I’m able to overlook these things because, in addition to being an effective photo management tool, it’s a heck of a lot of fun to use! Subtle little quirks (as I’ll illustrate below) in how the site addresses the user make interaction with the service an enjoyable experience.
And Flickr is just one example. Rich internet application technology such as Flash, Flex and AJAX have changed the way people use the web, and have spawned innumerable utilities which help us manage every aspect of our lives. But it is the playful voice, the bit of levity masking the underlying technology that make these utilities feel less like “productivity applications” and more like helpful, if a bit quirky, little friends.
These friends greet me when I see them,
and sometimes, they even compliment me 
They ask me how I’m doing.
They teach me new things
and keep me informed about things I value.
Though they’re sometimes a bit self-righteous when it comes to getting recognition for their efforts!
They empathize with me when something good has happened …
… and they have nice ways of telling me that something has gone wrong.
But sometimes, instead of just informing me that something has gone wrong, they actually apologize to me for it!
They keep me in the loop as to what is going on.
Part of a series of charming status messages shown to users while the Picnik photo editing service is loading.
And finally, they assure me that everything is gonna be alright
As Nick Burcher points out in his excellent post about how services handle downtime , depending on the nature of function performed by the service, such playfulness is not always appropriate. But where it is kosher to do so, instilling a service with a ‘voice’ seems like a reliable way to delight users and differentiate the service from the competition. Not to mention the huge return on investment: all it takes is a couple clever people (the kinds of people who normally start these innovative services to begin with!) to identify some points of interaction that could benefit from a touch of fun, and write some witty prompts. No skills necessary, other than sense of humor.
No related posts.
