Re: W3C icon redesigns

On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, David Woolley wrote:

don't think I could have said it better myself

I have NOT made purchases more often because the web site had so little
signal to noise than "real" reasons....can't buy if I can't use the site

Bob

> 
> I was asked this off list.  As it is only a question, I don't think
> I'm breaching any confidence by answering on list.
> 
> > How are you defining real content?
> 
> I don't go to web sites because they are examples of fine art; I go to them
> either because I want specific information, or because they are the cheapest
> way to buy a product.
> 
> Real content to me means useful information.  A lack of real content means
> standard marketing hype, where you can more or less predict what is coming
> and it is all about repeating back the prospect's wants and not telling
> you anything substantive about the company or the products.  For a site
> containing information, I find that use of commercial artists (and the
> term web designer doesn't generally mean design as a branch of engineering,
> or information science, but rather as a branch of commercial art) correlates
> fairly strongly with a lack of substantive content.
> 
> Buying is more of a problem.   Certainly the presence of heavy "design"
> tends to correlate with cheaper prices and a wider range of goods, but that
> is because they correlate with larger companies who have larger commercial
> art budgets.  I find that it does still correlate with a lack of real
> information - it is almost never the case that such sites link to the
> manufacturer's site for in depth information on the product (and they 
> are even less likely to link to independent evaluations) and I find it
> remarkably difficult to find information on the cost of post and packaging,
> a significant proportion of the cost of small to medium purchases, without
> actually dry running an order.
> 
> Heavy "design" almost always indicates that I am going to get dead links and
> blank pages without scripting on and have a steep learning curve working out
> how to navigate the site.
> 

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Received on Wednesday, 3 July 2002 10:16:13 UTC