The art of easy & the ugliest web site ever
My three-year-old daughter wanted me to watch Scooby Doo with her this morning, which I did while reading the paper. And fortunately I was paying more attention to the paper than to the maddeningly redundant show (the Groundhog Day of cartoons), because I came across a series of articles in the Washington Post ballyhooing the five-year anniversary of the iPod. This article chronicled the conversion of a Mac skeptic to an iPod addict. The reason? The convert says:
“My conversion to iPod is like a proverb: You can’t criticize something for being ‘too easy’… It’s not because I can’t figure out computers—it’s just easier.”
The coverage also featured people frustrated by iTunes’ incompatibility issues and iPod’s reported lack of durability, but even the skeptics all grudgingly admired the simplicity of the iPod. No wonder it sells so well. The same could be said for Scooby Doo - the redundancy (and simplicity) is part of its decades-long appeal. I watched it when I was three, and so does my daughter many years later.
Everyone cites iPod ad nauseum as the gold standard of easy, so my point here is about as original as a Scooby Doo plot. I’ll spare you another oft-cited example: Staples’ Easy Button. The point for do-gooders is we need to make it very easy for people to interact with us and take action. Are we in the iPod/Staples class of elegant simplicity for our supporters, or do they have to work to find our Donate Now button on our home page or expend a lot of mental energy to grasp the call to action in our year-end appeal?
Make a pledge this week to make something about your marketing easier. Way easier. Not like this. Like this (only I’d make that “join” button bigger).
Syndicate
Katya - what is sad about the Association of International Glaucoma Societies’ website attempt is for all the work and the hope of the good it would bring .. it has turned into an internet joke. On the positive side .. if they could leverage the awarenss they might be able to turn a negative into a positive.