But then reality smacks me upside the head as I soberly realize that I needed to start training at least 6-8 months ago to properly prepare for a marathon.

Same goes for social media. If your gut says you’ll need to compete online later down the road, you’d better start working on it today. You can’t just lace up on race day and expect any success. You’ll probably end up vomiting. Trust me on this one. Nor can you buy your way to readiness. It takes months-and-months of daily time and energy investments to become prepared.

And while you toil in obscurity making modest progress, rest assured that social media, like distance running, is all about personal investment. The more you put into it the more you’ll get out. The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running…

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We’ve been spending a lot of time together recently.  I think we should finally open up and be honest.  While I love so much about you, you drive me crazy. And here’s why…

Over the past 13 years working in web development, I’ve planned and managed over 50 large, content management system/database driven websites. If one of my projects ended up with your usability, my ass would’ve been fired long ago.

Your interface screams classic Unix developer.  It’s clean and things are organized, it’s not intuitive, logical or friendly for ordinary people.  Being with you is too much damn work.

You need an extreme makeover.  Hire some former Apple designers who understand how to use colors, space, gradients, fonts and titles for normal human beings.  How can your iPhone application be easier and nicer than your website?  Maybe simplicity is the key.  I’m overwhelmed by ALL the options that are available ALL the time.

We’ll chat more later.

XXOO,

Gary

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Social media systems offer amazing new ways for people to connect, share and collaborate.  Many of these I simply can’t live without.  But for as much as I heart shiny Web 2.0 icons, the actual page structures and visual organization of social media sites drive me crazy.  They’re hurting my ability to convince intelligent people that indeed these sites DO have value once you get past their eclectic, glossy mish-mash of logos and gradients.  I think many people (especially above the age of 40 who, not by coincidence, make a majority of an organization’s spending & strategic decisions) see these sites we love as jumbled, overwhelming messes and simply give-up.

In the “old” days of Web 1.0, smart web developers followed the mantra: Form follows function.  Anything displayed on a web page was, in theory, to help the user most efficiently use the website.  Except for the turds who made all their money on banner ads and made you click through unnecessary levels of Dante’s hell.  Page designs and navigation used to be based on the prioritization of information; graphics were used to help visually coach a person though your website.  This became especially important in the late 1990’s when search engines linked people deep into your website instead of conveniently dropping them off at the front door (homepage).  Knowing this, we had to create navigation and page labels that were intuitively obvious.  The goal? Anyone could immediately determine where they were on a site at any time.  To me, the greatest compliment was “this site was SO easy to use, I found exactly what I wanted.”

Fast forward 10 years to 2008.  Facebook has over 70-million users yet their “new and improved” interface is underwhelming at best. The visual hierarchy sort’ve makes sense to users already familiar with the system; the untold number of icons/buttons/flair mean something if you take the time to learn.  But to new users, the interface is unwelcoming and cumbersome.

Social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr (to name but a few at the tip of the iceberg) are  popular because they showcase user submitted materials.  The spirt is free form — I get that.  But the site architecture, design and resulting navigation need to be more structured and obvious.  People are too busy to play Where’s Waldo when they click into a website.

Usability experts must be absolutely licking their chops right now.  There’s so much work to be done and so much potential to make these popular sites even better.  Done correctly, good usability blends into the background of the user experience.  People know where they are, where to click and what to do.  It’s comfortable to them.  They feel at home.  If you’re building a community, isn’t it all about building one home at a time?

Until then, I’ll continue my digital gold panning through the muck and muddy waters with the hope that I’ll find the mother lode:  a site that marries technology and design so seamlessly that I know where to go and what to do at all times.

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