An Event Apart: “Beyond Engagement: the Content Performance Quotient”

Jeffrey Zeldman speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 2, 2018.

Our products are tasked with providing ever-higher levels of “engagement.” But should they be? For many sites, analytics demonstrating high levels of “engagement” may actually be signs of failure. AEA co-founder and longtime web designer Zeldman introduces a new measurement of design success: the content performance quotient. Learn how relentlessly cutting needless content and architecture, fine-tuning UX and UI, and shoring up technical performance can create improved experiences that are better attuned to today’s web… and how to sell this profound change in design thinking to your bosses, clients, and colleagues.

Notes

  • Engagement — The #1 stakeholder request
    • Is that really the right metric?
  • On some sites, engagement is clearly the right metric
    • Instagram
    • Big, massive content site
    • Kids site, game site, reading site
    • A List Apart, lots of content, you want them to spend time, read entire article
  • On most sites, engagement is a silly metric
    • Blue Cross
    • If a customer spends 30 minutes on our site, was she engaged… or frustrated?
  • Speed of usefulness
    • On most of our sites, we’re looking for a way to measure speed of usefulness
  • Content performance quotient (Design CPQ) — Twitter @DesignCPQ
    • A measurement of how quickly you can solve the customer’s problem
    • Shortest distance between problem and solution
    • Your value to your customer
    • A new goal to iterate against — A new way to deliver value — A new way to evaluate success
  • From your customer’s point of view: The time it takes your customer to get the information she came for
  • From the organization’s point of view: The time it takes for a specific customer to find, receive and absorb your most important content
  • We’ve been making websites for so long, we’ve lost sight of what we’re supposed to be measuring
  • Most of what we do is an unthanked business
    • We either make people’s lives a little bit better or a little bit worse
  • Pretty garbage
    • If we don’t start thinking about design CPQ, this is what we end up with
    • Garbage in a delightfully responsive grid is still garbage
  • Slash your architecture and shrink your content
    • Ask: “why do we need this?” — Compare to your goals
  • Every design is intentional
    • If your design isn’t going somewhere, it’s going nowhere
    • Mobile really helped bring this to light
  • How did we get here?
    • We prioritized meetings over meaning
      • Most of us get dragged into meetings whether we like it or not
      • Meetings with no purpose or meaning
      • Having a good meeting doesn’t necessarily mean having a good meaning
    • Behold the mighty CMS
      • Anyone can add content to the website — deep content sites no one is reading
  • It’s easy to give everyone what they want, it’s harder to do the right thing
    • Harder for us, but better for the customer and the bottom line
  • Stop designing 2001 sites for the 2018 web
  • People aren’t necessarily coming to our site for content
  • “When you strip down the game to its core, everything you learn is a universal principle.” — Erik Kennedy, “The King vs. Pawn Game of UI Design”
  • Atomic design
    • Focus relentlessly on the individual interaction
    • If we do it for our shopping carts, we can do it for our content
  • FAQ problems
    • Duplicate and contradictory information
      • Updates in one place but not another
    • Lack of discernible content order
    • Repetitive gramatical structure
      • Every sentence begins with “how do I…”
      • Can’t make it scalable
    • Increased cognitive load
    • Too much content
  • “Users come to any type of content with a particular purpose in mind, ranging from highly specific (task completion) to general learning (increased knowledge).” — Lisa Wright, “No More FAQs: Create Purposeful Information for a More Effective User Experience”
    • Purpose — customers come to our website with a specific purpose
  • Waterfall — Massive content inventory (not recommended)
    • Good for a massive redesign
  • Agile/scrum — Constantly iterate on content (best bet: in-house)
    • Clean up one small piece at a time, little by little
  • Redesign — Opportunity to start fresh (best bet: outside team)
  • Make a one page website that is more affective than a 20 page website
  • Design that is faster, design that is slower
    • Design that is faster for people who are trying to get things done
    • Design that is slower for people who are trying to comprehend
  • If you work on content sites:
    • “Scannability” — Good for transactions, bad for thoughtful content
    • Our news designs must slow down the reader
    • Bigger type, better typographic hierarchy, more whitespace
  • Asked “how do you help people lean back from their computer?” — big type, easier to read
  • Doin’ it right
    • The Washington Post — not home page
    • The New York Times
    • ProPublica
    • Slate
    • Smashing Magazine
    • Vox
    • Readability
    • Medium
    • A List Apart
  • Which sites should be slow, which sites should be fast?
    • If the content is delivered for the good of the general public, the presentation must facilitate slow, careful reading
    • If it’s designed to promote our business or help a customer get an answer to her question, it must be designed for speed of relevancy

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