Is your blog or website “Real People” friendly?
Have you ever been walking down a busy street and glanced at the person on the left or right of you and wondered, “If this person visited my blog or website would they have a clue what half of the features are?” I have! Now,maybe that makes me weird, but I know for fact that if I sent my rather smart father to my website and told him to check out the tag clod, or the blogroll he may very well look at me with quite the blank stare. So the question I ask is this. Is your blog or website “Real People” friendly?
In the social media and web 2.0 space we often talk about getting mainstream integration(Buzzword #1). However, at the same time we often talk about “The Fishbowl Effect”(Buzzword #2) How can we have both mainstream adoption of blogs, podcasts, and new media if we are talking in our own language and making the barrier to understanding quite high?
Is it simply a Language issue?
This article is not to pose an answer to the problem of needing a translation dictionary as a landing page for each website, but rather asks the question have created our own monster here. Are these terms necessary? Could we be explaining in a better way? I’m not sure and I surely don’t have all the answers, but I can only assume the fancy features we have on our blogs would get better usage if they were somehow more intuitive. What do you think? Have we created a new web vocabulary with no turning back or are their ways that we can better assume that not everyone knows what a wiki is?
There is one simple reason that Twitter is gaining adoption at a record pace. It’s ease of use.
Keith Burtis is a social media and digital marketing professional. If you or your company are looking to REV THE ENGINE on your digital efforts contact Keith today! Specialties include: Blog design/Integration, Custom Facebook Pages, Social, Digital and Interactive Content strategies.
Comments
I think with any new endeavor, there’s a bit of a learning curve and with that comes a small amount of educating the visitor. While Web 2.0 comes as bit of a culture shock to some, I believe with a dash of patience and layman’s terms, certain generations (Boomers & Geezers) can embrace the new era.
I think its all about choices. Start simple and give people a choice. When I was first new to this, you stepped up the plate and answered my questions. I chose to listen and learn. I still don’t get some of the technical jargon! I know when I come to your page, it’s easy to get around and has great content. Works for me.
@debworks
I don’t think it “simply” a language issue. There is a big issue, I’ve gotten funny looks from people interested in this stuff when I’ve said some of the names! But, I don’t think it’s just language.
There is a lot of the “theory” or the idea of Site X that they don’t get. People think we’re nuts for answering “What Are You Doing Right Now”a couple hundred times a day!
I think more traditional content creators don’t get the free and open aspect either. They want to lock down their content and charge for everything.