[Sigia-l] the lesser importance of home pages -> more splash page fun? (back to the topic)

[Fred Beecher]

Getting back to the actual issue that Eric raised...

On 12/16/05, Eric Scheid <eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au> wrote:
>
> Now that it's widely acknowledged that most visitors to a website won't come
> via the front page, but instead via direct links to internal pages from
> elsewhere ... does this give license to do the splash page / intro funnel
> thang once again?

First, although there is "wide acknowledgement," any decisions about
this kind of thing must be made based on measurements of that specific
situation. If the "wide acknowledgement" holds true, great... you'll
go forward *knowing* something. If it doesn't hold true, you prevent
yourself from making a design mistake.

Second, the idea of a splash page, whether Flash, AJAX, or whatever,
may not be in the user's best interest. Essentially, this technique
removes the user's ability to control their experience. Who's to say
what users need to know from a site? Most sites serve multiple
audiences, so forcing everyone through the same experience (whether
they can skip it or not) is much more company-centered than
user-centered. I'm not against communicating brand goals, but it can't
be done at the expense of user goals. The home page is where
collaboration between design and usability needs to be at it's
tightest. You need to succinctly communicate what the company is
about, what they offer, and how to find the information or
functionality you need.

Enough about home pages... we're talking about skipping them, after all.

So what do we do for the folks that come in via search engines? Well,
I'd say there is a combination of four things: primary user research
(what do you type into Google?), looking at the keywords in your
metrics package (you are using one, aren't you?), an SEO/SEM campaign
informed by this knowledge, and an IA/interaction design that supports
it.

This IA supporting SEM business is the interesting part here, and
again requires intense collaboration between design and usability (and
marketing too). If you know what people are looking for and create an
SEM campaign based on that knowledge, you want them to land somewhere
that gives them a succinct impression of the company and at the same
time clearly indicates what they need to do to accomplish their goals.
Essentially what we're looking at here is a mini-home page that is
designed specifically for searchers and focuses on the subject of the
search terms that are *known* to get someone there.

For example, if my company offers waste treatment services (sorry,
first thing that came to mind) and I've found out that people who are
interested in these services typically type in the type of waste that
they need dealt with and the phrase "waste treatment," I might send
people to an "industrial waste" home page or "nuclear waste" home page
or whatever, based on the type of waste indicated by the query.

However, these mini-home pages still need to make sense in the greater
scheme of the site. Someone browsing from the home page should not be
surprised/nonplussed/pissed off/etc. at coming to one of these pages.

Design challenges abound in this method, but isn't that what makes
design fun, meeting challenges?

> That leaves those who visit the home page for other reasons, such as getting
> an overall impression of the site offerings/promise/brand, which could be
> communicated via the theatrics of a splash page etc. That is designing for
> the audience, after all ;-)

If you have research that shows that this is why your audience is
coming to your homepage, then this might be a decent strategy, but
still... it's forcing *all* users down *one* path, and I can guarantee
you that all users do not go to a site for a single reason. : )

> I remain unconvinced of this idea (and appalled), but what the heck?

I'm with you. Obviously. : )

- Fred