Interactive is a Meaningless Word

Making your websites more interactive is a meaningless strategy. Make your website more useful instead.

Picture this scene. You are sitting in a meeting with some very cool people. These cool people think that, when it comes to the Web, they totally get it. They're very smart people and they're so important that they have to leave their mobile phones on during meetings.

They like to talk about things like color and mood and corporate identity. They want customers to have an enhanced brand experience. These people have moved way beyond Web 2.0. On their skateboard attention spans they have arrived at Web 5.0 and are moving beyond that too. One of their favorite phrases is: “I think the website needs to become more interactive.”

I have never quite understood what the word 'interactive' means in the context of the Web. The Web is inherently active in that its corner stone is the link. The link is a call to action. We go to the Web to act, to do. Saying that a website needs to become more interactive is like saying that a football game needs more football.

In a Web context, 'interactive' is thus a meaningless word and it tends to be used by cool, meaningless people. In fact, the objective of making a website 'more' interactive is often absolutely not what the customer wants.

Customers don't want interactivity from your website. They want results. They want to do what they came to do as quickly as possible. You have to interact with a hotel booking process in order to book a room, but you want that interaction to be as fast and painless as possible.

Do you think that Google designers sit around drinking lattes and mouthing meaningless statements about more interactivity? Here is one of Google's key design principles: “Every millisecond counts.”

“Nothing is more valuable than people's time”, it goes on to state. “Google pages load quickly, thanks to slim code and carefully selected image files. The most essential features and text are placed in the easiest-to-find locations. Unnecessary clicks, typing, steps, and other actions are eliminated. Google products ask for information only once and include smart defaults. Tasks are streamlined.

“Speed is a boon to users. It is also a competitive advantage that Google doesn't sacrifice without good reason.”

A core objective of Google is to get you off its website as quickly as possible. It has a relentless focus on making the first result the right result so that you will leave its website in the shortest time possible. Google makes most of its money from advertising.

Many traditional media websites are now measuring success based on how long they can keep people on their websites. They obviously have lots of people employed trying to make their websites more interactive.

'Save people time' should be written in 10 foot letters across the walls of every web design team's office. Do not listen to the fools who talk about more interactivity. It is from the minds of these fools that the truly awful Flash Intros crawled out. Focus all your energy on saving your customers time. Be useful. Be functional. Be brief.

About the Author

Gerry McGovern, a content management author and consultant, has spoken, written and consulted extensively on writing for the web and web content management issues since 1994.

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Tags: behavior, gerry mcgovern, optimizing content, usability, web content, web design