I wrote:
"I hope I mentioned in my last email that I sometimes take a while to get to my emails. Keep on emailing me (your thoughts will usually show up in my blog as my readers often have better thoughts than I do) and be patient if you don't hear from me for a bit. I'm usually buried in research.
"In any case, yes, a real mixed bag. I often tell people that a website needs to be designed along two primary axes; satisfying the needs of your audience and what you can afford. Then you have sites like NextStage has...excellent for our original audience and still quite good for how our audience is diversifying. However, the reason it is still quite good is perhaps not obvious. It's not necessarily complex, just not obvious.
"More and more often people will come to our NextStage Evolution site because of links in my blog, columns, articles, they found us/me searching on something, or a lecture/presentation of mine they attended. A relatively flat, "click here get that" site is perfect. People who return to our site (we get lots of repeat visitors) can then easily navigate and find what they're looking for because, again, the site is relatively flat. By this point in time people are what I call Locals. They're now looking for information and a simpler design better suits their needs than a "skip intro", etc., style site.
"Do let me know if you agree with this or not, please! I'll accept that NextStage's research may not be intuitively obvious to the casual observer and I'd hate to think we're secretive. We do rely heavily on people contacting us for information, though.
"Are all men slightly autistic? According to my wife, yes.
"Can people learn to think differently? I hope so and my firm belief is yes.
"Thanks for your note and please stay in touch. And sometime soon this exchange will be on my blog.
"Best to you,
"Joseph"
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics. I'll be speaking at the San Francisco April '07 Emetrics Summit on Quantifying and Optimizing the Human Side of Online Marketing on May 7, 2007. Come on by and say hello.
Comment Preview