I read an interesting post on Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim blog. The post, by Janet Driscoll Miller, was iPhone May Present New Mobile Design Challenges. It was interesting because it was yet another example of Nothing New Under the Sun.
I commented on the blog, "This reminds me of an early consulting project I was on. We saw from the client's web data that people were browsing their site using these odd sized, small screens. It was their browsing patterns that explained what was going on. We decided to create an all-text site to accommodate them and business went up. This was years ago, though. Nothing new under the sun, yes?"
Here I'll share a little more on this. It's a fond memory and, at the time, it was a nice piece of research.
NextStage's first client was a B2B specializing in warehousing technologies. They noticed a decrease in online sales even though their web traffic was increasing and asked me to figure it out. Their focus was on bandwidth, page load times, things like that, and were ready to do a major overhaul of their website to make it "friendlier".Okay, I thought. But friendlier to whom?
We attached our tracking tools to their website and noticed two fascinating features of the increased traffic; the browser window sizes were small and oddly shaped. That was interesting and the kicker was something (and I'll admit to some vanity here) that (I think) only NextStage's Evolution Technology could determine; the patterns in the page navigations.
It was the patterns which revealed the mystery of increased traffic and decreased sales. Visitors would navigate busily then stop for a period, navigate busily then stop for a period, navigate busily then stop for a period. They never closed the browser window. They might keep it open for hours at a time. But during these hour long visits they would navigate busily then stop, navigate busily then stop.
These odd navigation patterns did end up with online orders but only of specific items. Usually items located at the top of the client's webpages.
Hmm...
(more to follow)
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
I'll be speaking at the Society for New Communications Research Annual Awards Gala Summit on 1-2 Nov 07 in Boston. Come on by and say hello.
» Nothing New Under the Sun: Designing for the Small Screen, part 2 from BizMediaScience
Designing for the Small Screen, Part 2 [Read More]
Tracked on: June 10, 2007 8:00 AM | Permalink to Trackback