Comments on: Yahoo Movies and the Law of Web Page Sprawl

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:53:22 +0000

You know, my first response to reading this article was to feel Yahoo’s pain. I’m a developer at a small private company, and one of the main parts of our website is a storefront that the user can customize to sell their content. We tried to make the storefronts be everything to everybody and needless to say, that didn’t work - they are bug riddled and difficult to maintain. So now as developers we’re trying to correct the problems, but we simply can’t get it done fast enough. We hear the customer’s complaints, but there are only so many developers to go around to handle the problem, and from the business side we’re pressured to get things working and then start on the next great idea that will make us money, even if we know just getting things working will lead to them likely breaking again.

It’s a balancing act. Even when you hear the frustration of your customers screaming at you, once something is in place it is almost impossible to reverse it or improve it without at least several months time. Companies simple do not move at the same pace as customers, so inevitably someone is going to be unhappy. I don’t have the answer to this, other than to have the business tell the customer sorry, we’re doing the best we can, and then try to back those words up with action as soon as possible.

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:01:56 +0000

No, Max, I haven’t. But you’re right….I should!

Thanks for your thoughtful response, guys…you bring up an interesting point that this sort of design might be in Yahoo’s DNA.

Will mull that one over…one angle I was going to go with this was the idea that you are either a content producer(MTV) or a content aggregator(Google)…and Yahoo, with its advertising relationships, seems to want to do both. That might also be part of this frustration.

By: Max

Max — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:53:43 +0000

I know this post was made primarily with the idea of exploring how companies deal have a conversation with customers like your father, but it’s interesting to consider the design angle that is leading to the frustration.

Fred correctly points out that advertising is crucial to the business model of sites like Yahoo, which means clean, user friendly design is (by implication) sacrificed. But I think this goes beyond advertising — it’s the whole Web 2.0 streamlining of websites. Yahoo has also revamped their mail interface, and while I’m no luddite, I’m surprised at how unappealing I find it.

There are other sites like this — sites that are ostensibly cleaner, better designed, better looking, with more customization possible, moveable widgets, etc — but that ultimately end up confusing and alienating visitors and long time users.

In the case of the movie page your father is referring to, one glaring faux pas is that the “My Movies” and search options are small and relatively hidden up top, and in Safari, the search box doesn’t even display properly (making it difficult if not impossible to type in). So if you want to get away from all the clutter, the page doesn’t even give you an escape.

I’m sure you’ve come up with a catchphrase, Josh, for this phenomenon of clean, contemporary design that is actually an illusion and which masks the relative difficulty of navigation and use of the site’s options — I’ll have to go through more of your posts to find out if you have.

By: Fred

Fred — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:10:06 +0000

“That’s the core issue…there is frustration out there…is anybody listening closely enough to do something about it?”

Your father-in-law is right: Yahoo’s business model is built on the principle of maximizing advertising space to the limit of the user’s ad tolerance. The reason they build new properties is to generate sprawl on which to put ads. Sure people are listening closely, but what are you going to do, throw out the basic business assumption of the whole company?