The Game of keeping your reader's attention:The game could be accurately described as "the discipline of keeping the reader's interest". This can manifest itself as entertainment or information or, better yet, a combination of the two. The main advantages of the Internet over printed publications are:
To accomplish the game, we must first dissect this concept of the game. The steps below accomplish this. To follow will be an explanation of the mechanics of preparing the game. The Subject:This is the starting point for all WWW pages. You must have a subject. It can be "free shareware", "how I trained my dog" or "how I built my bicycle". This dictates the common theme throughout the site. When dealing with a subject, however, it very quickly becomes evident that you cannot adequately deal with your subject without branching out into additional, sub-ordinate, subjects. These additional subjects create a hierarchial structure to the site. The Goals:When you open a store, you have a goal to sell goods of some sort for a profit. You create displays to "entice" the potential customer into your location and then you rely on your sales people to convey accurate information and experience to inform the customer; (well it used to be that way). The same is true of a WWW site. The "customer" (hereinafter referred to as "the reader") visits your site at which point, your site must sell them something. It might be a tangible product or an idea that they are to act on. This is the "internal goal". But, you say, what's in it for the reader? This becomes the external goal. The reader will visited your site to get information. It could be "how to use the product?", "what the product is designed to do?", "why is this product better than another?" or a myriad of other reasons. All of these reasons point back to one common goal, to be informed. At some point in the hierarchy of the site, the internal and external goals of the site would merge and become the same: "Buy this product at such and such a store". The Game:The problem with the information is that it can be boring. After all, how many people would be interested in the intricate workings of "Bosch - Electronic Fuel Injection". Well believe it or not, you would be, especially if you were buying a new car that came equipped with the "Bosch" fuel injection system. The objective of the web site author would then be to take this dry "pile of information" and make it palatable. The biggest problem that a web author has is the attention span of the reader. If the reader is immediately entertained, he will be "enticed" to explore further. If the page is too busy, he won't take the time to try to figure out what he is supposed to do. However, if the page is too plain, he will think that the site is too boring and will find some other site. Herein lies the game. How to take a large mass of important information and present it in an entertaining, interesting manner that keeps the interest of the person with the shortest attention span, yet does not insult those with longer attention spans and still imparts the "complete" information story. The "Bosch" story could go something like this:
Notice how we have now assembled a collection of pages together. Each one will contribute a small amount of information but lead to another small bit of information or a big bit of information at the discretion of the reader. Notice, also, how each topic is an expansion of the topic that came before it. We are still on the same topic, fuel injection but we have expanded the subject to include sub-ordinate subjects that contribute to the whole. We have entertained, sufficient for you to read to this point, and imparted important information. We have now used two types of pages. Game pages are the ones that the reader has to make a decision on. Information pages provide information in depth. Information pages usually do not direct people to another page, instead, you return back up one step of the hierarchy and continue down another path. Game pages are also known as "branch" pages, like branches on a tree and information pages are also called "leaf" pages.
Once the game steps have been completed, you can now begin the development of the site. The Decision Tree:The decision tree is the physical laying out of the proposed collection of pages in some sort of logical pattern. We create what is called "the storyboard". This is a large board, or wall or flow chart program where each page is identified and clearly noted as to its purpose. I start with "Post It" notes with each page and its function written on it and stuck on a wall. The notes could have little drawings on them of what I expect each page is going to look like. This lets me move them around and add or remove them as I review the "entire picture". The Paths:You will notice that at the very beginning of the "Bosch" story, we immediately developed two paths for readers to follow, the technical one and the entertaining one. The reader was "challenged" to pick the "right" one. One path led to more "fun" and the other to "technical" information. Both were clearly labelled. Neither was wrong but one was obvious in its direction to more "fun" and the other to "heavy" information. Each reader should be able to chose his own "destiny". That is, that he should "perceive" that he is in control. He should be invited to continue to be entertained and "enticed" to do so, however, he should never feel that he is being manipulated or forced to continue. To attain this, it may be necessary to develop parallel branches for different kinds of users. Those with limited interest may have to be directed differently than those with a greater interest. Allow a reader to choose according to his interests. There should also be a challenge to his decisions. If it's too easy to follow, he'll get bored. If it's too difficult, the challenge can't be met so he'll leave. In the "Bosch" story, the first decision is easy: find out a bit more or swallow the horse. The second choice is more difficult, learn more about timing or spray but the animation says "it's easy to understand, follow me...". He now choses to continue "invited" by the animation or he leaves the site. If he leaves, at least he found out that the fuel injection is good for the environment and saves him money. This may be more than he would get from a competitor's site. This now means that different paths through the site need to be developed. To develop this, we need some information about the readers. What kind of readers will visit most often? Which path is going to provide the greatest entertainment and information for that core group of readers? In the "Bosch" story, you could have three different kinds of readers, the engineer wanting specific technical information on how to apply the injection technology to a new car design; the purchaser of a new car that will have "Bosch" technology in it; or the person that owns a car with "Bosch" fuel injection in it and he wants to be able to diagnose a possible problem and repair it. The latter two readers may share a common path part of the way and then "branch off" in specific directions. We return to the storyboard and review the decision tree. The paths need to be ranked. What path is most efficient for the engineer? What one for the do-it-yourself repairperson? What one for the new car buyer? We number each path according to what we expect will be the largest number of readers. This will be the most heavily travelled path so this should be the "dominant" decision on any branch or game page. It would look something like this:
With this new found information we then modify those pages in the dominant path to "invite" the reader to follow this path. We also make sure that the other paths are clearly indicated so the reader can "digress" should he chose. There is a hidden advantage to the decision tree and the story board, it allows you to examine the information as a whole and make sure that all of the information is made available. It also allows you to be creative in presenting the information in small entertaining bits or larger intense chunks. In the "Bosch" story the game pages provide the small entertaining bits and provide the background you need to understand the more intense chunks. Like this, every page contributes to the whole experience. This in turn develops a complete understanding of the fuel injection process and now we have arrived at our internal goal, to convince the reader to buy "Bosch" fuel injection because he now knows more about it than any other system. Our closing note should indicate what fine automobiles use the "Bosch" fuel injection system. Some Notes:
|