Ok, another thing I hear marketers at the conventions I have been attending talk about with great obsession is conversion analysis, and rightly so.

But we do so to the point that we limit our analysis to the conversion zone at the expense of overlooking an equally common cause: usability.

If you reflect on your personal experiences with websites you have abandoned for reasons other than irrelevant content, you’ll probably agree with me that the #1 (or #2) reason you did so had to do with usability.

You couldn’t find something.  The site was too busy and difficult to scan.  The look and feel just kind of annoyed you.

These are the “first touch” reasons that will send most users away from your site before they get to point of considering your value proposition.

And so I have found myself increasingly interjecting, “you don’t have a conversion problem, you have a usability problem”.

The take-away is that scrutiny of landing pages and “conversion” pages should be complemented with studies on usability.

One of the mistakes I see marketers make frequently is they have delusions about how much “passion” visitors should have on their site.

The experience of surfing the Internet is distant, cold, and removed.  The digital, satellite enabled transmission of data does not cater to emotional seduction.

People insult one another on message boards and through email because the reality of personal presence does not exist.   It’s far too easy to flame someone remotely than in person.  And it happens all the time.

Let me ask you a question.

How many websites can you name for which you feel a warm, personal, spiritual relationship with?  How many interactions have you had with websites that have left you breathless?

I know that right now, you are thinking hard.

Websites cannot give us what people can. Marketers too often forget this.  They want code base to connect with people the only way people can.

I can’t think of one website that has inspired me by way of aesthetics.  The most value I have experienced has been through the cold and clean interface of Craigslist, Wikipedia, and Google.

Websites deliver information.  I want that information quickly so I can go back into the world where my sense are more than virtually stimulated.

Just give information.

Tonight I went to a Bank of America ATM.

I saw a new validation message that I haven’t seen before.

After selecting English as my language, I was prompted with this:

“You’ve selected English as your language. Is this correct? (Yes | No)”.

Let’s consider the scenarios.

1. I understand English, which is necessary to answer the question. I answer yes.
2. I don’t understand English, which is necessary for the question. I hit buttons until something happens.

I usually expect to find these idiotic oversights on web forms. But in the real world, I have a higher standard for usability and design. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because tangible machines seem more important.