Be A Novice

Coming from the museum world has served me well in this line of work. Turns out that the people coming to websites want to find information in fun, entertaining ways in the same manner that museum visitors want to find information in fun, entertaining ways. They don’t want to be talked at, talked down to or really talked to much at all.

Using a conversational tone is a given, but starting a conversation is even harder. And starting an engaging conversation is harder still. When writing museum labels, I always tried to put on my novice hat. What if I didn’t know anything about this topic? What words are too jargon-y? What questions would I have? And I usually checked myself by going out on the museum floor and talking to real novice visitors.

Designing experiences with a novice in mind seems like the obvious choice. We probably even say that we’re doing it. But are we?

P.S. Those are real visitors reading real museum labels that I wrote.

Ads prepare you for the real experience.

Russell Davies talks about the idea of “pre-experience design.”

If the experience of playing with the iPhone is good, the pre-experience of iPhone advertising helped prepare people for it.