Why audience navigation usually doesn’t work
Links cause most problems when they overlap and audience based links are particularly problematic.
Some years ago we worked with an educational website. They had links such as Teachers, Students, etc. All seemed very logical and reasonable. Until we started testing tasks.
We gave teachers tasks about putting together some sort of classroom exercise. We expected them to click on Teachers but they kept clicking on Students. Why? Because even though they were teachers they were using the website from a task point of view. They were putting together a student exercise and clicked on Students. With audience-based navigation you’re not sure if the link is FOR the audience or ABOUT the audience.
We have found that where audience-based navigation works well is where the audiences are totally separate, meaning that they have totally different tasks. So, there might be logic to audience navigation on a council website for Business and Citizens. It might also work on a tax website for Individuals and Business.
We worked with one government website that had links such as Seniors, Women, Disabled, Minorities. What if I’m an older woman who is disabled and part of a minority group? I saw an agriculture website that had links Farmers, Exporters, Researchers. What if I’m a farmer who exports and want to do research?
Dell is company that continues to feel like it has lost its way. There are many excellent aspects to the Dell website, but its core navigation is anti-customer.
When I go to the Dell website I want to buy a laptop. What I’m forced to do first is choose For Home or For Small and Medium Business, etc. I don’t want to do that. In tests, I have found that 90% of people don’t want to do that. Not alone is this audience-based navigation irritating; It reduces trust. I’m thinking: ‘If I choose Home, will I get a worse price than if I choose Business?’
Why does Dell do this? Because that’s how it’s organized internally. It forces its internal organization structure onto its customers. In an age of the empowered customer that doesn’t work well.
One of the most irritating things about audience-based websites is that you click down several levels reading bland marketing content only to reach, for example, a generic price list that is for everybody.
For example, when I click on the Schools section of the Dell website I get a whole load of generic content, including the following: “Dell is focused on a complete range of solutions that helps enterprise customers reach TCO and ROI goals.” What has that got to do with Schools?
If you’re considering audience-based navigation, ask yourself these questions:
Are my audiences totally distinct and separate from each other?
Are their tasks totally different?
Do I have the budget and resources to build and maintain unique content for my audiences?
Paul Biggins says:
Added on January 30th, 2012 at 12:41 pmExcellent again, Gerry.
Not so much “who are you?”, but “what do you want to do?”; worth keeping in mind with every customer interaction, whether website or otherwise.
On a slight tangent, I’m reminded of the labelling on two shampoo bottles - by the same manufacturer - that read:
- Product X: for bright, shining, manageable hair …
- Product Y: for greasy hair …
A case of “what does your customer want”, and “what does your customer have” … (and an example of how one word - “for” - can have different interpretation; the joy of language!)
Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:
Added on January 30th, 2012 at 1:39 pmGood summation, Paul. Yes, much more what do you want to do, rather than who are you.
That’s a funny shampoo example! I didn’t get it until I read it a couple of times
Geoff says:
Added on January 30th, 2012 at 2:48 pmRE: “there might be logic to audience navigation on a council website for Business and Citizens”
For municipal/council sites, I have found that separating out content by audience is not the best way to go, as many of the tasks overlap each other. i.e.
- When is the next Council meeting?
- Where is the by-law about X?
- When does my garbage/refuse get picked up during the Holidays?
Many tasks on government sites are completed by both audiences and there is no difference between the information.
If I separate them out by audience first, I’m either putting two links to the same page, or I’m separating out each topic into two pages and duplicating information.
I find that Topic > Audience (when required) is better than Audience > Topic
Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:
Added on January 30th, 2012 at 4:52 pmInteresting point, Geoff. For sure, wherever there is task overlap, there are problems.
Geri Modell says:
Added on February 2nd, 2012 at 8:14 pmGerry - I work on a lot of intranets, where we often separate content by role - that is, by Managers vs. non-Managers (regular employees). Our rationale is that, while the roles certainly participate in many of the same processes (development, performance, comp planning, etc.), their specific activities and concerns are different, and the tone and messaging of the content may differ as well. Of course, there is also information that may be confidential/protected and only managers are entitled to see it. Would you consider these sound rationales for audience segmentation of content?
Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:
Added on February 3rd, 2012 at 7:15 amThat’s an interesting one, Geri. I’ve seen that happen, as manager’s do have some very different tasks to employee, such as hiring, appraisal, etc.
Another possible way to do it would be to lead with an overall link like “About Me”, then have a link called “Jobs”, then you could have links underneath such as: “Available Jobs”, “Hiring Someone”, etc. Some of these links, such as Hiring Someone could be restricted to managers.
Keith Instone says:
Added on February 4th, 2012 at 5:16 pmHi Gerry - a long time ago (about 7 years), I did a presentation at a university-focused conference. I had a section on audience based navigation, since that was (and still is) very common on university sites.
http://instone.org/casev
Starting on slide 11.
I used the concept of “Specific to” and “Relevant for” to explain some of the challenges with audience based nav. Specific to is when you make a small view of the site - only the stuff that is specific to that audience. Relevant for is broad - everything the user may be interested in. Both lead to quite different architectures deeper in the site, if you can maintain them.
But as you say, usually what happens is that there is something in common - in several Relevant for views - and you can only afford to build it once. So users from many audiences end up at the same place. Not a lot of value in picking the audience in the first place.
Later I did a workshop that explored “role based nav” in detail - http://instone.org/ia-workshop-june2008
In the end, I still cannot find a lot of use for it either!
Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:
Added on February 6th, 2012 at 7:28 amThat’s very interesting, Keith. The whole overlap in how we think causes a lot of confusion, with “For” (Specific to) and “About” (Relevant for) not being simple at all to understand. And, of course, you click down several levels using audience and get generic content–that’s very frustrating.