RSSMakeup Counter Navigation
September 25, 2008
Navigation means the process of finding your way around. Usability means making sure something works well.
Don’t Make Me Think!
I read a great book. It is Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. Steve is a guy who gets paid to figure out if websites are easy enough for anyone, or at least the intended client, to navigate and use. But the intended client is anyone.
Usability seems easy enough, and it’s mostly common sense. The problem is that common sense is not all that common. Add to that the conflicts between the designer, the CEO, and everyone in between, and it makes for tortuous websites.
Steve describes us to ourselves. People view the internet like roadside signs that go zooming past them. If we’re looking for something on a page, the line that has our attention is the only thing on the page we see. We are in a hurry. And we’re coldblooded. We’re looking for something specific, not reading a book. If the page we land on doesn’t have what we want, we click away, often back to the Google Search page.
The internet is like being in a huge mall blindfolded, getting walked around, and having the blindfold whipped off for 10 seconds every 10 minutes. The challenge is in trying to figure out where you are and where the good stuff is. You know it’s there but have no idea how to get to it. Make it convoluted and no one will use it.
Websites that don’t work
The example I keep running into is the Clarins site. Tiny fonts. Can’t tell what’s clickable. Sadly, not enough is clickable. It used to be impossible to find the colors an eyeliner was available in. Now I can get there sometimes, but the swatches are too small. Does the cosmetics industry try these out on real women?
L’Oreal is even more difficult. If you type www.loreal.com, you’ll get taken to a to entire L’Oreal arsenal. There’s this freakishly annoying flickering hand for a cursor (why? is it just my computer?) and the interface is forever loading something. If you’re really on the ball and type www.lorealparis.com, you’re redirected to www.lorealparisusa.com , and wait a long time for something to appear, if it ever does. The pages take a long time to load. Once you’re in, it’s ok, though there will be ads, but you really need a will to stay with it that long.
This is not easy for consumers. They’d even spray you with perfume if they could. It would be a multi-sensorial experience, like walking into a Hollister store, and just as hard to find what you want.
Universal principles
A makeup collection is no different. They sabotage themselves by making makeup counters so complicated that many women avoid them, just like so many websites. Could the marketing be intentional to confuse us and unload more product? Without knowing what they want and what suits them, many women would not venture near a makeup counter.
We walk past islands and islands of displays. They are all clamoring for our time and attention, just like so many neon signs on the highway. It’s intimidating and a little depressing.
In many cases, the easiest choice to make is none, even if there has been an attempt to organize the parade, like at Clinique and MAC. Nobody wants remote controls with 55 buttons. It is not an accident that Google’s main page is mostly white. They asked people what they wanted and they listened to what they were told. We love them all the more for it.
The collections in many Sephora stores might as well be in alphabetical order. If a company makes 5 kinds of lip gloss, the difference between each should be spelled out somewhere obvious (this would be you, MAC). Bobbi Brown, possibly the most real-life-friendly line out there from a color perspective (and if you ignore the prices), has 60 black lipstick cases all turned upside down and no corresponding color swatch anywhere. Now am I really going to turn over each one to find a color I like?
When the pink, orange, and neon lipsticks are all mixed together, the thought balloon over your head says “Who would wear this? Is this the one meant for me? Is it supposed to go with something else? Why didn’t they put the Out There stuff out there?”
What Women Want
Women don’t need 40 lipsticks. We hate that we have that many because 30 of them at least represent mistakes or impulsive purchases. We’d trade them all for 3 that we know look great. We don’t have time (nor confidence, quite often) for eye makeup designs involving 4 different colors, regardless of how well they go together.
What we want are 3 (give or take) colors in each of the blush, eyeshadow, and lip color categories that we know look great on us. These would be the shades made for our coloring that we would reach for every day.
You could walk up to a display, quickly find what’s appropriate for your coloring (or get assistance in doing so), and trust that you would never, ever look silly. The colors would suit you, look true and believable on your face, and would be coordinated to belong in the same color families. Shopping really would be a breeze.
Like well-designed website navigation, you should not have to break a sweat to see where you are and where you want to go. That thinking should be done for you. I maintain that it’s not that hard.
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A Greener Tea
Web Maintenence by Rick Beckman
