This is a guest post by Bill Shander – founder/CEO of Beehive Media, a Boston-based web agency creating online user experiences and web applications with a specialty in working with organizations that need to explain complex ideas in simple ways. You can connect with Bill on Twitter.

No one reads any more. The long form is dead. The written word? That’s for grandpa! It’s all about video, baby! Everything I just said is entirely accurate. And yet it’s all wrong. The King is Dead. Long Live the King.

The fact is that the web and its associated information overload has given us all a form of ADD. Studies have shown that the majority of visitors will leave your site within 10 seconds. And the visitors who do come will skim your page, not read it. And you’ll be lucky if they read even 20% of a typical page. They scan your page in an “F” pattern, looking for something to care about before committing themselves to your content.

F reading pattern of web pages - from eye tracking studies

What to do about this? Especially if your content is knowledge content? If you’re selling ideas, not products, you don’t automatically have big glossy pictures of your coolest gadget you’re hawking, or a Swedish model in a bathing suit or a Justin Bieber music video.

The solution is what we call the 4X4 Model for Knowledge Content and it consists of four key models and four critical components of those models. By following this format, your knowledge content (yes, even long form content) can engage your audience and get the right people to the right information (and get those who aren’t your audience to skip along – it’s OK if they leave your site within 10 seconds – remember, they’re not your audience!)

Models:

The Water Cooler

People gather around a water cooler to exchange quick snippets as brief respite from work. It’s short form. This content is succinct, direct and compelling. You can think of it as a headline, or a tweet or an ad. The only purpose is to engage the user, grab their attention and make them curious so they want more. Water Cooler moments can and should be found THROUGHOUT a web site – not just as headlines and ads, but also within the other layers of content.

The Café

People go to cafés for a coffee and a longer conversation. It’s an opportunity to delve into a subject at some length, but still isn’t deep study. You can think of it as longer form, produced content. This is a blog post or a one or two page article or a 3-minute video. This is a progression from the Water Cooler content to content that explains ideas and doesn’t just introduce them. In some ways Café content is the most difficult content to create because it needs to be crafted to tell a compelling story: a story that is easy to relate and to which visitors and the media can latch on. As mentioned above, Water Cooler content plays a critical role in this layer. An article on a subject needs a visual and/or callout text to bring attention to key points within the article. (This post you’re reading right now is an example of Café content.)

The Research Library

You go to the library to really learn about a topic. If you’ve heard an interesting stat (Water Cooler) and chatted with a colleague about it (Café) and it’s interesting to you, you will go to the library and dig deep. You have self-selected as an interested reader on the topic. The Library contains the research and data that back up what is asserted at the Water Cooler and Café. It is your more scholarly, long form content.

But importantly, the Water Cooler moments shouldn’t disappear – a research report that is a wall of grey text will be accessible to and read by a far smaller audience compared to one that is broken into smaller pieces, includes images and data visualizations and key points as callouts. Also, the Café is a critical piece of the Library content. Every piece of Library content you publish should have an associated executive summary or chapter introduction or some other Café content.

The Lab

The lab is where users can interact with the data found in the Research Library. This is the rarest form of content but, in many ways, it’s the most powerful. If you choose data and bubble it up to a headline, you’re making a thousand editorial decisions. Water Cooler moments are all agenda-driven. Café moments slightly less so, library moments even less. However, even in the research library, the data has been massaged and analyzed and delivered in a package. In the lab, you open the vaults and give users access to the data. They can twist the knobs and make it about them and their interests.

In addition to our four models of content, we have four critical components that should be used throughout the models. The arguments for them are many, but the key idea is that these elements all increase understanding, engagement, retention and social sharing. This will lead to better outcomes for your users and, therefore, for you.

Components:

Visualization

Consider a bar chart compared to a table of data in Excel. Which one is understandable within that all-important 10 seconds? Which tells a story? Visualization is not just about data, but also concept and geographic visualization.

Story-Telling

Explaining a concept is nothing like weaving a narrative. If you can tell a story, you are able to convert the abstract into something people can relate to. Liberal use of video is an effective story-telling and visualization tool and we recommend it highly, but it’s not the only way.

Interactivity

If I can see something, I can understand it. If I can touch it, I can know it. Why is the web a successful and popular medium? It’s not just that it’s convenient. It’s also that it allows us to be the masters of our own destiny. I don’t have to wait for the Boston Globe to land on my doorstep and read what they chose to write. I’m free to explore online and find my own content. This is a critical component to remember when delivering content. This does NOT mean over-using hyperlinks. It has been shown that understanding decreases when you add too many hyperlinks within content. But it does mean offering interactive experiences such as Lab moments and/or images that can be zoomed for more detail and/or communities to engage in.

Shareability

How easy is it to share a full research report and for the recipient to consume that report? Compare that to sharing/consuming one data point or one quote. The power of water cooler moments is strongest when you think about sharing. Those are the nuggets most likely to be shared by your audience – leading more traffic back to all levels of your site content. Oh, and you have to have the basic sharing tools so it’s easy (Tweet and Like buttons, for instance) – copy/paste/email is no longer a viable sharing model.

The 4X4 approach is the secret to presenting knowledge content in a way that engages your audience, stepping them into the right level of content based on their needs, and improving outcomes from that content. Try 4X4 and you won’t go back to a rear-wheel-drive approach ever again!

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The 4X4 Model for Winning Knowledge Content Online

The encyclopedia at interaction-design.org has just launched and includes video interviews, commentaries, interactive illustrations, and lots more. The encyclopedia deals with Interactive Design, Usability, and User Experience and the heading of the project is “Democratization of Knowledge”: That people from all the far corners of the world can get free access to world-class educational materials.

The encyclopedia has taken the opposite approach of the Wikipedia and crowdsourcing: All chapters are written by leading figures who either invented or contributed significantly to the topic they write about. However, it’s similar to the Wikipedia in that readers can copy and use the content for any purpose.

Living in the US, China or Germany doesn’t make a difference. Everybody can access all of the content. For free and forever. Students and practitioners usually spend up to $200 on each high quality educational textbook dealing with the design of interactive products like the Apple iPad or Microsoft Windows. That may be acceptable for someone in the US or Europe, but not for someone in India, China, or Indonesia. That’s the reason why researchers and professors from prominent companies and universities like Cambridge, Stanford, Microsoft, and IBM now contribute hard work for free to create open access to their knowledge.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

New Encyclopedia on Interactive Design, Usability and User Experience

Fresh Tilled Soil is a bloody brilliant team of web designers in Boston MA, who focus on UI web design and user interface design.

Maintaining a profitable online business can be attributed to establishing a successful balance between art and science. The “art” side is about recognizing the importance of experience and personal impression, while the “science” focuses on the bottom line and maximizing ROI. These two basic principles can function together to create a harmonious balance that propels online businesses into the highest levels of success.

37Signals attributes the basis of their company’s growth to their development and execution of the user’s experience. They’ve embraced a “less is more” philosophy to deliver a clean and thoughtful user experience.

(37signals homepage)

Behind their carefully crafted experience lies the science, that helps assist the sale. 37signals is an iconic example of a web company whose success is a direct result of their ability to perfectly integrate the best and smartest technology with a user experience that caters to their audience. Therein lies the genius of their business; their ability to establish a common language between the art and science, creating a meaningful user experience that actually converts leads to sales.

Companies that don’t account for the user’s experience, or that place all of their priority on defining metrics and sales, will fail to deliver the total package. These companies inherently have to work much harder to market and sell their product/service; relying heavily on sales tactics instead of on improving and refining their experience. If customers don’t form that necessary relationship, it will be harder to close a deal because trust hasn’t been built and a lack of trust means a harder sale.

Quick — name one of your favorite restaurants. In your eyes, what makes that restaurant so great? I bet many of the elements you mentioned correlate with the experience and not the transaction. People don’t go to restaurants to make transactions; they go for the experience and when that experience is a positive one they are more inclined to go back. Too often, online businesses fail to recognize that these fundamental elements play a significant role in driving consumer popularity and revenue, even in online markets. At the end of the day, a positive experience, with the right customer, will result in higher profits.

The user’s experience however isn’t enough and needs to transcend into the user’s interface. The user interface is an important extension of the user’s experience; it’s the creation of platforms and applications that will be used by the customer, representing an important variable within the experience. Great user interface design always involves a strategic balance of art and science– the “art” relating to the overall aesthetic and tone of the website, and the “science” appealing to the form and function of that website and it’s ability to convert leads to sales.

Apple has done a great job designing an online user interface via their website that’s the perfect compliment to the user’s experience. The Apple website delivers a quality design that’s sleek and simple. This simplified approach has enabled Apple to blossom into a technology leader. Again, striking that ever important balance between art and science.

(Apple homepage)

When customers enter the Apple website, it’s extremely easy for them to find whatever it is they are looking for. The purchasing process is hassle-free and the entire operation is streamlined. It’s easy to be blown away by the delightful images and stylish back-drop, but if you look closely at the website the science is also present. It aids the navigation and helps easily define the ordering process.

In user interface design the science supports the art. If you choose to ignore one or the other completely you will lack the key components that will differentiate your user’s experience and user interface from the competion. Designing a website is more than a slew of pretty images and graphics, it’s about helping customers navigate their way through the purchasing process to transform leads to sales. The artistic component of the website is the engaging feature, but if you forget the science and necessary function, the goal of customer acquisition will easily get lost.

It’s time for you to find your balance between art and science.

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Defining the User’s Online Experience: Finding Balance Between Art and Science

Everybody wants to receive feedback from friends about their hard work, but sometimes we also need opinions coming from complete strangers, maybe some rough critiques about aspects we might have overlooked. This way we could get some ideas on how to upgrade the work. Here are 10 excellent feedback services you should start using right now.

PS: You might also like this one: UX Madness – 20 Fantastic Resources For User Experience Know How

Five Second Test

A simple & Free online usability test that helps you identify the most prominent elements of your user interfaces.

Concept Feedback

Designed specifically for small and medium business marketers, graphic designers, and web developers, Concept Feedback provides a simple tool to get quality feedback on marketing concepts. Best of all, it’s 100% FREE!

Design Critique

Challenge: Respond to any of our tweets critiquing a site design. Remember, it’s 140 characters MAX.

QBN

If you make an account, then push Broadcast and ask the awesome community for a design critique, you’ll get some feedback right away. Tip: don’t expect to be positive!

Usabilla

Create an online test and start collecting visual 360 feedback for your website or image in five minutes.

Feedback Army

Start a usability test for your web project in two minutes. Submit questions about your site and receive ten responses from our reviewers. The cost is $10.

OpenHallway

1. Create usability test scenarios. 2. Invite testers to record the test through a link. 3. Watch and hear real people use your app.

Get Satisfaction

Get Satisfaction provides customer communities for products and organizations.

UserVoice

Your customers have great ideas. Are you ready to listen? Uservoice communities are the easiest way to turn customer feedback into action.

Wave

Further Reading

• UX Booth
• Usability Post

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

10 Excellent Services To Get Feedback For Your Design Works