Control - First, last and in the middle

Jakob Nielsen has a real killer story on video over the web. Talking-Head Video Is Boring Online

He backs up his claim, with which I wholly agree, with a very interesting image of where, and to what extent, user attention is directed during a 20 second clip of said talking head.

Eyetracking data show that users are easily distracted when watching video on websites, especially when the video shows a talking head and is optimized for broadcast rather than online viewing. As broadband connectivity has grown, websites have increased their use of video clips.

Unfortunately, many of these videos are produced for television broadcast and are thus unsuitable for the online environment. In 1997, I wrote an analysis of TV vs. computers that still holds: broadcast TV is a medium for relaxation, where the "user" sits back and becomes immersed in whatever the program directors decided to air. In fact, TV users are usually called "viewers," emphasizing their passive mode of engagement.

In contrast, computer users sit forward and drive their own experience through a continuous set of choices and clicks. Because of this fundamental difference in user experience, broadcast video feels boring on the Web. There's nothing to do, no choices, no user control.

Now have another look at the attention map. After the face the two most intensely focused areas are the link menu to the right as the user wonders "what else is there?" and by a huge margin if we consider real estate multiplied by intensity, the controls.

This user wants to do something with this stuff, not just sit and watch it. The Internet is about control. Start there, stop there, its all you need to know. It goes back to a disagreement I had with Gerry McGovern in May, he refers to people on websites as "Readers", a totally passive construction, he hates the word "Users" to describe us.

But he's wrong, "readers" are a media-centric approach and, as Nielsen shows, it ain't us. I say the net is a tool and tools have "users". Get used to it.

Which is also why Podcasting (audio or video) will have a huge shakeout shortly as all the babbling, breathlessly self-indulgent amateurs either get a clue or get out.

Streaming content is not just a question of available tools, it is a completely different way of thinking about information presentation. Totally. And except for a very small percentage of people who are either seriously gifted or have significant training, most of us really, really can't do it.

Comments

[Branedy]

Some times I wonder if web users couldn't be reclassified as a form of ADD's, or Attention Deficit Disorder. Usually a web user, as you call them, are really "surfing the web" an active term, not a passive term like 'reader'. They are always activity seeking, and if you do not catch and hold their attention, too bad, they are gone. They are only 'readers' in the sense that if the web-page content is of interest, they will read it. Hence the need to use a journalistic style of inverse pyramidal content creation.

Tell your friend Gerry, that he's wrong for me.

[EM] Yeah, right, let me catch the flak; again.