Engagement through Simplicity
Page views or page visits? Metrics for determining user engagement have seen quite a bit of change reflecting varying perspectives influenced by the increase of web based applications and rise of social media. Metrics will change as the way we use the web does, as it has and will continue to do. For the purposes of this post, I’m more interested in how things engage me personally, rather than how we measure it.
Engagement for me is defined along two very different lines but with a common principle - amusement. The first being positive amusement - something is engaging to me if its providing a certain level of amusement like Halo, Facebook, or the Ted Talks. I check Facebook close to every day. I find myself playing Halo quite a bit. This type of amusement keeps me engaged for limited periods of time, but repetitively, making the engagement not one best measured only by time, but also by repetition. The second way I personally define engagement is that of amusement, but driven by morbid curiosity. Yes, I watched the entire Mike Gravel video, the US senator, stare at the video camera for minutes on end, thinking perhaps something will happen to make the entire experience redeeming. Did I return several times to watch that video? No. Did I send it to others hoping they’d derive the same type of amusement I did? Yes, of course.
One of the best books I have read about application development is by 37signals called “Getting Real”. The quote that stays with me from that book, and one that I will apologize in advance for in case I horribly misquote it, is something along the lines of “half the features, not half assed”. Do less, but do it better. The better the features are, regardless of quantity, the more likely I am to use them. Its a familiar discussion, something that I recently had about Facebook. Now I can send my friends a jello shot or a glass of wine, or share my favourite movies with them - the number of Facebook applications is rapidly growing with the popularity of the platform. Yet, when I get a message from a friend to do this by installing this Facebook application, I’ve got pretty much one foot out the door because I don’t want yet another application. I don’t want to bloat my Facebook experience. I don’t want to be confused about what does what and which one to use when. Of course, its dead simple with Facebook, but I still find that many of the applications right now making my Facebook experience a lethargic one, rather than an engaging one.
Simplicity keeps me engaged. Not for everything, but for things that I might revisit again and again, simplicity reigns as it affords instant user gratification.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 9:34 am and is filed under Branded Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 30th
2007 at 12:22 pm
I like your facebook analogy and see the same in games. Think about how many times you can replay Galaga or Space Invaders vs. playing GTA III through the missions. The simplicity in the main premise of the game is proportional to the times I will replay it. I am not saying that the free form play that GTA III has is not replayable, but going through the whole storyline again and again gets tiresome pretty quickly. The same could be said about the storyline that is woven in to racing games, such as Need for Speed. I can play through the missions once or twice, but the replay value is in the quick races that are easy to set up and do not involve hours of gametime.
I would see value questionning what engages us in the first place and then stripping the product of complexity to keep the consumer coming back.
Great post!
November 1st
2007 at 6:26 pm
Mulcahy,
I too am a sucker for simplicity and revisit a select few quite often. I find that those which keep me engaged the most would define simplicity as “absence of pretentiousness”, “clear and open expression”, “clean”,”pure”, “straightforward”.
Slightly more altruistic than those who associate simple with words like “unlearned’, ‘ignorant’, ‘foolish’, or ‘vague’.
If Facebook truly wanted to “help people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers” then they would send me an email with Julie Hex’s message. Unfortunately their revenue model quickly trumps simplicity and instead I get an email saying “Julie Hex has sent you a very important message — stop what you are doing and log into our website”.
John’s advice on questioning what engages us in the first place is well headed. And while that is a sure-fire way to engage the consumer, it’s a tough sell when the “complexity” pays the bills.
J Garlough.
————————–
I’ll leave you with a conversation from the Facebook developer’s forum:
tspree15 : “What are you guys earning dollar wise per user?”
DShinka : “Facebook has approximately 40 million Unique Active Users
in the past 30 days and a valuation between $10Bn and $15Bn.
This translates to between $250 and $375 per active user.”
tomkincaid : “I know a girl who has a single ‘active user’ per night and gets $2000″
[ http://forum.developers.facebook.com/viewtopic.php?id=309 ]