Zipfology

This week’s piece by Jakob Nielsen, Participation Inequality, raises a great many questions that may not have many answers, or any answers at all, particularly if we don’t care about the question. I am simply amazed that anyone took the time to survey the landscape and collect the necessary data to correlate the answers into a Zipf line or a double log if you prefer. It reminds me of an admonition from a senior officer in the Pentagon who was scrutinizing a chart I proudly created. He asked how long it took to build the chart and how long it took to update it periodically. He frowned at my answer which included the comment ‘many hours.’ Then he simply noted that the time invested was not worth the result. I was crestfallen and the chart was trashed, but I learned a good lesson, and I hope Jakob Nielson reads this post. It was a great deal of ‘sweat equity invested’ to figure out that only a few folks really post comments to the web. I think I had that one figured out even before I saw his Zipf line.  

 

The other articles involve a great deal of interaction, if you’re up to it. They were fun but they really give cause to pause and think about their applicability. Both present history in a popular fashion that entertains and teaches. But ‘therein lies the rub’ (as the Bard said). The scholarship was a bit shallow. When I was teaching I often sought out sites that could do both but I knew I was treading a thin line. Popular history necessarily relies on entertainment to teach and scholarly history uses entertainment as a tool of convenience. But even in that context any site that employs the required devices of entertainment must be sure that they enable accessibility and are functional. As Dan Gifford correctly pointed out in his blog, you’ve got to be sure your pop-up blocker is turned off and you have the best version of Flash before you set about using it. Too much work. Remember, we only have SIX SECONDS. Many visitors will take that much time to just read the message that the pop-ups were blocked. Then they will move on. Too many bells and whistles can be a turn off. It all suggests that the best approach is simplicity in design that attracts and informs, and doesn’t frustrate through ‘gee whiz’ complexity.

Comments

[Curtis Vaughn]

I have a neighbor who has a job with Verizon figuring out what people actually use on their web site. I think it is scary how much time is spent trying to understand consumer's use of the internet. We all give up too much privacy when we use all the new technology.

When I get a message that I need the latest version of flash player, I usually just leave the site. I have been assigned to look at the Lost Museum site several times since I have been in the program at GMU. I guess we have to review the site every year in order to know how grant money is used. I have to assume that their grant proposal would have passed in Clio I.

Curtis