… this whole blog thing according to a BW usability study:
- No participant understood the mechanisms associated with RSS/subscribing to a blog – not even the minority familiar with the term “RSS.”
- Few participants even recognized that they were on an actual blog – and once they did, had a very different reaction to the information presented.
- A minority of participants understood how to navigate within the blog itself – with most being confused by areas for recent posts, categories, trackbacks and even the comments and archives functions.
Download the study if you’d like more. Their conclusion is:
broad comprehension is fairly far away – and better design and terminology are essential. All those tested were optimistic about blogs following the test, with many expressing interest or enthusiasm for what had been a new experience. However, few felt that the presentation of functionality and navigation was intuitive, and many wondered why more effort had not been put into education.
Oh what to do…
Heya Andy,
Indeed, what to do….Guess it explains all those people who have probably been on blogs, but still say they don’t know what they are….
Just one clarification, it wasn’t BusinessWeek’s usability study. It was a study done by Catalyst Design Group. We didn’t commission it. We just got pegged by it!
This really resonates with me. Blogging has always been somewhat mysterious. I absolutely believe that the Cluetrain approach is unstoppable I don’t think blogging in its current form is the ultimate medium that will enable it. The enabling technology is still evolving. People I work with really understand the need to build community and have conversations with our users. They don’t really understand blogging. This is a conundrum to me.
The after blog function several years same with now E-MAIL, become the thing which individual might not lack.