Media: New Thinking advocates Designing for the Majority

"Content management: design for rule, not exception" by Gerry McGovern seems to fly in the face of inclusive design principles.

He argues: 'If your website tries to be all things to all people, it will fail. It's very easy on the Web to try to do too much. You need to relentlessly focus on what most of your readers do most of the time.'

But he is talking content, not design. Every time you add another link, graphic or piece of content to your page, you are adding a potential distraction, he points out.

Then he embarks on an anecdote about an ordering process that tells you how many minutes you have left to complete the process. 'The organization had what seemed like a good reason why it published that information. Because the product had high sales volume, it would only hold the product for a certain length of time for you. If you got up and had a cup of coffee without completing the order, and then later went back, you would have to start the entire purchase process again.

'Ninety five percent of people didn't have a problem with completing the order in the time allocated. Five percent did. The number of minutes left was published to help this small group. The problem was that by publishing this information to help the exception, the majority was upset.'

Clearly process information like this sits between content and design. And clearly the way the information was presented acted to panic people, not inform them. But the 80:20 argument he uses is also the one that flies in the face of accessibility. Tread this line with care...

Associated Link: New Thinking: Content management: design for rule, not exception

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