I’m not one for the hard sell, though I played with it in my microconsulting intro article. It’s more like pulling with a leash than setting a mood. From my experience with this website, it seems labels can do just the opposite.

But considering Kelly’s initial response to them, they clearly aren’t for everyone. Mileage may vary

Thanks for your comment!

This is my first time checking out your site–you’ve got interesting, informative stuff here.

This post about the emotional power that your words can have as it relates to business–thought-provoking.

And I so love your short answer. That’s exactly and precisely what I meant. A good night’s sleep begets a rested, eager, active mind that spills 750 words before I know what’s happened. I need to reply to comments after writing the day’s post, when I’m typed out.

Have a great time during part two, hope part one was fab, and I can’t wait for the post-vacation stories that are sure to appear when you get back! Thanks for the fly-by!

Buckets of blessings,
Crystal

( Hi Chrystal! I haven’t been hiding, I’m on vacation. Right now I am getting ready to pack up and head for the LA airport for part two of vacation so I thought I’d pop in and say Hi while I can, before I unplug part two.

Recent blog post from Wendi Kelly: Unplugging for Peace

Anybody who’s turned Krug and Nielsen inside out knows the fire they’re playing with. Blessings and Oms as you muck with convention.

Information Architecture for the www is around here somewhere, but it never grabbed me like the others. I needed a muy grande coffee (or six) to get through it.

Until later,

Kelly

Yah, cutesy is usually a turn off for me too. Particularly themed sites with metaphorically pictorial navigation that’s easily misinterpreted. There used to be lots of “neighborhood” and “our town” splash pages, back in the day. Do you remember those? Where the Home Page was Town Hall, and we bought items from the online General Store? Erg. Not my favorite.

Still…as much as I love Sir Krug (read his book to tatters) and Nielsen (I’ve typed so many citations in his name I could recite them), I believe there’s room for experimentation if we’re willing to take the time and pay the price. I’m not sure that I am, but I enjoy that DailyOm did.

But they did take a chance on the misinterpretations. Funny thing is I was more curious by the whole Marketplace/Gift Shop thing than confused. I expect they do lose sales to the confusion, as you said, and I wonder…huh. Just thought about this: maybe wonder and curiosity are part of their demographic? I mean, you’d have to be an experimental person to try sleeping in those detox mushroom footpads (which do work, btw).

Rethinking it, it’s not impossible that they would screen/attract visitors with their offbeat navigation. Aligning with your comment on in an earlier post—about a high-gloss website signaling to visitors that there’s a pricey product afoot—there could be a very good reason for DailyOm’s choice to use unconventional labels.

Sticking with conventions is safe and fine and sensible. I’m going to do it myself, but only until I make time to think through alternatives. I completely agree that it’s critical to keep the standards in mind, but I feel it’s a mistake to take shelter in them IF your market is one that would be attracted by something a little different.

For certain, there won’t be widespread research to back the design decisions, and there are sure to be dead-ends and bad calls and alienated folks when trying stuff out, but in-house research can limit the damage. Also, we can’t please everyone—so when we’re a website like DailyOm, why try to please the masses when it’s likely that the smart money is on attracting the folks they know will warm to their esoteric offerings? I mean, one of their best sellers is Aura Spray! Seriously?!

All to say: no, for many content/product websites, this kind of labeling doesn’t suit. And cutesy can go too far. But ya know, it’s the Web, God bless it. No design is carved in stone. Design isn’t irretractable like with print products. By nature, the Web is perfect for observation and split-testing and eyetracking and lets-try-something-else-tomorrow. If we’ve got a reason for breaking from convention—and time and money to try it—we may as well play!

I’m torn. On the one hand, I like some of the cutesy attempts. Gift Shop and Nice People, in particular, strike a chord with me, as a human/consumer.

On the other hand, every bit of research says go with the conventions on the Internet, because the minute you stray you begin to alienate prospects. (Try Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, an incredible book, or anything by Jakob Nielsen, including his website, useit.com. Get his book Homepage Usability and you will be blown away.)

I think Gift Shop is probably both cute and easily enough understood. Having both that and a Marketplace is totally confusing, and bound to lose customers. Lots of people are going to click on one, discover it isn’t what they expected, and never hang around to see that the other was what they had in mind. Done and forgotten.

Community, I would never guess was Comments, and Nice People, which I like, I would never guess was Members.

When designing for the web keep in mind that you have microseconds of a passerby’s attention. Changing the norms is rarely a good idea. If you’re going to do it, change few things, and change them little. Any one or maybe two cutesy-isms would have been more than enough.

Regards,

Kelly

Recent blog post from Kelly: Inspiration Points: Making Money Online or Off, Vanish