Engaging the 5% That Matter

Forum One Communications recently held a fascinating dicussion on web usability, focusing on engaging the 5% of users who will really focus their time and attention on a particular site. Key points from the discussion:

Think Quality, Not Quantity: While, of course, all the people that take time to come to our sites our important, the truth is that only a small percentage will truly "engage" with the information you're providing. Forum One says 5%, I call them the Powerful 1% -- we're probably both making up numbers (at least I know I am). The point is that we can't be all things to all people, and it makes sense to focus our efforts on those users that really, truly want to get something from the interaction.

Know Your Audience: Clearly, in order to understand that 5% (who they are, how they think, etc.), you have to do some research on your audience. In fact, Forum One experts and the panelits all agreed that it makes sense to start with understanding user needs, use that information to create a positive online experience in a way that accomplishes the mission (as opposed to just foisting a bunch of "stuff" related to your mission on a website and hoping the audience uses it.)

Cultivating the 5%: Users will find your site useful if it maximizes the following characteristics -- valuable, useful, desirable, accessible, usable, findable, credible. The key is to understand user expectations -- and to update your understanding of those expectations over time.

How does this relate to engagism? Well, since more and more people expect to engage when they come to a site, one of the ways you will capture their attention is if you provide them with that interactive capability (blogs, surveys, vlogs, virtual assistants, etc. etc.). Perhaps most important, that interactive capability has to be provided through means and on subjects that are meaningful to THE USER, not THE WEBSITE DESIGNER (yes, I did mean to shout at you). So think less about what you, the organization, wants to get across and more about what your users wants to understand. That's the key to success in an engagist culture.