User driven everything.

To continue my discussion about The Future of Usability, I will further elaborate upon my first point, that being the evolution of the user as the core focus of the future of online marketing.

"Let's Razzle Dazzle 'Em" Metaphor

Before we discuss the future, let’s talk about the past. In retrospect, technologies have been designed with the mindset of "Let’s show them what we can do." This conception pushed the objectives of business onto users, and oftentimes, users didn't care for the technology, product, or site. Thus, businesses went about creating the most graphically heavy site with the flashiest technology. This was somehow mistakenly equated to a better user experience.

However, this idea proved to be a big flop when Flash technology made its appearance and then failed miserably in increasing a user’s ability to find information online (as with all new technology, it's always abused by engineers and business owners). Of course, back then, users' expectations were low, so they masochistically struggled through the poorly implemented technology.

"Let Them Razzle Dazzle Us" Metaphor

Presently, we are progressing into an era where technology is designed to facilitate a user’s behavior. The paradigm has shifted from a "Let’s show them what we can do" perspective to a "Show us what you are doing, and we will cater to you," conception.

In the future, users will drive everything: user driven SEO, user driven EMAILs, user driven CMS, user driven ECOMMERCE, etc. (you get the picture). We are starting to see a trend in which users are the ones dictating what is important and what isn’t. In many ways, the online space has allowed everyone a voice to express their frustration (support forums) and authority (blogs) about specific subjects.

User Driven SEO?

A good example of the shift to user-centric online marketing appears in the SEO space. Search engines will strive to integrate all aspects of a user’s information foraging behavior into their algorithms (if they haven’t done so already). Users will be the ones dictating to the search engines what information is important or relevant, and conversely, what isn't.

We’ve seen this idea gain momentum with the creation of Wikia, a user edited search results wiki . I wouldn't be surprised if the search engines start to integrate links from tagging communities such as del.ic.ious or flickr into their algorithms, fueling user behavior into their results. Search engines may start scouring related tags within these communities and filtering those into their results (similar to what Technorati does on its site).

How To Prepare For The Future

Since the future is all about the user and their respective needs, your site needs to be as user friendly as possible. Other sites that give users a better customer experience will become your biggest competitors. Even if you have a well known brand offline, the online space has become a place where smaller businesses can still become a contender. Here are some useful suggestions to help you prepare yourself for the future:

1. Know your users. Let them drive your site.
   
2. Put some web analytics tools on your site to see what users are currently doing on your site (Hitbox has worked pretty well for us).
   
3. Make sure your content is:
   
1. Organized
   
2. Of quality
   
3. Searchable
   
4. Scalable
   
5. Has a community aspect to it (allow your users to talk about your content)
   
4. Get a benchmark usability evaluation. This will identify your site’s biggest usability problems.
   
5. Test, test, and test some more! I cannot stress this enough. The only way to get invaluable data from your users is to test your site design, architecture, or new functionality with your users. With this data, you can then respond to users' needs and provide a better overall user experience. Usability testing has never been so crucial, especially for the online space.