the "family of publications”

Here's one that's been buzzing around universities for the past several years: The desire to make the Web presence and brochures look like "a family of publications."

always crashing in the same car: recurring mistakes and misuses of the web

Branding and consistency. These are the given reasons.

Okay, there's nothing wrong with branding. Nor is there anything wrong - actually a lot right - about instilling a level of consistency across all facets of public communications, both online and in print. Or the uniform design and navigation of Web pages across a site.

Unfortunately the "family of publications" notion is frequently misinterpreted to mean that Web sites should take on the design characteristics brochures as well as regurgitating their content - a misunderstanding promulgated by those who understand print publications but not the Web.

And then, consistency becomes the hobgoblin.

Some words of advice to those who push the concept to this point:

• Brochure design does not work on the Web.
  Impressing brochure design upon a Web presence creates a usability fiasco.
  
  While certain design principles tend to carry over from one medium to the other (for instance, eye-tracking studies bear out the importance of the upper left-hand content sweet spot), there is a vast difference in how users interact with each media.
  
  Most brochure designs of the type to which I am referring are textured with a multitude of bold photos and graphics of a whopping size - frequently taking up entire pages. These are faced off with content festooned with boxes, lines, and symbology specific to that single publication. In a brochure, whether or not the reader actually reads the content, at least the gesthalt effect is usually positive.
  
  Foist this onto a Web site, and you create confusion and annoyance. Why is the image of a beatific blonde taking up 80 percent of the page? Why are animated widgets that look like links not links? How did I end up here? Does absolutely everybody at this school look like a fashion model? Where the hell is the admissions application?


• Brochure content doesn't work on the Web.
  
  Readers of all ages approach the two media differently. Foremost, we do not read the Web, we scan. What we're looking for are the key words that most likely will give us - or lead us to - the information we need.
  
  Much paper-bound content is overblown and lacks a clear sense of audience before it ever makes it to the Web. Yet onto the Web it goes.


• People travel differently through the Web.
  
  This should be obvious, but it seems to be frequently forgotten.
  
  When we pick up a brochure, our attention is drawn first to the cover. If the publication seems of interest, we page through the rest, soaking in graphics, glancing at headings and captions. At this point, we zero in and start looking for specific information that will be of use to us. Or we toss the thing in the trash.
  
  On the Web, we're out to get the information and conduct transactions as quickly as possible and move on. We spend as little time as possible on the home page, and we don't "page" through a site. In fact, we are more likely to use a search engine to get to what we want.
  
  If we do use traditional navigation, we expect the taxonomy to speak to us in a language we understand, not be polluted with cleverness and marketese, and not be crippled with overblown design. And, we expect navigation to be consistent from page to page across the entire site. We are not there to meander.
  
  Yet the brochure concept is dragged to the Web so frequently and in so many ways, that it's not uncommon to find Web sites in which the structure of information and navigational scheme morphs all over the place from page to page, even to the point that it looks like an entirely different site from one section to another. And, there are still sites out there with "next" and "previous" links at the bottom of each page. As though anybody would actually use them.
  


• Web sites need to be updated far more frequently than paper publications.
  
  The information on a Web site needs to be up to date at all times. Period.
  
  Yet many sites get locked into the "publication cycle," in which months go by until it is time to update and publish a fresh version of the brochure that was interposed over the site to begin with. This is just plain irresponsible.
  

The bottom line is this: Paper is paper and Web is Web. The workflow that drives the one cannot be transposed over the other. Not without creating an unholy mess.

Further Reading:

• How College-Bound Prospects Perceive University Web Sites: Findings, Implications, and Turning Browsers into Applicants (pdf)
• Jakob Nielsen: How Users Read on the Web
• What Makes Web Sites Credible? (pdf)
• The Best of Eyetrack III: What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes
• How the Web Changes Your Reading Habits

Unrelated But Noteworthy:

• MIT: On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study